Home-brew return cheers money savers

With improved home-brew kits for sale and plenty of advice on the web, more people are enjoying wine at a pound a bottle and beer made in their garage, writes Miles Brignall

• 
• • Miles Brignall
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 November 2009 12.35 GMT
  • Article history

Neil Edwards and his home-brew kit. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Guardian.

Maybe it's a natural extension of the grow-your-own-food movement, or perhaps it's nothing more than people trying to save money in a recession, but brewing beer and wine at home, little heard of since the 1970s, is undergoing a massive comeback.

Motivated by bottles of wine produced for about a quid, or great quality beer from 50p a pint, and the excitement of producing your favourite tipple yourself, it's easy to see why spare rooms and garages across the country are being pressed into service. If you haven't been offered some home-brewed delights over recent months, expect to quaff some this Christmas.

Right now the biggest sellers at home-brew stores and websites are all-inclusive wine and beer-making kits, plus the ingredients to make Christmas beers. The sector is booming and some stores are struggling to maintain supplies. If you looking for a fun hobby with some significant money savings on the side (or a Christmas present for a cash-conscious drinker) it's time to think home-brewing.

Unfortunately, this resurgent pastime suffers big image problems. Beers made from concentrate by students using DIY kits in the 1970s were enough to test any drinker's resolve.

But brewing technology has advanced dramatically over the last 30 years, with a far greater variety and higher quality of kits. A taste test in the Money offices of a number of home-brewed beers found that they were as good, if not better than, much of what is served in the pubs.

The advent of micro-brewing has fed through to the new-style home-brew kits, with the liquid concentrate – known as the wort for beer– hugely improved.

Alternatively, you can dispense with concentrate altogether and make wine (and even beer) from scratch. It has never been easier to make hedgerow wines – the likes of elderberry and blackberry – or fruit wines that cost almost nothing to produce, and can be delicious. The web is alive with equipment for sale, endless recipe ideas, and forums if you get into difficulties.

Lee Porter, sales manager at Youngs, the UK's largest wholesaler of wine-making equipment, says the sector is fizzing as people have woken up to what's now available.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a home- brew fan. Photograph: John Lawrence

"It has become trendy to brew your own wine and beer again. It has probably been helped by the celeb effect – Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Neil Morrissey have both been on TV making their own, and it has grabbed people. It easy, it's fun and you get to drink what you make. Business has been so good that we are expecting to see our turnover rise from £5m to £8m this year."

Tanya Hughes, who co-owns the popular BrewUK home-brewing store and website, based in Salisbury, Wiltshire, agrees that interest has never been greater. "I think it's a natural extension of the renaissance in growing your own food. People are looking around and wondering what else they can make. It's been helped by the credit crunch.

"We have just had our busiest hedgerow season [when berries are ready to be picked] and it was crazy, as people were desperate for the equipment to turn what they had been out picking into wine."

Hughes says that for most people it remains a hobby – one that once you've bought the equipment, allows you to make a saving. "People make their own for a variety of reasons. Some do it just to save money, but increasingly people are making their own because they don't like what the commercial wine and beer makers put in their products ... they might be vegans or simply after a more naturally produced drink," she adds.

This month saw the launch of a new website aimed at riding on the back of the renewed interest in home brewing. The two men behind TheThriftyShopper.co.uk, Matt Riley and Paul Davies, say they are aiming to capture a new, younger, audience of "people interested in brewing their own fine wines and beers, for a fraction of the price you would pay in the pub".

The site, which operates under the strapline "not tight, just clever", has the feel of a financial website, and it's no surprise to learn that Riley helped to set up Moneysupermarket.com.

"We are two youngish guys who were both into brewing our own, and we want to get the message across that making your own is easy to do, fun, and really rewarding," says Riley.

"We have spent months trialling all the products out there, and have put together what we found to be best. There is an emphasis on the kits that are really easy to use, first time off."

Alongside an extensive range of kits (starting at £25), Riley and Davies have produced some excellent guides to making your beer or wine that – crucially – assume no prior knowledge.

"The idea is that anyone can get a kit, follow our simple guide and in a few weeks they'll be drinking their own beer or wine," says Davies. "Most people will be amazed at the quality of what they can produce if they follow a few simple steps."

