Well it lasts longer than one post anyway.
I'm planning to brew up a new batch of homebrew beer at the weekend. I really enjoy good beer, both making it and drinking it. For a while now there has been a movement of small scale brewers and breweries making quality brews. This is often referred to as 'Craft Beer'. This phrase can invoke a lot of controversy, what exactly is craft beer? If it is made by a micro brewery is it craft? If so, then what if the beer is just generic lager made on a small scale? Not much craft there. And what of the relatively recent phenomenon of larger breweries aping the smaller scale players and making limited editions of tasty beers? Is that 'craft' beer? It's complicated.
For what it is worth here is my take.
Any monkey in the jungle can let fruit ferment and drink the alcoholic product. This is probably how wine was first discovered. But beer needs civilisation. Beer means a farm, to grow and harvest the grain. Beer means another farm to grow and harvest the hops. Beer needs large volumes of clean water and time to let yeast have it's effect, then more time to condition and carbonate the product. The better beers will use better quality ingredients and have more care, attention and time applied. This to me is the definition of a craft beer. A beer that has been thought about, cared about and nurtured, rather than banged out at large volumes with little care, so as to increase profit margins.
It's this philosophy that means that I like to make my own beer. Drinking something that you have put a little of yourself into tastes better than something that is produced to make money, rather than generate pleasure. It also means that I can drink what I like, as opposed to the limited range of generic interchangeable lagers in my local bottle shop. Another big plus for homebrew is sharing my product with others. It's always nice yo see what kind of feedback I get. Anything from, 'I loved it!' and 'I'm going to try and make my own as well' through to 'I had to lie down afterwards'! (Note to self, reduce alcohol content on next batch...)
So homebrew let's me both improve the quality of the brews I drink and the quantity of brews available as well as letting me share this with the world. That has to be worth something, and as long as it is I guess I'll keep trying it. (Plus, there are still so many styles I want to try...!)
