Bored with Brewing?

[John Sand]

Is that possible? There is an article in January's BYO offering suggestions on how to avoid boredom. Some suggestions are good, new recipes or new equipment, some are a little silly, like adding fruit loops. I wonder if it's been a problem for any of you? I have been brewing for five years, steadily improving my gear and almost always trying new recipes, never getting bored. By comparison I've been cooking for about 40 years, and while I enjoy new recipes, I still never get tired of simply grilling a steak. How about you?

[BlackDuck]

I have not been bored with brewing. I agree with doing new recipes. I have very few that I repeat exactly. I seem to always be tweaking something, not necessarily to make it better, but to make it different. I might use the same base recipe, but change a few of the hops just to see how they will taste. Making small but constant changes to recipes keeps me interested, because I'm always drinking something new.

[Beer-lord]

No way am I bored. I have only a few that I brew regularly though I may tweak them a bit but for the most part, I've been trying different hops, different hop sets and different yeasts. Sometimes I push toward the 'Frankenstein' direction and other times I take the safe direction but it's always fun and nerdily exciting. One never knows the outcome for sure.

[John Sand]

I feel the same. The article kind of surprised me. I wonder if the intent was to keep brewers from giving up brewing. I have read that homebrewing is decreasing, I don't agree. If I recall correctly, a drop in sales of hombrew equipment is cited to show that home brewing is waning. I don't accept that logic. At a certain point, most people have all the gear they need and stop buying.
Unless something goes very wrong, I enjoy every brew day. I admit that new recipes, methods or gear thrill me more, but I don't think I'll get bored with brewing. I've been sailing since childhood, I'm not bored with that either.

[berryman]

I can't say I was bored with brewing but sometimes it seemed more of a chore then a hobby for me for awhile. Then after I retired from my regular job, I had more time to brew and study up on things, and changed pretty much my whole process and now a renewed interest. Now learning water profiles. Will probably brew more beer this year then I have in a while.

[RickBeer]

There is a significant drop in homebrewing sales, and shops closing. Several of the larger ecommerce sites have mentioned decreased sales. It's not just equipment, it's everything, and it's directly attributed to the availability of high quality craft beer.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/taranurin/ ... 09e64251fd

http://beerandwinejournal.com/decline/

There is also an impending shakeout in the craft brewing industry.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-some-c ... 1503508466

Smuttynose's auction is in less than 2 weeks.

If one has a few million laying around, the next 24 months should present very interesting buying opportunities.

[FrozenInTime]

Not so much bored myself but as berryman said, feels like a chore anymore. It bites me in the back side way too often, the last one a not so cheap chest freezer biting the bullet. A few other items are about wore out and need replaced. I might be out of brewing except for a couple seasonal batches for a while, if not permanently. I don't have the time to dedicate to it of late. Whomever said retirement is easy, more leisure time, did not know what the heck they were talking about! I've been brewing close to 10 years and I'm still waiting for brewing to be more cost efficient than just buying a case from the store. Over-all, cost of ingredients and equipment, replacing equipment.... sometimes I wonder...

Newbies don't get me wrong, it is a fun hobby, but like most hobbies, has an expiration date. Doesn't help I have had a close family death recently that knocked the wind out of my sails. Brew on.

[Beer-lord]

Sorry to hear you lost a family member FIT, but don't brew if you don't have the time. If you can carve out some time, make it happen, otherwise, my thoughts are rushing things and having little time only makes any hobby less enjoyable.

[Kealia]

I can understand the sentiment. I've been brewing for 9 years now (wow, that went quick) and about 2 years ago I felt like I had my BIAB process nailed down and was looking for a new challenge. I wouldn't use the word "bored", but I needed something new so I bought a mash tun and started a more 'traditional' mash and sparge process. That gave me something new to learn and experiment with (and swear at when I had my first stuck sparge!).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I was an expert and had nothing left to learn about BIAB brewing, recipes, process, etc. I was just hitting a bit of a wall and needed to shake things up a bit.

Hmmm, maybe bored IS the right word!

In any case, I do enjoy every brew day. And the results a few weeks later, of course

[RandyG]

Hey Borgbushkas, I'm retired for 9 years now and am loving it. I have 2 brew periods.One in the spring and one in the fall. In both I brew what I think i'll consume in the time between. I brew MrB/Demon sized extract/steeped grains/hop additions etc. 99% of the time.Sometimes I'll stick in a 5er of some kind. If I see that I'm stuck for new recipes I go to the old Mr. Beer recipe pages or some such for ideas. I have 3 LHBS within a 30 minute drive,so getting supplies isn't a problem. For a kick sometimes I go back and read my brew notes from way back when I first started brewing in 1996(had several long hiatus along the way).They are a Hoot! Sometimes I also go through all of my recent recipes and read the notes over again. That seems to keep me from getting bored with brewing.Also looking forward to "1st Pours",as well as Memorial Day weekend,when I start drinking my Homebrews. Bored? Nah,just looking for my next Brewing Horizion which I'll probably stumble over. Cheers.

[HerbMeowing]

Going on 12 years ... nearly 300 batches ... and brewing every other Friday night; I've yet to be bored with home brewing but I have become more than a little bored with BYO.

[John Sand]

Herb, I get that. I still enjoy BYO, but I skip the articles that don't interest me. My passion is wooden boats, the magazine that is the bible and journal for them is appropriately WoodenBoat Magazine. I subscribed and read it faithfully until about 5 years ago. At that time a combination of snobbish writing and overdose on content caused me to cancel my subscription. I read that magazine for almost 40 years, and finally they had nothing new to tell me.

[mashani]

Its hard to get bored with making stuff you can drink and like to drink a lot more then most commercial stuff.

[FedoraDave]

I wouldn't say bored, and while I understand and sort of feel the same about it being a chore, I still brew every week. I would say there's a danger of it becoming a rut, or getting stale. It's a subtle difference, but that's how I perceive my own feelings, after 8 years as a home brewer.

A couple of years ago, I did feel I was in a rut, brewing the same beers over and over again. While I still brew the same recipes, because I've developed them and like them, I choose a new project every year to keep me interested. One year it was trying different hops with the same grain bill, to get more depth in my hop selection. Another it was researching and trying styles I hadn't brewed before. This year, it's attempting different processes, such as smoking the grains. I might try a step-mash in the future, after more research. If someone gets into home brewing because it's a fad, or only makes IPAs, then there's definitely less bang for the buck. But for someone like me, who's even slightly interested in the myriad styles available, and who likes trying variations on a theme, I can't see how it could get boring.

I can understand hitting a wall, and because this hobby requires a lot of hours on an AG brew day, and a number of weeks waiting for fermentation and conditioning, people can lose their enthusiasm for it. That being said, the hobby won't die off; it might just become more of a specialized niche market.

There's also the possibility that BYO is using the same technique to grab attention that the Ten O'Clock News uses: "The ordinary product in your kitchen cabinet that might be killing you! Tonight at ten! Because if you're not scared, we're not doing our job!"

[berryman]

Some people get into a hobby all gung hoe for a while and then move on to something else, some stick with it for a long time but can have their slow times, but stay with it. Some just leave all together. The way it works....