I can’t quite believe it, but I’ve been brewing for 10 years now! At the start of my journey, I brewed my first beer using a Brooklyn Brew Shop kit. It was a BrewDog Punk IPA clone and I had very high hopes for it. i’d love to say it was a great success, but it really sucked 😂.
But instead of putting me off, it did the exact opposite. Brewing a decent beer became a challenge that I had to solve. I kept brewing batch after batch, slowly fixing things until I finally made something good enough to share with other people. Once that happened, I was hooked.
In the early days, I became obsessed with brewing the perfect hazy IPA – or NEIPA, as everyone seemed to call them at the time. I tried different hops, recipes and techniques, always chasing that soft, juicy pint.
These days, my tastes have changed quite a bit. I still enjoy a good IPA, but I find myself brewing more classic styles such as Saisons, Belgian beers and Pilsners. There is something satisfying about taking a style that has been brewed for generations and trying to get the small details right. I also really enjoy using local ingredients to make these beers such as foraged Elderflower or even hedgerow blackberries.
After almost ten years of homebrewing, these are the lessons that have made the biggest difference to my beer.
Temperature control changed everything
If I could give a new homebrewer one piece of advice, it would be to pay attention to fermentation temperature. For a long time, my beers just weren’t turning out consistently. Some were drinkable, some were disappointing and I never really knew which version I was going to get.
Once I started focusing on temperature control, things began to improve. You can spend hours adjusting a recipe, choosing expensive hops or worrying about water chemistry, but the yeast still needs the right conditions to do its job. Keeping the fermentation temperature steady gave me much more predictable results.
Before buying another shiny brewing gadget, work out how you are going to control the temperature of your fermentation. It might not be the most exciting upgrade, but it can make a huge difference. These days I use a Grainfather Conical Fermenter and a glycol chiller, but in the early days I put together something using an old fridge and an Inkbird controller.
Write everything down
The next lesson is to be methodical.
When a beer turns out brilliantly, you want to know exactly what you did. When it tastes awful, you need the same information for a very different reason! There is a reason pro brewers are so consistent.
I use Brewfather to manage my recipes and keep track of each batch. It lets me record what happened during the brew, make small adjustments and compare the result with previous versions. Over time, those notes become incredibly useful because you can stop guessing and start spotting patterns.
I’ve also connected a Tilt Hydrometer to Brewfather using a Raspberry Pi. This automatically logs fermentation readings, which means I can see how a batch is progressing without opening the fermenter or trying to remember what happened several weeks later. I wrote about setting up a Tilt Pi with Brewfather if you’d like to try something similar.
You don’t have to use brewing software, but you should use something. A notebook is still better than trusting yourself to remember why a beer you brewed three months ago tasted different.
Start simple, then upgrade properly
You don’t need an expensive brewing system to make your first beer. I started with a five-litre Brooklyn Brew Shop kit, and that was enough to get me hooked.
Starting small gives you a chance to learn the process and decide whether homebrewing is something you actually enjoy. There is no point buying a brewery’s worth of equipment before you have even cleaned your first fermenter.
However, once I knew I was committed to the hobby, I wish I had been more careful about how I upgraded.
Over the years, I bought cheaper versions of equipment because I was trying to save money. Quite often, I eventually replaced them with the more expensive version that I should probably have bought in the first place.
These days, I use a Grainfather G30 brewing system with a GF30 Conical Fermenter. It wasn’t the cheapest setup, but it has already lasted me for years. Looking back, buying dependable equipment once would have saved me money compared with slowly working through several cheaper alternatives.
Start with simple equipment. When you know you’re ready to upgrade, take your time, read plenty of reviews and buy something that you won’t immediately outgrow.
Don’t feel that you have to chase every brewing fad
I love trying new brewing technology and ingredients. If there is a new hop product, gadget or magic powder that promises to improve my beer, I immediately want to know more about it. I’m looking at you, Brewtan B.
Experimenting is one of the best things about homebrewing, but it is also very easy to convince yourself that every new product is the missing piece of your process.
It usually isn’t – I spent years chasing the perfect hazy IPA and trying the latest ingredients. These days, I am much more interested in brewing classic Saisons, Belgian beers and Pilsners. Those styles have stuck around for a reason, and they leave fewer places for mistakes to hide.
Try the new stuff if it sounds fun, but don’t assume that newer automatically means better. Sometimes the biggest improvement comes from brewing the same recipe again and getting the basics right.
Never stop learning
One of the things I love about homebrewing is that there is always something new to learn.
Even after years of brewing, I still watch videos, listen to podcasts, read magazines and experiment with new techniques. In 2021, I even studied for and passed the General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling. The course pushed my brewing knowledge much further than I expected, particularly because it covers the theory used in commercial brewing.
If you’re looking for useful homebrewing videos, these are good places to start:
- David Heath Homebrew – detailed videos about recipe design, brewing techniques and equipment.
- The Apartment Brewer – grain-to-glass videos covering a wide range of beer styles, recipes and techniques.
- Clawhammer Supply – practical and entertaining videos about all-grain brewing, equipment and unusual recipes.
For podcasts, the Craft Beer & Brewing Podcast is one of my favourites. It has a huge archive of interviews with professional brewers covering recipes, fermentation, ingredients and brewing techniques. I also enjoy the Quality-Focused Pro Brewers Podcast from Rockstar Brewer Academy. It is aimed more towards professional brewing, but there is plenty that an experienced homebrewer can take from it.
Magazines are worth reading too. I’ve subscribed to Craft Beer & Brewing in the past and found it a great way to discover techniques, ingredients and beer styles that I might not otherwise have come across.
The important thing is to stay curious. You don’t need to copy every technique you see, but there is always something useful to take away.
Mistakes are part of it
I’ve been fairly lucky and haven’t had too many completely disastrous brew days. There have definitely been some silly mistakes, though.
One that sticks in my mind is leaving a tap open and watching my hot wort drain all over the floor. There aren’t many feelings quite like realising that the beer you have spent hours making is disappearing before your eyes!
At the time, it was painful. Now, it is just another brewing story – and a reminder to check every tap before transferring anything.
After ten years, I still make mistakes and I still learn something from almost every batch. The difference is that I now have more confidence in my process and a much better idea of where to look when something goes wrong.
My first beer may have sucked, but I’m glad it did. It gave me a challenge that I wanted to solve, and that challenge turned into a hobby that I still absolutely love.
Happy Brewing and here’s to another 10 years 🍻
