Home of the BrewNosers

Perhaps this is old news, but this is the first "mainstream" grain beer kit I've seen. They've started selling them at chapters, assumed it was just wort like festabrew, but then I checked out the site...

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/home/gift ... 5wodW00AAA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/instructions" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seems pretty pricey and I doubt it would interest many here, but still interesting to see.

Chapters? Huh. I started off with the BBS book because of its super simple 1 gallon anyone-can-do-AG methods. As a result, I bypassed Festa and extract brews altogether. Well, I progressed beyond their simplified methodology rather quickly, but I'm still only doing 1 gallon recipes. Still use the book for recipe ideas and ratios.

These are pretty common in the US (Whole Foods carries them, and you can find stand alone mall displays too). They're neat, and the marketing is fantastic, but I just can't figure out why you'd want to go to all the effort for such small amount of finished product.

jason.loxton wrote:... but I just can't figure out why you'd want to go to all the effort for such small amount of finished product.

Personally, adequate storage and fermentation space.

Eh, if you can do 1 gallon in a tiny apartment you can probably do 5.

I do 2.5, but that is partially me wanting to try more stuff more often without having a ton of bottles (kegging is a harder option for a tiny apartment).

I DID get back into brewing with the smaller kits. I now use them for experimental partial batches and/or mead.

I've also met the owners of the kits. They did one of the most amusing how to brew sessions I have been to.

jason.loxton wrote:These are pretty common in the US (Whole Foods carries them, and you can find stand alone mall displays too). They're neat, and the marketing is fantastic, but I just can't figure out why you'd want to go to all the effort for such small amount of finished product.

I got the book for Christmas one year and it got me into all grain. I was doing Festa kits and extract / steeping grain batches so didn't have gear to go all grain. The 1 gallon batches let me get my feet wet for no additional cost to what I already had. And from there, it just opened the door to everything else.

Those reasons make sense. I just had hard time understanding how a whole market could be based on it (a few experimenters, I understand, but on a whole the reward versus efforts ratio is pretty discouraging), especially in the US where a gallon of world class beer can be purchased for $15-20, about the same cost as the recipe kit.

Obviously, I just don't get it, since the product is popular enough to both maintain that company as well as inspire other companies to get in on the action, e.g., http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brew ... ecipe-kits" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;