UK Homebrewing Magazine?

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Just found this.

In Yachting World they used to have a section years ago where people wrote up their most significant mistakes, and the lessons learned from them. ( Assuming survival, of course - many mistakes in yachting involve non-survival. Look at Captain Cook!)

So a section like that would be useful and potentially amusing, too.

Also, there are modern push-the-boundary beers, and there are traditional make-the-best-you-can beers. I love both, and would love to learn about both.

Vorlauf Apocalypse!!
 
Just found this.

In Yachting World they used to have a section years ago where people wrote up their most significant mistakes, and the lessons learned from them. ( Assuming survival, of course - many mistakes in yachting involve non-survival. Look at Captain Cook!)

So a section like that would be useful and potentially amusing, too.

Also, there are modern push-the-boundary beers, and there are traditional make-the-best-you-can beers. I love both, and would love to learn about both.

Vorlauf Apocalypse!!

Good idea! I'm sure there are many a comedy mishap that would be worth putting in :doh:
 
I edited the Bagpipe Society's quarterly magazine for 9 years. Had a lot of fun doing it too but by the end it was a bit of a millstone round my neck. Finished with that about 3 years ago and glad to say I'm fully recovered now.:lol:
 
Can't help but think the various forums have this market covered... I come here for most things or use reference books.

I was thinking a TV show a la masterchef etc but with beer might sell. Like bake off for blokes (and ladies into their beer). Obviously the time scales would be different but it would be cool have some expert judges (plus me obviously) decide which beer was the best. As progress happens bring in different styles so it must be a pale single hop etc.

You know you'd watch it.
 
My friend left his bagpipes on the back seat of his car when he nipped into the supermarket. He came back to the car to find that someone had smashed the rear window and put another set of bagpipes in the car.

Laughing way too much at this... :lol:
 
What would you call it - Wish You Were Beer?

Masters of the Brewniverse?

A catchy name is what I am missing really... that and any experience in the TV industry and time to even try and make it work.

I suppose I'd need willing contestants and judges to make a pilot episode. Think the lag time of months between beer creation and completion would be troublesome too.

Guess you'd film people brewing, talk recipes, temps and boil times. Bit of Brew science to tie it all together the more I write about it the more I convince myself it is an ace idea.
 
Can't help but think the various forums have this market covered... I come here for most things or use reference books.

Some of the ideas on the page make me rethink that a little.

A brew of the month recipe with backing from suppliers might be cool.... you advertise and review a recipe, sometimes beefed up kit, sometimes extract, sometimes AG and the suppliers/sponsors sell it as a "kit" on offer. Might boost their sales.
 
I've been meaning to write a post pitching the idea of some kind of Homebrew forum recipe book but this sounds much more exciting. I'd be happy to contribute in any way I can. I'm a musician so I could write us a theme tune :lol:
 
TV copyright is so minimal that a minor change in format is a different show. Though you've no worries of me making a TV show. I have little enough time to make beer!
 
I'm new in this forum. I have been looking for a UK home-brew magazine a la BYO. Found this thread. How is everything going. Do you still have any plans for an online magazine?
 
Having worked as a magazine editor and in magazine publishing for nearly 40 years (and having brewed for the same amount of time; come to your own conclusions), I can vouch for the fact that any low readership specialised magazine is both 100 per cent possible and 100 per cent viable. Having looked over this thread for the first time, I thought it was inevitable that it wouldn't happen, because the thinking started in the wrong place.

The first step is a simple one: how can you monetise the product? The reality is this: nothing can be done for free (well, nothing worthwhile anyway). There will always be costs and whilst these might seem small, it's amazing how quickly a project will curl up and die if you're scratching around for pennies all the time. That said, it's a question of picking the right model.

There are a lot of ways to go: the medium selected will always impact on potential revenue yield, but other considerations include whether the product will be controlled circulation (free to qualifying indiviuals and funded by earned revenues), paid for on subscription or a mix of both. These can be equally applied to print or digital editions. Companies will support any vehicle which offers the right value proposition.

Getting onto the shelves in CTN retailers will be a no-no; you need a deal with a company like Comag and mass appeal. If you can't outsell motoring, lifestyle, electronics, sport and porn mags, why would they give you shelf space. Admittedly you do see more specialised mags in geograpical divides (such as hunting mags in the countryside) but the homebrew space isn't really influenced by location. Unless we could produce empirical evidence to the contrary, that's the first model I would forget.

Digital publishing does have some additional benefits in that it can support multimedia, but the real question is what does a digital magazine offer over forums, websites, youtube, blogs and numerous other vehicles aside from the ability to 'push' the whole thing to the reader? It would have to deliver something unique. The costs of digital can be low (well, lower) but equally returns can be lowered until you build a significant following.

Print attracts the highest returns in terms of revenue, but is more costly and time consuming. However, if you have something that appeals to readers of all shapes and sizes, it's possible; I work on one magazine that is actually growing as a printed publication rather than on-line because it offers information you simply cannot get elsewhere. Therefore, readers need that information to help purchasing decisions, so advertisers want to be there, in front of people who are about to buy! The downside of print is often start-up costs; getting good credit terms from printers and paper merchants ain't easy if you're new, and bringing in revenues from advertisers typically takes 90-120 days! Then there's postage. The Post Office doesn't do anything to help.

So, before you look at names or getting free kits to review, there's the small matter of how you're going to make the thing run.

Still, if anyone is really interested in an uphill battle...
 

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