Home Brewing Resource

Short answer?  No.

Long answer?  Depends on how you look at it.

All beginning businesses are hard and the craft beer industry is no different.  It takes guts, skill, money, and a whole lot of luck to get your venture off of the ground.  And it’s going to take more then just good beer to succeed at any degree level.

For many home brewers the question of the craft brewing bubble is one that is overlooked.  Mostly because it’s hard to take a step back and look at your dream objectively.  The good news is that it’s been rising and looks to stay in the rise at least for while.  As of July 21^st of 2012 there were a total of 2126 breweries (craft, micro, brewpubs, and large change) in the United States.  That’s about a 10% increase from the previous year and those numbers are still going up.

So what’s that bad news?  A 10% increase every year is huge in any industry and it’s not typically something the can be sustainable for extended periods of time.  Eventually the craft brewing industry will run into a bubble, it’s just a matter of if that bubble is going to burst.

There’s no doubt that consumers are consuming craft beers and starting to shy away a bit from the larger chains.  If I had to guess I would say this trend will continue which leads me to believe that the craft brewing industry isn’t going to have a bubble burst but it will level out to some degree.  Three years down the road it could be 8% increase in new breweries and the year after that 5% for example.

But will the current breweries close in mass amounts?  If I had to guess I would say no.  Rest assured some will do to poor planning, bad location, bad luck,, or any of the number of thing that can happen to any business but I think many of them will be able to stay in business due to the demand.

So what should you do if you want to start your own brewery?  Start hitting the books for starters!  Do your research, do your due diligence, and make sure you get a plan together!

So what do you think?  Is the craft beer bubble going to burst or just level out?

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone and now Christmas is right around the corner.  Our Thanksgiving was a successful one with friends and family and of course tasty homebrew!  This Thanksgiving we had a case of Rye Ale and a 5 liter jug of Pumpkin Ale.  Having 14 people in the house we managed to kill all of it in about 3 hours.  Of course our backup plan of having everyone bring their own beer and having extra craft brews helped!

But that’s not why I’m here today!  I’m here to help you find something nice for the home brewer in your life, whether they’re new homebrewers or old hats at it.

If you’re looking for something to read be sure to check out our homebrewing books page.  We’ve got reviews on books for both rookie and veteran homebrewers that cover topics such as brewing (obviously), hops, yeast, and even cider!

Now if you’re looking for something a little more hands on check out one (or all!) of our sister sites!  Small Home Bar covers items that you might want to have on your home bar if you’re lucky enough to have one.  Partial Mash Brewing is geared towards the new brewers that want to start slow.  There we have reviews of extract and partial mash kits for those that want to move beyond extract brewing.  Lastly at Mini Keg Brands we talk about and review kegging equipment.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from us to all of you homebrewers!

If you’re a new homebrewer you might not realize all of the different things you can do with your leftover spent grain after your brew day is done.  Spent grain has many uses around the home, whether it using it as fertilizer, creating dog biscuits, or using it to feed farm animals like the Leinenkugels Brewery does (on a much larger scale of course), you’ll find it has many uses.

Around our home we’ve used it as fertilizer and it works great, however one of my favorite uses is to make homemade bread!  The recipe below is what we use when we save our spent grains.

Ingredients
All purpose flower – 3 cups
Wheat flour – 1 cup
Salt – 2 tsp
Yeast – 2 tsp
Ground spent grain – 3 cups
Sugar – 1/4 cup
Butter – 1/4 cup
Beaten egg – 1
Milk – 1 cup

Directions
Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl.  Mixture should peel away from the bowl without being sticky.  Doing this by hand can be exhausting, if you have a mixer use it!

Form the mixture in a ball and let it rise in an oiled bowl for about 90 minutes.  Divide the mixture into equal sizes of 3 and then let them rise again in a greased cookie sheet until they double in size.

Preheat the oven to 350F and bake for 40 minutes until the loaves are a golden brown.  Once they are done baking let the loaves cool for 30 minutes.

Baking bread is a great way to make use of your spent grain.  Not only will you have delicious backed bread but it will make the house smell great all day!