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Author Topic: Brew Your Own place  (Read 5869 times)

Offline gmac

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Brew Your Own place
« on: April 14, 2011, 03:33:47 pm »
I went into a local BYO place today because I was told that I might be able to order grain from them.  Turns out they were very willing to order grain for me from their supplier when they order LME and specialty grains so that was positive. Gotta wait a bit but at least I will get 25kg bags of 2-row without the 2 hour drive I was doing before.

But, we got talking about beer, brewing etc and I was so sadly  disappointed to see what they considered a "Recipe".  Basically, every recipe they showed me was:
X lbs LME
X time 2 glucose.
Probably 1/3 LME and 2/3 corn sugar in all of their recipes. They also only used dry yeast and all of the beer was fermented at 68 degrees regardless of whether it was a lager or an ale.  Just so sad.

I did see an interesting way to ferment though.  They had 50L plastic barrels with holes cut in them and then a plastic bag put into the barrel.  The beer was put in the bag and a twist-tie put on the bag.  That's it.  No fermentation lock or anything.  2 weeks in that, filtered and bottled for a week. and you have beer.   Or what they called beer.

Offline EHall

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2011, 03:48:42 pm »
We used to have one of those places here in Scottsdale... very cool place, had good beer... but they had a 'menu' of recipes and were more than willing to let you bring in one, and brew it with you... to bad it shut down...
Phoenix, AZ

Offline weazletoe

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2011, 05:03:14 pm »
A 68* lager!!!! Dear god I hope Major does not read this thread. Will all his recent problems, this will be just thing to drive him over the edge. We'll next be reading about him in BFI's exploding heart thread!!  :o
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Offline gmac

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2011, 05:06:08 pm »
Oh, I should also mention when I was trying to get 2-row, I asked if her supplier carried Maris Otter.  "What's that?"
This from a person who owns and runs a brew your own. 

Offline denny

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #4 on: April 14, 2011, 05:30:25 pm »
I don't know if it's the same place, but about a year ago I got contacted by a brew on premise place in Canada to help them troubleshoot some problems they were having.  Very nice people, but all they knew about brewing was what the previous owner had told them and most of that was incorrect.  Keep in mind that the people you're talking to might well just look at the place as a business and have no idea (or interest) in what brewing's all about.
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Offline punatic

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #5 on: April 14, 2011, 05:57:48 pm »

...A 68* lager!!!!


SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSteam!
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Offline weazletoe

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #6 on: April 14, 2011, 09:13:18 pm »
On a serious note, I've been thinking about this thread a lot this evening, and you know what really bums me about it? How many people will go there, pony up 100$ or better (I'm told these byo places are not cheap) and make beer that taste like butt. So, they decide to never give homebrew, or homebrewing a chance again, based on this experience. If you ask me, it's not doing our hobby any justice.  ::)
A man works hard all week, so he doesn't have to wear pants all weekend.

Offline gmac

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2011, 09:50:11 pm »
Weazeltoe - $110 Can for 48 L of "regular", $128 for 48 L of "premium"  10% discount if you're not wearing pants.

Denny - might not be the same place, Canada is a fair size but you never know.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised if cash is the driving factor over quality. 

Offline punatic

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #8 on: April 14, 2011, 10:33:51 pm »
On a serious note, I've been thinking about this thread a lot this evening, and you know what really bums me about it? How many people will go there, pony up 100$ or better (I'm told these byo places are not cheap) and make beer that taste like butt. So, they decide to never give homebrew, or homebrewing a chance again, based on this experience. If you ask me, it's not doing our hobby any justice.  ::)

I paid $75 for two cases of Bigfoot today.  That is the normal net yield from a five gallon batch.  As much as I'd like to think my barleywine tastes good, I like Bigfoot better.  I can't imagine getting excited about spending $100 for two cases of lolo kine beer.
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Offline euge

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2011, 11:50:03 pm »
What is a Brew Your Own place? A Canadian brew-pub?
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Offline phillamb168

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2011, 01:24:15 am »
I'm slowly convincing my local beer shop to become a homebrew supply shop as well (we're having the first Paris homebrewer's meeting there next Wednesday) and the BYO shop was something I had mentioned to him, and he seemed interested. I feel like that sort of shop would only work in a very densely populated urban area like NYC, Paris or London, where most apartments have (literally) 1 square meter of kitchen. That's the _only_ reason I see for having one.
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Offline weazletoe

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #11 on: April 15, 2011, 04:57:47 am »
What is a Brew Your Own place? A Canadian brew-pub?

Basically, you got there, brew 5 gallons of extract "beer", go back two weeks later, and bottle.
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Offline jeffy

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #12 on: April 15, 2011, 05:30:34 am »
On a serious note, I've been thinking about this thread a lot this evening, and you know what really bums me about it? How many people will go there, pony up 100$ or better (I'm told these byo places are not cheap) and make beer that taste like butt. So, they decide to never give homebrew, or homebrewing a chance again, based on this experience. If you ask me, it's not doing our hobby any justice.  ::)

They all went out of business a decade ago around here.  I once gave a friend who had tried this one of my homebrews and he said, "I didn't know it was possible to make beer like this at home."  The beers I tasted from Brew On Premises establishments were about the same quality as your very first off-the-shelf extract kit, the one with dry yeast, old extract and lots of sugar.  Perhaps they're better now?

edit to change from "brew your own" to "brew on premisses"
edit again to correct the spelling of "premises"
« Last Edit: April 15, 2011, 05:54:43 am by jeffy »
Jeff Gladish, Tampa (989.3, 175.1 Apparent Rennarian)
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Offline tumarkin

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #13 on: April 15, 2011, 05:49:41 am »
On a serious note, I've been thinking about this thread a lot this evening, and you know what really bums me about it? How many people will go there, pony up 100$ or better (I'm told these byo places are not cheap) and make beer that taste like butt. So, they decide to never give homebrew, or homebrewing a chance again, based on this experience. If you ask me, it's not doing our hobby any justice.  ::)

They all went out of business a decade ago around here.  I once gave a friend who had tried this one of my homebrews and he said, "I didn't know it was possible to make beer like this at home."  The beers I tasted from Brew Your Own establishments were about the same quality as your very first off-the-shelf extract kit, the one with dry yeast, old extract and lots of sugar.  Perhaps they're better now?

Perhaps not. Actually, likely not.
Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, FL

ccarlson

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Re: Brew Your Own place
« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2011, 06:45:25 am »
On a serious note, I've been thinking about this thread a lot this evening, and you know what really bums me about it? How many people will go there, pony up 100$ or better (I'm told these byo places are not cheap) and make beer that taste like butt. So, they decide to never give homebrew, or homebrewing a chance again, based on this experience. If you ask me, it's not doing our hobby any justice.  ::)

I will tell people about brewing only if they ask and I don't go into details unless they ask more questions. It's not a hobby for everyone and I personally kind of prefer it that way. Makes it seem more special to me.