A Real Man's Beer Basics: Make Your Own

Let’s face it. There are lots of reasons why buying beer in the store just isn’t the way to go anymore, and it’s totally obvious that those guys who are able to peel themselves off the couch and get over their fear of the stove for once deserve an award, for they are the beer makers.

Why Home Brewing is Better

• It’s a cheaper alternative to store-bought brew… sort of. I’ll explain later.
• You can make any kind of beer you can think of, and even some you can’t.
• It involves using sweet, syrupy, candy-like materials to produce the alcoholic elixir of the gods (Double win!)
• Speaking of gods, other guys will worship your angelic abilities, and…
• Pretty much the first upgrade you’ll make in your beer-making career is buying a kegging system. That’s right. You can fill a keg with homemade happy-liquid and invite your friends over to your own place to enjoy that seemingly endless night of drinking that a keg provides.

So it’s time to stop monkeying around, right? How the hell do we make beer already?

Steps to Making Your Own Beer

1. Buy a beer kit that has malt extract and hops, then buy a fermentation kit. These two things can sometimes be had together for about $70 online, and they’ll take care of you for a long time. Depending on where you live, grab them at the local homebrew store or start ordering online. But laws vary from place to place. If you’re living in China, for instance, expect getting your homebrew starter kit to be both hard to get and really expensive.
2. Once the kit arrives in the mail, find a way to boil about 12 liters of water on the stove.
3. Most kits come with instructions, so you can usually follow them after receiving your kit, but some steps are the same for all of the kits. Once your water is boiling, you’ll add extract. This is basically the sugar from barley grains made into a syrupy or powdery form. Your kit will tell you when to add what amounts.
4. Besides malt extract, you’ll also add hops, or the little green plant buds that provide beer’s bitter qualities, during the boil. Refer to your beer kit for times here as well.
5. Once your boil is over, which usually takes about one hour, you’re going to pour your beer into a sanitized plastic bucket and cover it with a special plastic lid that lets gas out but not in.
6. Wait. After about 2 or 3 weeks, take your beer out of the fermenter with the equipment you got in your fermentation kit, put some sugar in the fermented stuff according to the instructions that came with your kit, and fill up about two cases of saved pry-top bottles (you’ve been saving them, right?) with your amber elixir.
7. Wait again. After about two weeks, throw one (or all) in the fridge and drink!