How to turn your place into a micro-brewery

Whatever your favourite beer or wine (and even some spirits), a kit is for sale to enable you make your own version. From Argentinian malbec to a German wheat beer, from stout to sauvignon blanc, it can all be made at home. However, plenty of home-brewers will use only the raw ingredients: it really is up to you and how much time you have.

Beer-making Small, self-contained beer-making kits which make 20 pints start at £24. With these "BruBox systems" there is no mess, no smell and, thanks to the closed production method, virtually no chance of infection. Refill packs that let you make another 20 pints cost £11.

However, most people will find it better to spend a bit more on a bigger kit which will enable you to brew larger quantities. Two stand out. The first is the iBrew system, currently £59.99 from Thrifty Shopper (with free p&p this month). This includes all the equipment to make the first 40 pints of lager, bitter or stout. Its big advantage is that it is very easy to make. These also come with a pressure system that produces a professional looking (and tasting) glass of beer. Once you have bought the equipment, you can buy further packs from iBrew or other suppliers to keep the beer flowing, and the price per pint comes down to 50p-60p.

The other leading contender is from BrewUK.co.uk in Salisbury. For £59.99 (and £5.65 p&p) it sells a Woodfordes Micro-brewery that includes everything needed to make 40 pints of "premium" bitter. Similar kits cost £80 elsewhere. The equipment can be reused with any beer pack and further beers can be made from as little as £10 for 40 pints. The Woodfordes kit has a big advantage over the iBrew system in that you can use the same equipment to make wine.

Wine Again, if you haven't got much room or you only want to make six bottles at a time, small self-contained kits start at about £24. The Kenridge Classic Chardonnay kit is one; its refills cost £11 making it relatively expensive at about £1.83 a bottle, once you have discounted the cost of the equipment.

Most people will want to buy a bigger kit that allows you to make 30 bottles at a time. About the best-value one we could find was £29.99 (plus £5.65 p&p) from BrewUK, which includes everything you need to start making country wines (you pick the ingredients yourself) or wines from bought grape concentrate. Included is a tin of red or white wine concentrate to allow you to make six bottles, and a book entitled First Steps in Winemaking.

Buy this, and then expand into whatever wine you like. The typical cost of premium concentrates to enable you to make 30 bottles of table wine is £37, making it about £1.35 a bottle. Some concentrates are cheaper, but these require you to add sugar. Alternatively, some will set you back as much as £64 (Argentinian malbec) but the quality is said to be very good.

Just remember to collect used wine bottles to store your brew once it is ready to bottle – sterilised, of course.

One thing to note is that white wine is quicker to come to drinking than red. White wines from concentrate can be ready in four weeks. Reds work well but are better if left between three and six months. Many hedgerow wines are best left for a year to mature.

Factors to consider The key to good beer- and wine-making is cleanliness, and evenness of temperature. All the equipment has to be sterilised before use. Fermentation usually needs a temperature of 19-20C. Home-brewing on a big scale needs space, to brew and store the finished article.

Lastly, don't forget you can't sell it legally, however tempting it may seem.

Case study

Like many of those who have got into beer making in recent months, Neil Edwards doesn't fit the traditional image of the home brewer. The 34-year-old IT consultant, who lives in North Wales with his wife and young children, has just served his first batch to friends at a party.

"I don't know whether it's an early mid-life crisis or what but I suddenly decided I wanted to start brewing some beer – primarily with the Christmas party season in mind. I've just served my first brew of lager at a Halloween bash we had last weekend. Everyone knew I'd made and we put a big sign up describing it as 'Witches' brew', and it went down a storm."

He bought an iBrew system from the Thrifty Shopper, mostly because "it had all the kit in the tin, and it promised to be very easy".

"It seemed like the best way to go for a beginner," says Edwards. "I didn't want to buy loads of kits on eBay or whatever, only for it to sit in the garage never to be used again.

"I literally followed the five steps and it all worked exactly as it should, and was ready after about three weeks. I kept it in the fridge until the night of the party at which point we unleashed in on our friends. Put it this way, it all disappeared, and there were plenty of compliments."

He jokes that he fears he is turning into his father, who brewed beer when Edwards was a child.

"There are cheaper ways to buy beer, but none come with the satisfaction you get of knowing that you made it yourself. The money saving aspect is a real bonus, given we have two small children.

"Next up I'll be making some bitter," he says. "And I'm already planning to move on to wine, come the new year."

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