Homebrewing is a wonderful and rewarding hobby.  With the proper equipment and  good quality ingredients, the homebrewer can make any style of beer--from the lightest lagers and ales to the heaviest imperial stouts and barleywines.   Let’s start with the equipment.  We recommend that new brewers purchase our Deluxe Equipment Kit that sells for $75.00.  This kit includes all the basic hardware to get you going with the exclusion of a boiling pot and bottles.  The equipment kit includes the following: 6.5 gallon primary fermenter with drilled and grommeted lid. 6.5 gallon bottling bucket with spigot 5 gallon glass carboy (secondary fermenter) Beginning book Easy clean no-rinse cleanser Twin lever bottle capper Triple scale hydrometer Airlock Drilled universal carboy bung Thermometer strip Siphon hose & shutoff clamp Auto-siphon Bottle filler Bottle brush Equipment Instructions You will need a boiling pot (at least 20 qt, 5 gallons) which you will use to boil the raw ingredients to make you beer.  The pot can be of any material but stainless steel is preferred because of its durability. You have the option of either using new bottles or used, commercial bottles that do not have screw-on caps.  We carry a large inventory of 12oz and 22oz amber beer bottles as well as EZ-cap bottles (Grolsch style bottles) that come with swing caps.  A 5 gallon batch of beer will produce approximately forty eight 12oz bottles. We urge new brewers to use our Brewer’s Best ingredients kits for at least their first batch.  These ingredient kits come in a wide variety of styles and are high quality and simple to use.  After the first batch, the brewer has the option of continuing to use these kits or to formulate (with our help) their own recipes. While the equipment kit comes with a beginning book,  we carry a number of good books for the brewer who wants a broader foundation of brewing knowledge.  For this, we highly recommend “How To Brew” by John Palmer. The actual brewing process, from start to finish, will take about two hours.  Fermentation (both primary and secondary) will last from 7--14 days for ales, depending on style.  Desired fermentation temperatures for ales are from 65--75.degrees.  Lagers take considerably longer to ferment and need temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s.  Because lagers need extra equipment (such as a refrigerator) and additional technical knowledge, we recommend that new brewers begin with ales.   After the beer is done fermenting it needs to be “primed” before you bottle.  Priming is the procedure of giving the “flat” beer a dose of  extra fermentables (malt extract or corn sugar) which the yeast will ferment in the capped bottles, thus producing the carbonation. After the beer is bottled, it will take between 7-14 days to carbonate and condition.  Since the beer is, in effect, going through another slight fermentation, it is important that the 65--75 temperature range be maintained during this process.   If the bottled beer is kept I an environment that is too cool, carbonation might not occur. We encourage anyone who is interested in getting involved in this wonderful hobby to stop in.  We are always happy to talk about brewing.