Home Brewing = Saving Money?

CornyKegs 728
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The one thing I never see come up in these threads is how much homebrew you give away compared to what you'd do with commercial beer.

I probably give away around 25%+ of my homebrew, which in a strict sense increases the cost of every beer I drink.
 
I've only been brewing for 8 months and so far I've made about 13 batches. A couple of batches ago I sat down and figured out what I pay per 6 pack and it's around $12. Now with those calculations I did include equipment, so theoretically the cost should go down, but I find that any money that I save from bulk buying base grains and hops just goes into more equipment or better equipment. I'm hoping that one day the price per 6 pack goes down; but then again I've been eyeing replacing my aluminium pots with stainless steel.
 
Transamguy77 said:
I'm confused as to the point you are trying to make here, you had quoted me on my equipment costs but in my post I did say that I DO save money home brewing. I haven't spent any real money on anything in almost 3 years so all I'm paying for are ingredients.
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Yeah sorry - was really just pulling out your post as an example of talking about equipment costs.
 
Save money? No. most times I go to the LHBS or purchase on line its $50 or more... If I just bought a 12pk now and then expense would be around $15. I'm not a big drinker. Home brew is something to do/create and share... I wouldn't be sharing much of the commercial beers, not that I'm not hospitable I just don't have company very often, and they don't drink much either.
 
Between moving and a new job, I haven't brewed in seven months. Prior to that, I exclusively drank what I brewed at home, and I had been for several years. Over these last several months, I've realized just how expensive craft beer is... and I've come to realize that I DEFINITELY save money home brewing.
 
The reason I started was to save some money. I shoot for $20 per batch (19L). That does save some money.
 
I haven't bought a beer besides at dinner every once in a while. Spending around $20 a week yields me 50 beers, which goes towards building up the pipeline. I'll get to slow down a bit on brewing as I get busier this spring. Most weeks when buying craft beer, I'd spend around $40 a week in beer for myself and friends.
 
Yes I save money..<20.00 for 50+ bottles of beer. I cant include my time in the equation because Its just idle time anyway...I only brew when there is nothing pressing for me to do.
Beer is running $9.59 plus tax, so around $12.00 for a 6er of craft beer at the local store right now.. That's less then 12 beers for what I can make 50 for. Am I as good as some of the craft brewers offerings... maybe, maybe not but it works for me as I can brew what I want and not limited to the distributors draconian underhandedness.
You IPA brewers are spending a ton on hops so maybe its different for you...I'm at 1oz or less per batch so its definitely cheaper to brew then to buy.

Trying out my new Vanilla Porter tonight...cant get that down town..:)

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I buy all my ingredients in bulk including hops which I buy by the pound. When all is said and done 6 gallons of beer costs roughly $27.00. Compared to the price of any beer locally (Tulsa, OK) including mass produced generic horse pee I save a LOT of money!

Further I like my own beers much more than anything I can buy including most craft beers. Equipment costs aren't really an issue either since I use stainless posts and utensils I already own for cooking. Most of my hydrometers, thermometers, grain mills, airlocks, etc. I've owned for over thirty years.

Considering my wife and kids guzzle beer like its going out of style homebrewing is the only way to go for my family!
 
Save a **** ton of money considering that I have to pay $5 a bottle and up for good commercial beer in Korea. Maybe things will change when the local craft scene gets going but even then the beer tax is really high.
 
Wow, I resurrected a monster!

I would also agree that you can't factor in your time as an expense bc I hardly factory in my time spent mountain biking, shooting, or fishing as an expense tacked on to those hobbies.

I guess if you are trying that hard to save money brewing you would probably never come to this website... You would be doing kits with dextrose and basic equipment.

Again, it all depends on the country you live in... I think it makes less sense to try and save money as an American home Brewer. Decent beer seems to be mostly affordable there unlike in Canada. As a Canadian home brewer you are saving money unless you go totally overboard.

In the end , its a very, very, cheap hobby both in Canada or the USA... Unless you completely jump the shark.
 
I save a ton of money by brewing- counseling time is expensive! Plus, it's partially "billed" to R&D for the next life chapter.
 
I'm just getting started, so my average bottle of beer probably cost over $10/bottle or more. Once I get set up with all the equipment I need, obviously the costs will come down. I do it for the hobby, personal satisfaction, experimentation, not to save money.
 
Bosh said:
Save a **** ton of money considering that I have to pay $5 a bottle and up for good commercial beer in Korea. Maybe things will change when the local craft scene gets going but even then the beer tax is really high.
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What's wrong with OB, Hite, and Case... It's like W 1000 a 750ml bottle when I lived there. Drink up , its the worst beer I've ever had but its cheap ha-ha...

Actually I can totally see why it would be a popular hobby there. Are you in the army or a teacher?
 
PADave said:
I'm just getting started, so my average bottle of beer probably cost over $10/bottle or more. Once I get set up with all the equipment I need, obviously the costs will come down. I do it for the hobby, personal satisfaction, experimentation, not to save money.
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Just look at the ingredients. I just bought ingredients for under $40. Commercially brewed would be double around here.

