Brew at Home?

Save Money Brew at Home?

About 20 years ago, in my younger days, the “Brew Beer Yourself” craze hit high gear with “Brew Here” sites popping up all over the place. At these places, you would go, quaff a beer, open a packet of yeast into a large vat, walk away, and then come back in a few weeks and bottle the contents and have cheap, better than average beer, great for a weekend of drinking and carousing!

The Brewers and Brewers Retail (the Beer Store in Ontario) did not take kindly to this system that thumbed it’s nose at them, and allowed consumers to easily (actually too easily) recreate their own designer beer, and thus the friend to all large businesses (the Provincial Government) and the Brewers Retail (in particular) stepped in and stopped this system, by imposing a whacking great tax on things (as only a Government can do).

I don’t disagree that these places really were pushing the judicial envelope, by having their patrons do very little to brew their own beer, so I don’t disagree with the tax and regulations put on this type of establishment.

My guess is these taxes and regulations were not imposed directly on the true Home Brewers, so those hearty individuals are still meticulously working at home, grinding their malts, adding hops, watching their hydrometers and keeping their magic elixors at the correct temperature to create a Masterful Spring Bok, or the like. I have respect for folks with the talents and the patience to brew their own beer, or make their own wine (as I do anyone who has a skill I don’t have and enjoys using that talent). This is a noble craft and I hold these artisans with the greatest of respect.

I was, however, tickled to see an article in the Globe and Mail that made out how easy it was to brew at home your own beer, and here I finally reach the point of this lengthy thome, What are you willing to pay more for, to get what you want?

Home brewing was attempted about 20 years ago, and let me assure you, I learned that I have neither the aptitude nor the talent to create a safe (as in does not explode in the bottle) or drinkable beer in my house. I have drunk beers made by real home brewers, and I must say I enjoy the taste, but I also know I cannot match these gentlefolks talents in this area, thus I am glad to pay as little as I can to buy beer from the large breweries (by going over to Quebec and buying beer there, where it is cheaper).

I don’t care how much money I save by brewing it at home, although given how little beer I drink and how much equipment I might need (anybody need a carboy, I have a bunch of stuff in my basement), homebrewing makes little or no sense (financially or in terms of aggravation) for me.

Similarly I do not build my own computers at home. I could do it, I simply choose not to, because I don’t want the frustration of debuggin my work, and to paraphrase my Father, “I want someone who I can phone up and yell at when the darn thing doesn’t work the way I wanted”. I also know that I would see every single flaw and issue I had while building the system, so I simply buy the systems off the shelf. I will “futz” with existing systems and add pieces to them, but I will not build one from scratch (in fact it is cheaper to buy these things off the shelf than it is for me to build it).

Home repair? Well, I am a little handy, in that I can turn a screw somewhat, and can fix small jobs sometimes, but I have little trust in my abilities, so I leave them to folks who I trust more, like my Father-in-law or my friends who have real skills in this area.

I offer the following case study to show what I am willing to pay for:

I once had a neighbour offer to re-shingle the roof on our houses (we were semi-detached), and said if we did it together, it would only cost the price of the shingles, and it would take about a days work (because he had a friend of his own who would come over and help us). This neighbour was dumbfounded when I asked,”How much more would I pay if you and your friend did the job and I watched from down here?”. He laughingly replied to me a number, which he thought I would never agree to, and was again shocked when I said, “When can you start?”.

I am sure this now former neighbour tells this story about how he made all this money off me by doing 1 days work, but I had no interest in standing on a roof, and nailing in shingles. The cost to me, was still about $300 less than what I would have had to pay an actual roofer, and I moved out of that house a year later, so all in all I think I ended up ahead in this deal (and the danger of me falling off the roof, nailing my hand into the roof, or some other work related issue was nil).

What are you willing to pay more for, and what things are you willing to invest sweat equity in?