New to brewing, advice appreciated

[Wetthewhistle]

Hi i have increasingly become annoyed at the poor quality of supermarket purchased beer. My favourite beer is Old speckled hen, but lately it is hit and miss. Sometimes really bitter and i cant stand it. Searching on google i see you can get clone recipes.....Could you please advise me on what equipment and recipe i should use to get an old speckled hen style brew, baring in mind i am a complete beginner. Cheers

 

[foxy]

Not as simple as going out buying the gear and start making 'Old Speckled Hen' a lot of reading and learning to do. I don't know if you can buy fresh wort kits of OSH but that would be the easiest place to start, while reading and understanding the process of brewing beer.

 

[woody1959]

If only it were that simple.

I thought about doing this but when I properly researched it I realised it was actually going to be very expensive and time consuming and with no guarantee about the final product.

As you are a noob, here's my suggestion, get a fermentation kit from ebay or amazon, around £80 for good basic one that has everything you need to start your first brew then try the Coopers Real Ale beer kit.

It's not going to be "Old Speckled Hen" but it's easy to brew, very hard to screw up and it produces a decent ale which can happily be imbibed at room temperature.

 

[terrym]

I agree. You don't just buy some brewing equipment, buy a box of ingredients to a clone recipe and immediately make an exact copy of a commercial beer. In my experience its very difficult to make an exact copy there are too many variables that mitigate against it.
But if you want to start brewing read this and then have a go with a few kits to start with
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...de-to-brewing-your-own-beer-from-a-kit.57526/
Then when you have done a few you can decide if homebrewing is for you and then how you want to proceed.
At first you won't make anything like OSH, unless by accident, but at least you will learn along the way and have some fun brewing.
And in any case you may find that the beers you brew widen your palate and OSH becomes a thing of the past.