Introduce a friend to home brewing

[Ali]

Following on from my previous post about getting more female involvement in home brewing, my brain cell decided to stir, and came up with an idea to get a friend to start home brewing. Not exactly a novel idea, many organizations have the 'introduce a friend to....' intiative running, mostly to good effect.

So, next time you brew up, why not ask a friend to lend a hand. Just remember to have some 'heres some I made earlier' on hand, so that they can see how good it can be and keep their interest (especially if doing all grain-need something to do and talk about while waiting for mash and boil).

I dare say that many of us have too much equipment kicking around; if they show an interest, why not donate some of your old kit to them to get them started? Not only do you gain some space, but hopefully another home brewer too! This can help with bulk purchases too, so win/win I think :)

What do others think to the idea? How about a national 'Start Home Brewing Day'?

 

[Gunge]

About 3 months back, I set someone at work up with all the kit needed to get started with making wine, along with carefully written, foolproof instructions. Has he done owt yet? No - "can't be arsed". Ain't helping anyone again, if they want to do it, they can do it the hard way.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I think a lot of the problem with home brew is people of a certain age (old gits like me) remember when their parents made awful beer in the airing cupboard and that memory has stuck, i was introduced to wine kits by a friend and it started my hobby as i was amazed at how good the wine turned out, i like the idea of getting friends involved in a hands on way but also discussing how good home brew kits are now can lead to people taking the hobby up as i did.

.

 

[GDog]

done, and donated/lent plenty of kit and now have x3 very active homebrewers which I am to blame for.

@richytrue, @Ryano , and my next door neighbour.

 

[Cwrw666]

Well, I've got one of my daughters homebrewing - beer and wine. And after sampling some of my own produce a friend who just happens to be the local curate is about to get started.

 

[Clint]

My mate is interested...but only of the coming round here and drinking it for free...another who can't be arsed! I'm ordering a mash tun and a couple of 33 litre boilers for my next block off so I can do ag properly and have invited him round for a late afternoon brew day with drinks to see if I can sway him....

 

[MickDundee]

I have a friend whose grandad was quite a "big name" in Scottish himebrewing in the80s (released 3 books, had contacts in the major Scottish Brewers, then in the 00s helped a local microbrewery out with techniques and recipea) and he's been around for a brewday and is always interested in my beers. But he has 2 small kids (same as I do) and has other time consuming hobbies (like hillwalking) so doesn't think he has time to take up brewing as well. It's good to have a friend who takes an interest in more than just the beer though and I'm not bothered that he hasn't started brewing himself.

 

[Dexter101]

For me, my friend got into homebrewing abd then i gave him a hand and then we did some joint brews. He now works in the states for a brewery and i am now going it alone. It does happen, just requires the other person to be interested... people now a days have less time but more money for hobbies so generalising but people seem to want to spend more on a hobby that fits in around their lifestyle... not brewing a beer for half a day and then staring at it for the next 6 weeks (or is that just me...)

 

[Ajhutch]

I've got plenty of mates who are into good beer and who I can talk about brewing too and they at least pretend to be interested. They've mostly tried my beer as well and spoken positively of it. Some of them have had gear and done kits as well. Never got anyone round for a brewday though, it present seem to appeal to that many people which is a shame because I can see a brew day being a really sociable thing to do.

 

[Clint]

Yeah..I agree! By chance I've managed to find out a chap in the metal detecting club is a home brewer doing kits but is keen to go to part mash or ag..so I've invited him along as he's genuinely interested.
I can see the only stickler for non brewers on more than a kit knock up would be the time element.

 

[Ali]

Yeah..I agree! By chance I've managed to find out a chap in the metal detecting club is a home brewer doing kits but is keen to go to part mash or ag..so I've invited him along as he's genuinely interested.
I can see the only stickler for non brewers on more than a kit knock up would be the time element.

I think you are right, the time element is a turn off for some people. However, I think that with the quality of the kits available nowadays, good results are quite easy to come by. After a few successful kits, most want to progress to extract, and/or AG (probably how most of us on here arrived at AG!). Once the 'bug' has bitten,and with some good results in the bag, people are less likely to be put off by the timescale.

As for maturing the beer, not much can be done about that.

In the seventies, when Tom Caxton home brew kits were quite heavily advertised on TV, my gran got me to brew her some (I wasn't even a teenager at the time!). I remember following the instructions meticulously, went up a week later to bottle them for her, only to find that she'd drank it already! When I told her it wasn't ready, she shrugged her shoulders and said "well it didn't taste too bad". I never did put any into bottle for her on that or any subsequent brews!

 

[strange-steve]

I had a few mates who started brewing kits a few years back and they were the ones who got me interested in brewing. I did a couple of kits and then started doing AG, so I kept inviting them round for a brew day despite them telling me they were more than happy to continue with kits, but eventually they came over and now all three of them brew AG.

I tried the same with two other mates at different times, one of whom came over when I was doing a HERMS brew and I think I really put him off trying AG, even though I tried to explain how it is much more simple than my bumbling efforts make it look. The other mate was just bored throughout, perhaps my explanations of enzyme activity at various temperatures and pHs isn't as interesting as I thought :lol:

Ah well, you can't win em all.

 

[wfr42]

I thought it would be great to do a kit while the mash/boil was on to show there are options.

I donated some kit that came, with the mini kegs I sold on to mickdundee, to a friend who has done a couple of kits but again young family and work have hindered his progress.