Before bulk buys there is one major thing I could do to save money and that is harvesting yeast.

It doesn't take long at all for equipment to pay for itself. Say 12 (5 gallon) batches per year. That is 576 bottles! That would be less than $1 per bottle just in one year for a pretty good setup.
 
brewcat said:
Just look at the ingredients. I just bought ingredients for under $40. Commercially brewed would be double around here.

Before bulk buys there is one major thing I could do to save money and that is harvesting yeast.

It doesn't take long at all for equipment to pay for itself. Say 12 (5 gallon) batches per year. That is 576 bottles! That would be less than $1 per bottle just in one year for a pretty good setup.
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I know that once I get setup with the equipment I need, the cost per beer will come down greatly. I've only been brewing 1 gallon batches so far, but just spent about $400 on some equipment to be able to do 5 gallon. Just need to get some fermenters, and possibly a burner, and I'll be good to go for doing 1 gallon, 2.5-3 gallon, and 5 gallon brews.
 
Canuck137 said:
What's wrong with OB, Hite, and Case... It's like W 1000 a 750ml bottle when I lived there. Drink up , its the worst beer I've ever had but its cheap ha-ha...

Actually I can totally see why it would be a popular hobby there. Are you in the army or a teacher?
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Korean beer has actually gotten a good bit better over the years (the OB line of beers has been completely overhauled so that it now tastes exactly like mediocre German beer with just a bit if that metallic Korean beer twang) but also more expensive. It's also very heavily taxed so it's more expensive than **** beer in the states, to the point that people joke that it's more patriotic to drink beer than serve in the army.

Microbrew distribution only got legalized in 2014, before that you had to have a (high) minimum capacity to have more than a brew pub so craft beer bars are exploding with the core of their business being trendy single young women for some reason...

Am a teacher, got my own school now so no boss except SWMBO.
 
Considering that my favorite beers cost about $12-15 for a 6-pack, and a 6 pack of my homebrew costs me about 4.50, I got to the break-even point a few months ago.

Though right now I'm going through the dilemma of deciding "do I really need that?" when it comes to possibly buying new stuff lol. I recently bought a kettle that could do 5-gal batches, and now I'm trying to stop myself from going crazy and buying a whole bunch of more equipment I don't need (stainless steel fermenters, upgrading to a bigger chest freezer to do multiple batches at once). Mainly because previously doing 2.5 gal batches, I was used to brewing 2-3x a month. Now the extra week off in between batches is making me ansy lol.

I just enjoy the process, it's relaxing and fun. And I'm one of those weird people that enjoys bottling. I like looking at my bottles like a rich guy likes counting his money haha :D Originally I had gotten into the hobby because I was tired of paying $15 for ballast point sculpin, and was like "why don't I try making this **** myself?". Ends up I make a grapefruit IPA that's way better and so my reason for brewing now is mainly about flavor and just the hobby itself. Saving money is an added plus haha.

ALTHOUGH... It's possible that I'm not saving money because half of my batches are shared or given away. When buying a store bought IPA my friends or family often could care less about it. If I made it though, they all want a sample, or 3, or 4, lol.
 
El Nino said:
ALTHOUGH... It's possible that I'm not saving money
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Hahahah ZOMBIE THREAD!


The fastest way to ruin a perfectly good hobby is to try to figure out a way to get it to either make or save you money.

I might have saved money in the first six months, who knows. I went into brewing as a hobby so I spent that part of my budget on gradual upgrades when they seemed sensible and fun. Now I've got a ton of hardware that I enjoy playing with and my hobby is still a fun hobby. As an added bonus my friends can come drink free beer at my house whenever they want!!

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Keeping track of every purchase made and every beer brewed over 109 batches (calling kegs 53 beers), I'm currently at $10.25 per six pack. For me that's savings since what I'd be drinking otherwise, including more trips to local breweries at $6/glass, would average more than that. I don't count labor because a) it's a hobby and b) I didn't quit a second job in order to make time to homebrew, i.e., if I didn't brew, that time would not be used to make money.
 
I don't break down the cost of each batch obsessively but I estimate it costs me about $1 per beer, and I usually spend $1.50-$4 per beer when I buy at the bottle shop because I like the expensive stuff. So I call it $1 savings on each beer and track it on a spreadsheet vs my equipment purchases for fun. I'm still way in the hole because I've upgraded my processes/systems a lot over the past year I've been brewing but at some point I should stop buying stuff and start catching up, I think...
 
Once you get your pot and fermenter paid for, it is about .40 cents a beer for Organic, non flouride, CZ6, a beer. No taxes or trash from containers. I buy bulk 50lb DME and 10lb of grain at a time. Hops by the pound.
Not including plugging in the Kegerator or time, which is where hobby value and meditation comes in. Compared to buying 17.00 on sale, tax and waste of carton and or recycling costs. Comparative for those who drink at home. Going out is .10 cents worth of food for 1.00. Cheapest food a restaurant can buy. Like boasting of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on their Menu's LOL!
 
should i even look at the first post before posting? from 2016? lol


i can brew 10 gals for $8, i'd say i'm saving money.....i've even been taking a vacation, and just dumping apple juice in a bucket, $32 for 10 gals.....still pretty cheap...
 
andy6026 said:
The one thing I never see come up in these threads is how much homebrew you give away compared to what you'd do with commercial beer.

