Why to brew

I've seen several comments now that lead me to believe that some people don't understand why someone would want to brew beer, or why they don't just buy beer instead of taking the time to make it.  I think the answer is pretty simple.

Do you like to cook?  If you do, why?  I make beer for basically the same reasons as people like to cook, if you don't like to cook then you won't appreciate the process of taking time to hone something into exactly what you want you should just drink Budweiser (or Heineken or Stella, or Sapporo, or King or Fosters or whatever your countries version of that rice water is).  There is nothing wrong with any of these beers, they are all designed to have as little body as possible with a high alcohol content.  Fine, if that is what you want then go to it.

If however you've spent the time to roll out your own gnocchi, or make your own pasta sauce, if you forgo store bought pie crusts and believe that you can make better pizza crusts than Boboli then making beer is the same passion.  It really is about ingredients, time and care for the ingredients.  I like the challenge and have been pleased with my results, others that are beer nerds have enjoyed my results.  I still buy beer, probably more diverse a selection than most of the people that have challenged why I would make my own.  I am looking at scaling up and scaling down, so I can make big batches of the stuff that works and small batches to try stuff out.

The pale ale I brewed was to take out on 3 day boating extravaganza in August, me and another beer nerd are planning on making and kegging beer so we didn't have so many bottle strewn about on the boat.