Having lived in Bedford place I get why some residents are worried re more bars. But having been to Brewdog in London they shouldn’t be too worried. It is some of the other awful bars nearby that caused the issues when I lived there. But boy was it great for a night out.
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Originally posted by @Ex-Trader
Don’t knock decent beer till you’ve tried it - we’re not talking kits and Tate & Lyle granulated here.
Same here. I use imported British malt and hops. After the initial outlay the final product is insanely cheap, and better than most bottled bitter or IPA
Had to drink a few gallons of utter shit though, until I got the method down! 
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Would love to have a go at this. How much did it cost/long did it take you to get a decent set up Ohio?
First, start with a cheap kit. Then you get to see if it’s something you really want to do.It probably won’t be great, but it gives you an idea of what you are letting yourself in for. Many people are happy to continue with using malt extracts which means that you can do the whole process in the kitchen, but still with very good results.
Pesronally, I never enjoyed much succes with extracts until I moved operations to the garage and used a steel keg for boiling on a propane gas burner. (Turkey frier)
After that, if you have really been bitten by the bug, then it’s a long and winding road into cobbling together a few items of imagitive invention. There are many ways to go with this.
My own set up consists of a stainless steel keg with the top cut off. This is powered by an electric element for boiling. I have a large cooler with a tap fitted for mashing the grain (Which I have milled with a grain mill attached to an electric motor) and then there are all kinds of options for fermenting, bottling, etc. I have an old fridge in the garage which I have set up for either warming or cooling the fermenting buckets depending on the time of year. I also use pumps and stuff just because I can.
It really is something that you can do very simply, or you can make it as complicated as you wish, depending on your personal level of OCD.
Have a look at this forum. www.homebrewtalk.com just take a peek one aspect at a time at the beginners section so you don’t get an overload of info. The people there are mostly cool and helpful, especially with newbies.
Edit: Oh yes, cost and time…I built up my own system probably over two years as I added stuff that I felt would suit me. It can be expensive to buy purpose made stuff, so many people make their own set up using the kind of things you will see on that site. It takes me about 8 hours to make 10 gallons of beer split between all the different processes. 5 hours for the mashing process being the biggest chunk. Yoyu will always seem to be spending some cash for a while, I have no clue how much I spent.
It’s more about the process and final product for me, but when it’s all set up, it’s hellish cheap!
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If I make my own is it a hobby rather than a drinking habit? (asking for a friend 
)
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Put it this way. After making a couple of hundered gallons of high ABV IPA while persuing my hobby, I eventually found the need to start brewing low ABV bitter (around 3.5% - 4%) Simply so that I could enjoy having both a fun hobby and a controllable drinking problem.
Actually, when you find that you can brew a low ABV beer that tastes like a 5% brew, you then feel like you have finally arrived! 
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If you’ve stopped taking the piss GB, and you really want to try this, this place stocks all you’ll ever need. They’re in Salisbury up by the RayMac Stadium and if you rock up with cash they’ll give you a 10% discount.
Buy a copy of ‘Brew Your Own British Real Ale’ by Graham Wheeler’ and away you go.
Equipment can be cheaply made (there’s loads of forums and advice online).
I reckon you can get away with spending about £200 for an all-grain brewing set up where you can brew 5 gallon batches in a typical kitchen (send Mrs. Goat out for about 6 hours) Remember that’s all you’ll ever spend apart from ingredients.
A batch costs about a tenner.
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Originally posted by @Ex-Trader
If you’ve stop taking the piss GB, and you really want to try this, this place stocks all you’ll ever need. They’re in Salisbury up by the RayMac Stadium and if you rock up with cash they’ll give you a 10% discount.
Buy a copy of ‘Brew Your Own British Real Ale’ by Graham Wheeler’ and away you go.
Equipment can be cheaply made (there’s loads of forums and advice online).
Cheers E-T, though I’m not sure I’ll ever stop taking the piss
Originally posted by @Ex-Trader
If you’ve stop taking the piss GB, and you really want to try this, this place stocks all you’ll ever need
GB was taking the piss? Oh GGRRRRRRRR!!! 
I is so naieve. Bastard wanker bastard!!!
No, I’m genuinely interested! Honest! Jeez, why am I never taken, seriously.
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See edited post above GB, additionall info!
Too late. I’ve blacklisted you. It’s not a racist thing, I’ve just added you to a list of gangsta rappers.
I will never again correspond with Goatboy MC, Yo!
Originally posted by @Ex-Trader
Buy a copy of ‘Brew Your Own British Real Ale’ by Graham Wheeler’ and away you go.
I just googled that book and looked at it on Amazon.
I looked at the very first review, which was titled. “Decent recipe section, but mostly targeted at a British audience.”
Well, given the title of the book, No shit Sherlock!!! 
Dear Amazon, please stop total bellends posting reviews on your site.
By the way Goaty, Brewing is really just the same as cooking. If you like cooking, you will also like brewing. Simples.
I don’t like the way this thread has gone. We were meant to be supporting Ants company but now everyone is talking about brewing their own.
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In the unlikely scenario that any of you give a toss, I’ve just had an email from the council stating that the planning application will be seen by the Planning & Rights of Way Panel. Conference Rooms 3 and 4, Civic Centre at 6pm on 27th October.
The only potential problem is that I currently work 30 seconds from the proposed site. Lunchtimes will never be the same again!
By-the-by, friends have tried to nudge me towards brewing my own beer. Just seems like a lot of effort when I can pop to Bitter Virtue and easily pick up an armful of brews that far surpass anything I could put together.
Hopefully this gets through tonight. A new pub/bar in Shirley opens at the end of November. OVERDRAFT is at 383 Shirley High Street, next to the Volkswagen garage.
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Ah, that’s some brilliant reminding! Walked past there a couple of weeks ago and saw it was being fitted out, but completely forgot what the bloody place is to be called.
Yeah - I hope so too. Don’t know whether I’m going to get to the meeting in time unfortunately.
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Well, I _tried _to go to the meeting. Dashed over to the Civic Centre for 6pm, only to find that this specific planning permission was the 4th item on the agenda. Asked the guy on the door when the Brewdog case would likely come before the committee and he said 7.30pm-ish.
Did some food shopping with m’lady and got back to the meeting for 7.40pm. They were still on item 1. 
Stuck it out for half an hour or so but given that they hadn’t got past item 2 by 8.15pm when we left (and they stated beforehand that they’d work through the entire agenda regardless), I’m surmising it was a long night.
I’m a Brewdog fan but jeez, I’ll just damn well drink somewhere else if planning permission isn’t granted. Having dipped a toe into the way these things are run it seems poisonous and counter-productive. Not a world that I wish to immerse myself into. On the cases I witnessed, the floor was dominated by a vocal minority (oft myopic and bigoted) making a productive argument difficult, if not impossible.
There’s one specific person called Lorraine that seems to crop up for virtually every single one of these cases. Opposed to everything by default. She seems somewhat infamous locally. According to her comments on the Brewdog application, she has kept a diary of every single nighttime event in the Bedford Place area for the past 3 years.
Dedicating a huge percentage of your available time and efforts to poo poo-ing every local development, merit notwithstanding? Hmm.
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Website at the council has not been updated so far this morning so maybe they didn’t get to it. Agreed, that Lorraine character seems extremely odd…