I'm holding out for a Mister Tea, kind of like Father Guido Sarducci plugged on SNL.

My friend bought this, so I'm super pumped to check it out. He said it worked great for him, hope it does the same for me!

rachelleism wrote:Have I missed the bag o crapola?

unfortunately, you have. but have no fear, a lot of people were, me included.

Yes you missed the Barrels of Crud

Just bought a Mr Beer. Just to move this woot off along. At least that's the excuse I'm gonna use with the wife.....

superstromboli wrote:Cool little product. It got me started in homebrewing. Beers come out very similar tasting due to lack of variety of bear yeast and pre-mixed, pre-hopped cans of malt-extract.

Actually, Mr. Beer sells a variety of different recipes on their site, with a variety of different yeasts--Fermentis dry yeasts and Wyeast liquid yeasts.

You can make *great* beer with this kit, using all Mr. Beer ingredients...it's just more expensive than buying your ingredients elsewhere.

schoolcb wrote:And before you start flaming my post, I'm talking about things like sanitization, fermentation temperature control as two very important and very often overlooked factors new brewers do not pay enough attention to.

I had one batch that got contaminated and just had an off taste. I'm not certain but I recall it being a milk stout or an oatmeal stout.

Temperature is always a big issue especially here in the Phoenix area in the summer. I usually started from bulk malt extract, but I remember seeing a English- or Scottish-produced beer kit that said you needed to find a warm area in house, preferably 65 to 68 degrees F.

It's fascinating to watch the yeast churning in the wort.

kidge27 wrote:I'm interested, but hate Pale Ales so don't think I'll get it

Eh, the included kit is pretty damn far from an actual West Coast Pale ale.

It's actually much closer to a cream ale or light lager...not a lot of flavor or body, but hey! It's beer...that you made!

But if you buy two, and combine the two cans and one pouch of booster, then you'll have a beer with some flavor!

boehmcs1 wrote:Amen. Inferior product, inferior beer.

Except it's *not* an inferior product. Sure, the starter recipe is pretty bland, but it's not actively *bad*. Just upgrade to a premium kit, one of the specific recipes on their site, or one of their seasonal refills, and you can make some damn fine beer in one of these kits!

seahokedrama wrote:That would make it the DEVIL'S drink. Apple is the devil I tell you.

I once experimented to see how cheaply I could make alcohol. I bought a couple of gallons of cheap cider (important: no preservatives), poured off about 1/4 to 1/3, dumped in some champagne yeast (to ferment out as much as possible), and attached rubber gloves to the top of the bottles with rubber bands. I had to let the gas out a couple of times and ended up with a pretty dry hard cider that was, if I recall correctly, about 12% or so alcohol.

FG0112 gets you 20% off if you want to buy a refill pack. I suggest the oatmeal stout.

Over two years ago I bought three of these at Woot. It came with a coupon for 20% off first order with Mr. Beer, so together it was a great way to get started in homebrewing. Beer ends up costing about half as much and tasting twice as good.
You can make beers of any color (from light blondes to beautiful ambers to solid-black stouts) and taste (hoppy, malty, light, fruity, etc.) and alcohol content (from 3.2% to around 11%!) Mr. Beer sells the ingredients to make any beer imaginable, using the hundreds of free recipes on the site.
Another thing to note is that you can use this same kit to create various fruit ciders. And Mr. Beer sells kits to make root beer as well. So it is not just for beer!
Once you get the hang of it, you can concoct new flavors using what you have at home. My Mr. Beer kit has made peach beer from fresh ripe peaches, carbonated cherry cider from cherries with or without adding malt extract, non-carbonated apple pie cider, several cider recipes from Mr. Beer, and over 30 types of beer.

Here is some advice to novices based on my experiences:
The instructions say "ready in 2 weeks" but my advice is to let it ferment 10-12 days instead of seven, and then leave it in bottle another two seeks before drinking.
Use the coldest area in the house - a 66°F area is better for taste than 72°F. Keep the room dark or put a box over it.
Consider putting a large oven pan underneath in case of overflow (can happen if you add too much fruit or malt or sugar).
The kit has "no-rinse" sanitizer, but I always rinse it out anyway. You can also use boiling water to sterilize non-plastic components.
Follow the sanitizing instructions.
Bottles are much easier to fill if you buy their tap extender.
Clean everything up immediately after use and inspect that no material (spots of yeast, standing liquid) are left behind. I rinse everthing with hot water after use, and then store empty bottles with lid on and a little sanitizing solution inside.
I usually slightly overfill the plastic keg. That gives me more beer in the bottles before the yeast starts coming out (don't shake the keg!) You can offset the dilution by adding 1/4 cup sugar or honey to the keg.
Check homebrewing websites for more information. Lots of good info out there!
I have yet to make a bad or failed batch; this kit makes it really simple.
Amazon sells some refill kits.
ENJOY!!

jrgimp25 wrote:Doing a Russian Stout now.

I once made a Russian Imperial stout with 8 pounds of malt extract and four pounds of corn sugar, with a licorice stick and some specialty grains boiled in the wort for good measure. Very warm going down. A good winter sipping beer. My supplier at What Ale's Ya likes the style and raved about it.

IMO, the best part of making your own beer is finding an interesting recipe and changing it for your own tastes. Some like to try to exactly replicate a commercial beer (like Bass Ale) but if you're going to do that you might as well buy it save yourself the trouble.

eghazali wrote:FG0112 gets you 20% off if you want to buy a refill pack. I suggest the oatmeal stout.

thanks! I picked up the premium refill pack for 55 bucks thanks to this coupon! they also have extra mr beer kegs for 7 bucks with this code

Yeah really, dont listen to anyone on here bashing this, these are the same people who can't figure out how to put the dyson vacuume together properly.

Get on the Mr Beer forums and look around and get the real info and doing it right and you can't fail.

Buyer Beware!!

I bought my kit and it is missing a crucial lock nut that goes on the back side of the tap.
So much for starting my brew today. Now I probably have to jump through hoops to get the part that I paid for and buy another sanitizing pack.