I probably give away around 25%+ of my homebrew, which in a strict sense increases the cost of every beer I drink.
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Good point, and same here! But I'm not sure how to treat that in the calculation (yep, got a spreadsheet). I don't want to simply subtract it out because that would be treating it like it never existed. And I think we'd all agree brewing beer and then giving it to someone is far better than never having brewed it in the first place. :)
 
jack13 said:
haha. It's also fun to pull out my phone and tell them exactly how much I've spent in total over the years.
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There's a thread out here somewhere that says 'if I die, please don't let my wife sell my brewery for what I told her I paid for it.'
 
bracconiere said:
should i even look at the first post before posting? from 2016? lol


i can brew 10 gals for $8, i'd say i'm saving money.....i've even been taking a vacation, and just dumping apple juice in a bucket, $32 for 10 gals.....still pretty cheap...
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You've got to be called out on this one. Recipe, ingredients, source of ingredients. Almost any recipe I might brew would cost more than that in hops alone.

Details....
 
mongoose33 said:
You've got to be called out on this one. Recipe, ingredients, source of ingredients. Almost any recipe I might brew would cost more than that in hops alone.

Details....
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and here i thought everyone knew me! lol :)

$12.99 gets me a 50lb sack of barley, i malt it myself... so i figure like ~.30 a pound, 20#'s for a 10 gal batch..i use about 1.5oz's year old hops, about $7 a pound...

feed store for barley, and yakima for hops..and i repitch my yeast indefinitely. ;) i assure you i'm the cheapest M.F. on this forum! :D

edit: :mug:, but like i said i have been lazy last month, been spending $3.19 a gal on apple juice to make brew day easy...(goddamn, i'm even using instacart to have it delivered to my door!, talk about first world problems!) lol
 
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I would say my first year of homebrewing was expensive, equipment costs and all. However, I did sell off some of the previous hobby to pay for this, so I’m only investing what cash was “extra” anyway.

At this point, it’s $15-25 for 5 gallons’ ingredients and like others point out, a 4 or 6 pack of craft brew is $10-12, and a pint at the local craft brewer is $7. So, yeah, i’m saving money.
 
The equivalent retail price of only two batches of what I brew exceeds everything I've spent on brewing gear and ingredients over the last few years since I started. I brew expensive stuff.
 
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I brew 2.5 gallon batches. I did the calculations on my Sawyer - a 9.5% whiskey imperial stout very loosely based on a KBS clone. It came to roughly $1.47 per 12 oz bottle. In our area, KBS is $24/4 pack or $6-$10/bottle.

I used hops we already had in our freezer, so my cost was a bit lower. But even if I had bought hops, it would have only raised the per bottle price to $1.70.

My Kate (before adding fruit, 6.7% strawberry milkshake ipa) calculations came to $1.21/12 oz bottle.

I don't count equipment costs, as I don't really have any. When my husband upgraded to larger equipment, he gave me his old pot. He also bought me my bag (we BIAB) and my keg as gifts.

So by my calculations, not only does brewing save me money, it allows me to drink my favorite beers more often.
 
It's about a break-even for me.

I brew 5 gallon extract batches, and end up with about 24 (or so) 22oz bottles. If I was doing 12 oz bottles, I'd end up with 44, or about 7 six packs.

I generally make my own recipes, and try to use good, fresh ingredients. I'll typically pay $50-$75 for those for each batch.

The beers I drink are generally $10-$12 per six pack. So. averaged out, I'm not saving or really spending any additional money by making my own beer.

But, I do get the enjoyment of of brewing it.

If I stuck to extract kits, and paid $30-$40 each, I'd be saving. Or brewing larger batches.

But again, that's not the point to my hobby.
 
Monmouth00 said:
It's about a break-even for me.

I brew 5 gallon extract batches, and end up with about 24 (or so) 22oz bottles. If I was doing 12 oz bottles, I'd end up with 44, or about 7 six packs.

I generally make my own recipes, and try to use good, fresh ingredients. I'll typically pay $50-$75 for those for each batch.

The beers I drink are generally $10-$12 per six pack. So. averaged out, I'm not saving or really spending any additional money by making my own beer.

But, I do get the enjoyment of of brewing it.

If I stuck to extract kits, and paid $30-$40 each, I'd be saving. Or brewing larger batches.

But again, that's not the point to my hobby.
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Monmouth County, NJ?
 
I started brewing in 2008 by doing extracts in a 3 gallon pot. From there I slowly started to buy new equipment and upgrade equipment as needed.

I agree that startup costs can be high and building your own equipment can get a bit pricy as well. But when it comes to brewing a batch vs buying from a store I see a pretty good savings.

My average bottle/pint right now is about $1.14 after 45 batches that I have actually kept track of. At bottle shops here in IL quality beers are on average $2.25 - $3.50.

I just finished my keezer (installed manifold today) and I am working on getting pipeline filled so that I always have some Homebrew on tap.
 

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