Home Brewing Beer Process

By Chris Colby
Updated on March 23, 2023
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Flickr/Joe Lipson

Save a buck by learning the brewing beer process and fermentation to make your homebrew — it’s easier than you think!

There’s something about a cold brew that helps bring a hard day’s work to a close. Beer in the United States has come a long way in the last 40 years. As a young man in the 1970s, I remember seeing generic beer on the shelf. At that point, it was just a commodity — a pale, fizzy beverage indistinguishable from others like it except for the labels.

These days, the beer aisle is overflowing with styles of beer from all different types of brewing traditions: British ales, German lagers, strong Belgian beers, and more. Brewers in the United States are taking classic styles from around the world and giving them their own twist. American-style IPAs, for example — all the rage right now — are descended from English India pale ales. This “beer renaissance” has been partly driven by home brewers, and you, too, can brew any beer you desire in your own home.

Home-Brewing Equipment

The most common batch size for home brewers is 5 gallons. This makes just over 48 standard 12-ounce bottles. You can easily brew beer at this scale in your kitchen with a minimal amount of equipment. Home brew shops sell kits that include everything you need to start, except a large brew pot and empty beer bottles. The price of starter kits is generally between $70 and $200, depending on what the kit includes. Starter kits including kegging equipment are typically more expensive.

The main items in a brewing starter kit include:

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