I am quite certain that by now, you guys would realize that I am all into home brewing currently. If not, then let me tell you straight in the face that I am all into brewing beer at home. Of course, if I have the chance, I would also like to make some wine, cider and other alcoholic beverages. I am looking at making some very nice apple cider, but that have to wait. Anyways, a lot of people ask me why do I brew? You know, if you enjoy beer so much, why not go out and buy some. Or just visit the nearest pub with a nice ambience and have a drink there? Why bother and waste so much time and effort to brew a batch of beer? Well, there are certainly a lot of reasons why I brew beer and in the post I will highlight some of them.

1. Well, it just taste better. If you have not tried the beers I brewed, you may not agree. And in Singapore, we are so used to Tiger beer that we don’t realize that there are other types of beer. The beers you brewed from the beer kits will most likely taste better than the cheaper commercial ones you buy from the store. Unlike commercial beers which pasteurised, home brewed beers have no preservatives or any additives, so they are all natural and thus will taste better. Of course, high quality ingredients will give a better quality beer. And like wine, beer will usually taste better as it ages, which cannot be done if you pateurised the beer and kill off all the yeast.With a little more practice and some knowledge on beer brewing, you can create one of the best tasting beers you ever tasted, until you tasted mine.

2. It can be actually pretty easy. In fact, all you need to do is to add some dextrose to the beer ingredient kit and the resulting beer should work out fine and you can have a very decent drink in just under 4 weeks. I mean what is easier than that? But with that said, you can make the brewing process complicated as well, depending on what style and what type of beer you want. By using steeping grains and malt extract or even just all grain brewing. It can take from 1 hour to nearly an entire day to brew your beer. And you need to be very carefully with sanitization. But it is unlike cooking. You wonder why people spend hours and hours in the kitchen cooking dinner when they could have easily went downstairs to the coffee shop to buy chicken rice from the hawker? It’s the same reason.

3. You get to experiment and taste different beers. This is probably the best part. Plus it is way more fun if you do it yourself. You get to play around with malt extracts, grains, sugars, yeast, hops and other ingredients and make yourself a beer that is truly yours. Or you can clone a very popular commercial beer. I had the most fun trying out different different malts and beer kits and with hops to fine tune the best flavour profile for my beer. After that, I will start on steeping grains which will very likely improve the standard of my existing recipes. Again, this is exactly like cooking. If you enjoy cooking, you will enjoy brewing. You can make Wheat beer, lagers, Pilseners, India Pale Ales, Draught beer, stout and in whatever style you like it to be. If you fancy a Belgium Wit or an American Pale Ale or even a German Ranchbier, you can always brew it.

4. Cheaper. Of course with the high tax on alcohol in Singapore, it will definitely be cheaper to brew your own beer. Depending on the ingredients used and type of beer, you can save up to S$4 per 660ml bottle. If we add them together, that’s quite a sum.

5. Think of it as a hobby. I do. I mean it is like taking a break from your stressful life and relax by brewing beer, that’s it. Nothing much to it. Some people go around and attempt to kick a ball into a huge net while others jump off tall buildings with a rubbery rope around their ankles. I brew beer.

6.  Teaches me patience. One of the most important things that the brewer learns from brewing is patience. Imagine, after you finish your wort, you will have to leave it to ferment for a few days or even a few weeks. And after bottling, you will need to leave it to carbonate for a few days or even a few weeks as well. And if you are patient enough, you could age your beers for even longer and this of course will produce a even better tasting beer. So the longer you wait, the better the result will be. That’s beer brewing for you. In fact, if you taste some undesirable or harsh flavours in your beer, very likely, it will be solved with a few additional weeks in the bottle. I would like to tell you that for my first brew, I waited only 1 week till I bottled the damn thing. For my second brew, I bottled it after 2 weeks in the fermentor. For the subsequent brews, I waited a minimum of 3 weeks before I even bother to bottle it.

7. It makes beer. Yes, the result of all your hard work is beer. You get a lot of it. So you don’t have to worry about not having beer when your friends come around. And you will find that your friends are coming by more often than not because you have an endless supply of good quality and delicious beer to share. And beer brewing is all about sharing with your friends! Life is good.