{"id":553,"date":"2014-08-30T23:03:37","date_gmt":"2014-08-30T23:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/brew\/?p=553"},"modified":"2015-01-03T18:52:17","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T18:52:17","slug":"good-beer-at-30-cents-a-bottle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/brew\/good-beer-at-30-cents-a-bottle\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Beer at 30 cents a bottle"},"content":{"rendered":"

They say you don’t get in to homebrewing to save money on beer, but it’s totally possible. \"\"Let’s call that a bonus feature. Even expensive homebrew comes out to a little over $1.00 per bottle. Typical craft beer in the store will cost you around $8-$12 for a six pack. That’s $1.33-$2 per bottle. As a basis for comparison, let’s take a look at homebrew ingredient kits. (All-grain brewers, look away.) A casual browse of MoreBeer.com shows a range of prices for extract ingredient kits<\/a>. The most expensive I see at the moment is\u00a0JP’s Imperial Porter<\/a> clocking in at $50. The cheapest I see is\u00a0Scottish 60 Shilling Ale<\/a> for a mere $20. The average price is around $30-$40.<\/p>\n

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That’s about the same price range for the Brewer’s Best<\/a> kits in at Brew & Grow<\/a>. \"\"One time I did a price comparison if I were to buy all the ingredients \u00e0 la carte. Turns out these ingredient kits are a pretty good buy unless you brew all-grain or buy in bulk.<\/p>\n

Ingredient kits are designed for a 5 gallon batch. That’s about 50 bottles. Of course, you may lose upwards of half a gallon if your yeast is particularly active. So, simple math: $50 for 50 bottles = $1 per bottle even for expensive homebrew. Now, the Scottish 60 Shilling Ale at $20 for 50 bottles comes out to $0.40 per bottle. That’s pretty darned cheap, but you can totally beat it. Here’s the secret: add water. Shhh…!<\/p>\n

On a recent trip to Brew & Grown, I picked up an American Light Ale kit for about $25.00. Instead of brewing a 5 gallon batch, I split up the wort into two carboys to make a total of 9 gallons (my 5 gallon plastic carboy and my 4 gallon glass). The total cost came to about $30, because of tax and I threw in a couple extra ounces of Chinook hops to make it more appealing to my hop-head palette. Not quite a Pale Ale, but getting there.<\/p>\n

\"Late\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/a>\"IMG_2901\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Late Night Gaming Session Ale<\/a><\/p>\n