iBrew – Is Homebrew The Future? | This Little Lady Went To London

As The Gent, my job here is to get involved with all things for the modern man, and that means I’m pretty much up for anything. But when I got offered the iBrew kit to review, it was something I’d never considered before. Here was an opportunity to brew my own lager at home, 20 pints initially, and with the World Cup, the worlds biggest sporting event, happening at the very same time. So I decided I would face this head on. After all, I love lager, and the iBrew kit guarentees “100% natural ingredients, 100% taste satisfaction, 100% fun”, so what could go wrong?

I’ve decided to do this blog in two parts, the pre-World Cup build up of getting the lager on the go, then in a few weeks time as the tournament reaches its end I’ll update you with just how well my ‘Gent Stripe’ (as I’m calling it) turned out.

Now if I’m going to go to the pub, unless there’s an old bottle of Sailor Jerry on offer you’ll see me heading straight for the pumps and ordering a pint. I’m not affiliated to a particular brand, I’ll mix and match and take what’s on offer. From Red Stripe to Becks, from Carling to Stella Artois, and from Fosters to Carlsberg, I’ll drink any of them and more. Especially during the recent hot weather, there’s nothing more refreshing than a smooth pint under the sun. It’s the main thing I envy about the Australians. So I was a little nervous when a massive white plastic tub turned up at my home, and then on emptying it I was confronted by a surprisingly small amount of kit.

The tub that everything comes in is actually the fermenter. Also included in the kit are two 10-pint dispenser bottles and caps, two 20 pint homebrew mixes at 4% strength, a carbonator/tap, a siphon tube, some carbon gas bulbs, a stirrer and a packet of steriliser/cleaner and two packets of yeast. The instructions are brief and simple and to get to where I am now, with 20 litres fermenting in my kitchen, it takes only five easy steps. I’m not going to go through every step here, but let me tell you it really doesn’t take that long (I spent about an hour doing this first part, and that included 15 minutes trying to open the can of homebrew mix because I have the worst can opener in the world).

To summarise, you clean everything with the steriliser, pour the homebrew mix into the fermenter, pour a kettle’s worth of hot water in, give it a good stir, add enough cold tap water to make it to 20 pints, sprinkle some yeast onto the top and loosely put the lid on. For seven days. That’s it! It really is that simple! I was amazed, I’d thought it would take hours to get it ready, but the process is so simple. If you’re struggling, you can go to ibrew.co.uk where you’ll be able to watch a useful three minute video to put you back on track. They even have an offer right now where if you and your mates buy two homebrew kits, you’ll each get an extra tin of homebrew, thus meaning between the two kits you can make a total of 120 pints! That’ll see you through the World Cup and the first half of the Premiership season! Well, at least until the Charity Shield if you take into account the BBQs, the poker nights and casual home drinking.

At £64.99 it is a real steal, as the unit comes fully prepared to make 40 pints of lager. That’s £1.62 a pint. You can’t even go to most student unions for those sort of prices. And with an extra 20 pints mix costing just £9.99, it really is a great value way to make your own lager. With kits available where you can also make bitter and stout, there is an iBrew for everyone. But what it will all come down to is what it tastes like. To find out, you’ll have to check out part two of the blog in three weeks time, when I hope to be toasting England’s progression in the World Cup rather than drowing my sorrows while watching Germany rub it in again.