Cheap beer: You just have to brew it

Make your own beer good and cheap.

With an endless variety in food and drink, Chicago doesn’t seem to be running short on well-crafted micro brews anytime soon; but with the economy in a crunch, many beer lovers are forced to drink watered-down production beer rather than a pint of their favorite amber ale at the Maproom. Well it happens to be that you no longer have to shell out $6.50 a pint for a quality micro brew; and brewing your own beer equal to that of Goose Island or Half Acre will cost you less than what it takes to fill up your gas tank!. 

You’ll be shocked to know that most major Breweries such as Anheuser-Busch and Miller only spend 5 cents on the actual ingredients to brew there world famous lager. The rest of the money that goes into the cost of a bottle of their beer gets split up three ways; 1) marketing- you can’t have a successful product without advertising some, it never hurt to show a little leg! 2) shipping- no sense in advertising to Alaska, if you can’t provide those good folks of Anchorage with a nice cold brew. 3) Labor- with seven breweries in the US alone, several thousand lucky people makeup the workforce for Miller alone, and they’re just one in a massive network of breweries around the world. By brewing your own beer, you are eliminating a massive amount of overhead costs that millions of Chicagoans pay to enjoy the many tasty brews our city has to offer.

After investing in a home brewers starter kit  you can expect to pay anywhere form $25 to $35 dollars per 5 gallon batch of beer. That comes out to roughly 50-70 cents per beer and equal to that, if not better, than many of the local brew pubs across Chicagoland. Most starter kits will run about $75 to $100 and some can be found for even less; and they even come with a recipe kit for your first batch. Once you purchase a kit, you can have some of the freshest beer you’ve ever tasted within one months time, some recipes can be drank in ten days! So for that price, how can you afford to NOT make your own beer? I’m looking out my apartment window now and a gallon of gas is $3.11, that would be $62 for one tank a gas that would only last me about one week. Hmmm, five worth of gas or a month’s worth of great beer?

If you happen to purchase a home brewing kit and decide that it’s not for you, I can bet you that anyone you offer a home beer brewing kit to will shout “yes!” before you even finish asking them “do you want to buy my home br..” And if you’ve fallen in love with home brewing like I have, there are always affordable equipment upgrades that are sure to help you hone your brewing skills and increase your progress your passion and love for brewing your own beer at home.

For more info:

• Check out Midwest Homebrewing for equipment resources
• Question or comments, email me.