"If you brew an absolute belter it is really popular and people come round"
A BLOKE sick of the rising cost of beer turned to home brewing – and has saved nearly £3,000 in just three years.
It comes as the average cost of a pint of beer topped £4 for the first time, with prices in the capital soaring to almost a fiver.
Chris Banks was driven to the practice when his local hiked prices to £6 for a single glass of lager.
The 43-year-old now reckons he spends less than one pound on each pint, knocking back at least 528 since he first started brewing in 2019.
After spending around £700 on equipment over lockdown, he has already made his money back and is quids in on every glass.
He has saved nearly £1,000 a year since switching to brewing at home – £2,850 over three years.
Credit: Triangle News
Chris, a geologist, said he even prefers the taste of the home-brewed liquor to anything he can get in his home-town village of Bothwell, Glasgow.
He said: “The actual cost of the beer through the kit is cheaper than to go down the pub.
“Especially as it is now about £6 a pint.
“I have made my money back and have now got to the point where I prefer my own beer to a lot of what I can get in the village.”
A classic bitter can be brewed at £25 for 23 litres – working out at more than 40 pints.
This means that you can brew your own beer for about 60p a pint.
Chris claims he can even clone his favourite beers, emulating the taste, smell and texture of much-loved ales like Sierra Nevada and BrewDog.
Chris said that he saves £5.40 on each pint of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale when he brews it himself.
He explained: “If you brew an absolute belter it is really popular and people come round.
“If you get the barbecue fired up, and get the beers in, you get everyone round.
“When you get it right it is so good. Last year when the sun was right, we just sat in the garden and drank out of the keg which was brilliant.”
Credit: Triangle News
Home brewing beer can be done even cheaper if you get syrup kits, which are sold in Wilko for just £15 – making pints just 36p each.
He even cut his own tap room into the wall of his shed – which he called “The Spaniel and Stratigrapher” after himself – he studies rock layers – and his dog.
Chris is now determined to rebuild this inside after moving house.
But some of his brews have put newly-married Chris in the doghouse with his wife, especially after one brew left green slime from the hops running down the back of her newly cleaned kitchen cupboards.
While he tends to brew while Louise, 32, is away from the weekend, she is not a fan of the condensation his machines kick out but is supportive of his hobby.
But he warned that if you have high tastes you will have to cough up for the best kits and each brew can take five hours.
Chris warned: “If you want to brew really top quality beer that takes a little bit more investment in equipment and time to skill up.
“And once you start you can’t interrupt it – you’ve got to have that block of time to focus and it’s got to be ultra-hygienic.
“But I enjoy it, and I can’t see a time when I am not doing it.”
Chris started home brewing ten years ago when he lived in Canada, where the beer was “terrible” and the -30C degree weather put him off dashing to the pub.
He later moved back to Scotland, the home of BrewDog, and a haven for home brewers.
His kit has expanded so much he can now store up to 170 pints at a time.
But the brewer’s journey to success has led him to make some “stinkers” – he once made a jalapeno IPA that was like “drinking heartburn”.
This did not stop him delving into wacky flavours – recently brewing a Biscoff flavoured beer that ended up tasting of plums.
Over the pandemic, he invested in equipment and tried to perfect his process.
Chris said: “We weren’t spending money over lockdown so I started spending it on brewing equipment.
“But you could get through it with a couple of plastic buckets and a cooler.”
But once you have invested, he says, you have draught quality beer straight from your shed.
And experts are pushing the move to home-made cold ones amid the cost of living crisis, too.
Cuan Saunders, who works for Northern Irish home and microbrewery supplier Get ‘Er Brewed, calculated that you can produce a pint for as little as 32p.
And everyone at his company comes together, bringing in their own home-made beers and sharing them at work.
But he said there are even better bargains in making wine.
Cuan, 41, said: “There are huge savings to be made. A bottle of wine can cost you £10, when you can make one for under £1.
“But if you are looking for a unique, good quality beer that is affordable, home brewing is definitely the way to go.”
Expat Phil Hawes, who runs the how-to website BeerCreation.com, has converted an old freezer to help him make beer.
He moved from Canterbury, Kent, to Taiwan in 2017 – but was horrified by the astronomical price of his favourite trendy beers.
He has worked out that he can brew a pint for just 49p – just 6 per cent of the astronomical £8 cost where he now lives in the Asian country’s capital Taipei City.
Phil, 37, said: “The best option for people wanting to get cheaper beer is to get in contact with your local home brew club.
“Get in touch with them and try it out. Get chummy with someone and say that you will buy the ingredients if you can borrow their equipment.”
But some home brewers are not so convinced, saying that they spend so much on equipment that it has become an astronomically expensive hobby.
Credit: Triangle News
One, called Joshua, joked: “When it comes to money spent homebrewing drains the coffers quicker than heroine, hookers, gambling or cars!”
Another, called Matthew, laughed: “No way am I admitting how much I’ve spent on this ‘hobby’ – she would kill me!”
A third, called Taylor, admitted to spending as much as £2,000 over two years.
He said: “I don’t homebrew to save money – I do it because I love it and you get to meet fantastic people.”
Iwan is a reporter who trained at News Associates after leaving the University of York, where he won national awards for student journalism. He reads the Sun, the Mirror and the Times and is happiest reading society-breaking exclusives alongside stories about quirky, community led campaigns
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