Need a beer kit recommendation

[Joe Turner]

Good afternoon,

I’m currently at university and have since developed an interest in brewing beer. My first attempt failed miserably but after a trip to a local brewery I discovered why and my second attempt worked better.

My first attempt was with the Young’s brewbuddy starter lager kit which for multiple reasons failed and I ended up chucking it.

My second attempt was with the Woodfords headcracker kit and after correcting my previous mistakes came out a lot better.

I am now looking into doing another attempt and hence I’m after recommendations for a beer kit to use. I am normally into lager or pale ales but I will happily drink most types of beer.

I will also considering using barley and hops from scratch instead of a kit like I have been, if that works better?

Thank you.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

There are a lot of reviews in the two links in the thread below some of the links in the original do not work (that is being worked on) if you find something you like the sound of and the link no longer works ask for a review in the beer kit brewing forum

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/beer-kit-reviews-a-z-part-1-2.77648/

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[MyQul]

If you want to make beer from the scratch this thread will start you off. Its a long thread but the first post is all you need. The rest of the thread is comment and questions

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/have-a-go-at-simple-ag.51779/

Being a student, you may be interested to know that AG brewing is much cheaper than brewing from a kit, roughly half as cheap (in a similar way to cooking from scratch is cheaper than a ready meal - your paying for someone to do most of the work for you)

Oh, and welcome to the forum

 

[Hoddy]

But if you really do want to knock up a really good kit beer you cannot go wrong with festival golden stag [emoji1303]

And welcome aboard. You know there’s no escape right?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Nicks90]

You can make some spectacular beers from kits, try the australian Cooper's kits. There is a whole forum dedicated to how to tweak them according to your taste. You can get hops in little teabags to help you tweak simple 20l batches very cheaply.
I have had great success with their pale ale and a couple of dry hop tea bags.
Done 3 so far, each time with different hops and all have been very different in character

 

[OlsBean]

If the price point is not a concern then I would recommend one of the Young's Premium Kits, personally I like their American Indian Pale Ale which I have made twice now, the reason I would recommend this is that I think it's quite a forgiving kit, I've managed to reach above the predicted attenuation each time and I am far from an experienced brewer, one of the reasons I think is that it ships with a whopping 15g of yeast, the kit also contains all the ingredients you need, including the priming sugar. There is quite a long thread and review about this kit in the Beer Kit Forum.

 

[GhostShip]

I would second the Young's AIPA. May look expensive compared to some other kits, but at around 60p per pint, I really wouldn't worry too much.

Everything you need (apart from the water!) is in the kit and the end result is fantastic. I'm going to do it again as my next kit and I would love to find anther kit that I like as much.

 

[Llamaman]

Festival Razorback IPA has good reviews.
I did it as my first kit - took a while to condition out the 'twang' but is drinking nicely now.

Coopers Stout also has a cult following. I'm drinking one as I type this - I think it needs bit more conditioning before I can give it a glowing endorsement but it has promise.