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I doubt people purchasing an $1,800 brew machine are doing so to save money.

• mattmaroon 12y ago
  I doubt it too, but if you can save $1 a bottle I know a lot of people who'd recoup it in a year or two. My experience with homebrewing though is that it's not cheaper unless you drink much, much more than I do and don't value your time highly. This at least takes half of that out of the equation.
  • hyperbovine 12y ago
    > it's not cheaper unless you drink much, much more than I do and don't value your time highly. Well that explains its popularity in Portland then.
  • CalRobert 12y ago
    The time part of the equation is fuzzy. I happen to enjoy the act of homebrewing, so I slot it under "pleasant Sunday afternoon activities", which makes me not perceive the opportunity cost so much. I have friends who are unemployed and getting in to the hobby, and again, this is a country where a 6 pack of any halfway decent beer can easily be €15-€20, so brewing 25 litres of beer for about 5 hours of time and maybe €20 in grain, hops, yeast, and electricity is a pretty appealing notion.
  • CalRobert 12y ago
    But again - there's the variety. I moved to Ireland a couple years ago and discovered to my horror that while the microbrew scene here is good, there were no pumpkin beers and no double IPA's to be found. I dearly missed Arrogant Bastard as well. A boiler, a couple buckets, and a few crappy batches later, I finally had a decent AB-inspired recipe. (Kind of terrifying that the initials for Arrogant Bastard match Anheuser Busch). In many regards I prefer it; at 6.2% it's a little mellower and better as an after work beer, and I don't bottle it in bombers so opening one isn't such a commitment. Everyone's biased, but when I have friends over the stuff goes quickly so I figure that's reasonably indicative of quality.