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A Brief History of Homebrew
Brewing at home has been popular for a lot longer than you may think.
All the way back in the 11th Century women were brewing beer at home around their usual daily chores, and then selling it to her husband's friends and acquaintances - the origin of the pub.
But even long long long before that, fruits kept in jars naturally fermented and there is even evidence that something akin to beer was being brewed over 10,000 years ago.
You might remember back to your Mum and Dads medley of multi coloured demi-johns of wine on the sideboard, or Grandads keg of real ale down in the shed where he would enjoy a Saturday afternoon "gardening". In reality listening to the football on the radio and enjoy a few pints of homebrew beer!
Well, beer and wine have been made in Britain's homes since long before the 1970's Good Life craze of Rhubarb Wine.
Although the ease at which you could buy kits and equipment from places like Boots (the chemist), along with the added help of a recession and a 3 day week made brewing your own beer and wine at home for a fraction of the cost you could buy it for extremely popular.
Unfortunately, 2023 looks like it is shaping up to be a similar scenario.
Homebrew in the 2020's
Brewing your own wine and beer at home has been ticking over ever since with a hardcore base of homebrew fans across the UK making their own beer and wine from kits, resulting in something very close to Pub beers, and even closer to Supermarket wine for a fraction of the price.
But technology has been moving forward in the 21st century, and the techniques used to make the kits has moved on at a pace since the early days, and we now have amazing wines and beers that are easy to make and taste like very real beer and real wine!
During the first Covid lockdown in 2020, the manufacture of major brands of beer and wine slowed due to staff absence, transportation issues and social distancing regulations, which meant homebrew had a sudden resurgence and has been growing in popularity.
This was partly due to the fact that the people that started it in lockdown realised how easy homebrew is to make and how good it tasted for very little effort. And partly due to the current cost of living pinching everyone's pockets.
A Brief History of Brewbitz
We've been brewing for years, so we know a thing or 2 about the processes and that things that can go wrong and how to make sure you can brew the best wine and beer possible.
Every now and then, even we experience a hiccup when brewing. We are dealing with a living creature and sometimes, they don't do what you expect.
We also spent 5 years running a craft beer bar in Bath with over 500 different beers that constantly changed. Craft breweries rarely made the same beer twice, so in the 5 years we had our bar we sold over 6000 different beers.
We worked closely with the breweries so we knew what made each beer different, what ingredients they used, and the new techniques they were using to brew the beer and infuse them with amazing flavours.
Davin would talk with the brewers and local scientists and biologists from the University of Bath to work out what was happening, why it was happening and how we could incorporate this in to simple videos and guides, so you can make the best beer (and wine, and cider, and lager) in the comfort of your own home.
When brewing at home, you can make it as simple of as complicated as you wish. You can use our testing kits to work out the minerals and pH of your water if you so wish, or you can just go for it with the water out of your tap. The beauty of homebrew, it's just like baking. There is science involved, but if you don't like an ingredient, you can just swap it for another. And you can experiment. All you need to know are a few simple rules and then you are off, you are brewing.
Brewbitz YouTube Video Channel
We started making homebrew videos to help everyone out there in the world learn just how easy it is to brew at home, our YouTube channel has been very popular and people are always waiting for our next video to be published.
So make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and have a look around for inspiration and see what brew you can make at home.
Use the links above and below to take you to our sections for
- Winemaking video's
- Beer Making video's
- How to make Cider
- Spirits & Infusions video guides
- brewing techniques video guides
As always, if you have any brewing questions, just ask us. Our advice is always free.
We would love you to make a purchase from our site, but if that's not possible, then we do have some short adverts on our videos which help pay for our costs of making the videos and giving our free advice.
Thanks for reading and watching.
Cheers, happy brewing and remember to drink responsibly.