An 8 quart, 3.7 ABV pale ale. A friend of mine and I had been talking for some time about brewing our own beer, and he picked up a Mr. Beer kit. Yeah, I know; Mr. Beer, the Kraco car stereo of the homebrew industry. But it’s a good, cheap way to get a feel for homebrewing before stepping up, equipment-wise. The kit came with West Coast Pale Ale hopped malt extract and yeast. So, off we went with the first trial run.

Not too difficult; the instructions were clear, and a lot of the confusing gobbledygook we’d encountered while browsing homebrewing websites became a little clearer. Sanitize everything, mix up the wort, add the yeast, let it ferment in a cool, dry place… A couple of weeks later, after the fermentation has stopped, bottle it in the supplied bottles and add a little sugar for secondary fermentation to add CO2, and let it carbonate. Another couple of weeks and voila! You have beer.

A little apprehensive at the first tasting, but we seemed to have avoided the bad outcomes I read about befalling other first-time brewers. A little fruity flavor to it, but otherwise a good, crisp ale with a decent head. We’re going to run a couple of other styles for practice while saving for equipment to step up to the next level. The expensive part will be kegging equipment, as we want to brew 5-gallon batches and force-carbonate them in the keg.