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- May 15, 2015
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Whether or not homebrewing saves money depends largely on what factors you arbitrarily choose to include in the calculation.
My own arbitrary calculation does not include equipment costs on the liability side because most hobbies need equipment and I’m going to indulge in hobbies no matter what, as a simple matter of personal happiness. Whatever money I spend on homebrewing, if I never got into it, would go to something else—guitars and amps, camera lenses, fast cars, old arcade machines. Therefore, to me, equipment costs fall under my entertainment/hobby budget, not my beer budget.
As for the time and effort associated with homebrewing, a similar concept applies. Between planning and record keeping, shopping for ingredients, brew day, doing gravity samples and monitoring fermentation, organizing bottles, bottling day, and storage I figure a single batch requires 7-8 hours of my time. If I had to jog on a treadmill for that same 7-8 hours in order to yield a batch of homebrewed beer, then I promise you my math would change in a big hurry. But, as it is, I rather enjoy the activities of those hours so it’s not a cost.
The fact that dollar-for-dollar and beer-for-beer my homebrew costs a fair bit less than a comparable commercially available craft beer is definitely a nice cherry on top, but it’s not something I spend much time thinking about.
My own arbitrary calculation does not include equipment costs on the liability side because most hobbies need equipment and I’m going to indulge in hobbies no matter what, as a simple matter of personal happiness. Whatever money I spend on homebrewing, if I never got into it, would go to something else—guitars and amps, camera lenses, fast cars, old arcade machines. Therefore, to me, equipment costs fall under my entertainment/hobby budget, not my beer budget.
As for the time and effort associated with homebrewing, a similar concept applies. Between planning and record keeping, shopping for ingredients, brew day, doing gravity samples and monitoring fermentation, organizing bottles, bottling day, and storage I figure a single batch requires 7-8 hours of my time. If I had to jog on a treadmill for that same 7-8 hours in order to yield a batch of homebrewed beer, then I promise you my math would change in a big hurry. But, as it is, I rather enjoy the activities of those hours so it’s not a cost.
The fact that dollar-for-dollar and beer-for-beer my homebrew costs a fair bit less than a comparable commercially available craft beer is definitely a nice cherry on top, but it’s not something I spend much time thinking about.