Are beer kits any good?

Question

I started my first homebrew a few days ago. I used a John Bull India Pale Ale beer kit made by Young's (West Midlands, UK). The airlock is bubbling away merrily and I've taken the lid off the fermenter and had a sniff - got a huge fizzy hit in the nose (won't get so close next time!) and can detect a general beery smell so hopefully all will be well.

Anyway, I was wondering what sort of result I might expect as a newbie from a beer kit (assuming no silly mistakes)? I'm not expecting to win any awards, but on the other hand, it's going to be a waste of effort if it's undrinkable.

TL;DR - Can a newbie make something drinkable or is it going to take years of experience?

UPDATE: Thanks for answers so far. Sounds like it could be better than I was hoping it might be! I'll come back and update once it's done and let you know how I got on.

Some extra info: The kit cost £10 and included yeast (in a sachet). The instructions were to tip the canned malt-extract into a brewing bin, add 1kg of sugar and add 4 litres of boiling water, so I didn't need much special equipment. Stir and top-up to 23 litres with cold water.

So, ingredients cost £11.

Equipment (so far):

• £15 - Brew bin
• £2 - Bung and airlock
• £3 - hydrometer
• £3 - trial jar
• £3 - Bruclens steriliser (sanitizer)

UPDATE 2: Wow - it came out better than I expected, but pretty much in line with the opinions expressed here - that is, I don't think it was award-winning, but it was certainly very drinkable (all gone now!) I've paid money in pubs for stuff that wasn't as nice. I've got a second kit on the go now - will probably stick to kits initially, but will be back here for advice/info when I want to progress from there. Thanks for the answers and encouragement.

Answer 1

You can make beer from kits that are better than just drinkable as a newbie.

Especially, when you continue to consult websites like this and others to get research and questions answered about how to do this or do that.

For the newbie using a kit their are two areas to focus on that will give you great beer.

1. Sanitation. You hear it over and over because its true. You have no hope of making decent beer, even drinkable beer, if your sanitation isn't solid. That said sanitation is an easy step in the process. Just soak all your equipment that comes into contact with the beer for the required amount of time (depending on sanitizer of choice) and your good to go. I prefer no rinse sanitizers like Star-San.
2. Fermentation management. The yeast does all the important work in the brewing process. When working with kits all you are doing is boiling ingredients essentially (and #1 Sanitation). So if you focus on providing great yeast and work to have steady and dependable fermentation temperatures great beer is almost a guarantee. For a newbie, you don't need to dive right into yeast starters first thing. For the first couple batches be sure to rehydrate dry yeast in water prior to pitching (water should be sanitary remember). Or pitch the freshest tube of liquid yeast you can. Once you are comfortable with doing those steps, maybe a starter culture is in your future. And you WILL notice the difference. For temp control its a little more tricky. An old fridge is best, but a swamp cooler works pretty well too as a cheaper alternative. A swamp cooler may not be good as maintaining a set temperature, but it is pretty good at maintaining a stable temperature (which is often just as important).

Kit brewing is fun and easy. Follow those two steps and keep researching them and you'll make really good beer. I bet that first batch will be great even without having read this.

Answer 2

You can brew a great batch of beer using tips that Brewchez mentions in his response.

The only thing I'd mention about the John Bull kits, is that it's a "hopped extract", meaning the hop additions are already included in the syrup. If you try other (usually more expensive) ingredient kits, you'll generally find that you'll get unhopped extract with hops to add to the boil.

Using the John Bull kit, you'll get a decent batch, but you can have much more control over the final outcome (and the recipe itself) by using unhopped extracts and adding your own hops. It can be a lot of fun to play around with different types of hops and when to add them.

Ingredient kits can in fact turn into "award-winning" beers if your process and sanitation are good, so I have to disagree with Tetragrammaton on that. Ingredient kits are a great learning tool for new homebrewers because the recipes can show you what goes into each style of beer. After you learn what you need to, you can start creating your own recipes based on your experiences with ingredient kits.

Answer 3

It's not the kits that suck, it's the instructions.

Modern kits contain ingredients of MUCH higher quality than homebrewers used to have to deal with. If you buy your kit from a shop that has high turnover (morebeer and northernbrewer are pretty safe bets, I'd think) than you don't risk getting old extract.

That being said - the instructions (and advice you will get from many homebrew shop owners) are not the way to make the best beer. They oversimplify the instructions so they don't scare off the newcomers to the hobby. If you follow the instructions, you'll probably make good beer, but if you do a little research and modify the instructions to your liking, you can make GREAT beer from a kit.

Not to self-promote, but I have an article on my site @ http://www.lootcorp.com/2008/05/22/five-things-which-made-me-a-better-brewer/ which details some steps I took which made a big difference in the quality of my beer. As brewchez mentioned, fermentation and temp control are HUGE. Making yeast starters helps a lot too. And even if you don't go all grain, it is simple to get a kit with some specialty grains to add some depth of flavor - you simply steep these in your brewing liquor (hot water to non-brewers) while you are heating it up - just be careful to stay below 165*F or so when steeping or you can extract astringency from the grain.

Answer 4

I cannot express any opinion about this brand, having only tried munton's and brewferm beer kits, but, as far as I may know from those, beer from kits is not, as you already guessed, an award-winning beer, but it's certainly much better than any commercial bottled beer you may have tried! So relax, you'll enjoy all your batches starting from the first one! ;)