How popular is home brewing in Singapore?
Well, there’s definitely a growing interest in home brewing, with more inquiries. At the moment it’s mostly expat males around 30 to 50 years old, but locals are catching up as they’re being exposed to this hobby more and more, from the workshops that I conduct in various CCs around Singapore. There is also a select handful of female home brewers.

How do we get started?
You will need a complete beer brewing kit ($170 upwards from HomeBrew, $175 upwards from Ibrew). Plus, other than the ingredient kit, all the equipment is reusable. Using the beer ingredient kit, it is as simple as mixing water into the extract. There are 3 main steps: Mixing, fermenting and bottling. Fortunately, the yeast will do most of the hard work by converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Typically it takes two weeks for a batch of beer to be ready. However, with some aging time, the beer will greatly improve in taste.

Any tips for first time home brewers? 
Do make sure that you clean and sanitize all the equipment that will be in contact with the beer. As long as everything is well prepared the beer should turn out fine. In case it doesn’t, the best way to troubleshoot where and when things went wrong is to trace back the steps taken during brewing.

What goes on at the HomeBrew Club meetings?
The meetings happen on the second Wed of each month, and usually last for about an hour and a half. It’s a very casual thing and about 30 of us show up. Everyone is welcome to bring their own homebrews, and we’ll sample each others stuff and share ideas, observations and tips. Membership costs $30 for the whole calendar year.

Essentials

HomeBrew #01-24 Blk. 36, Telok Blangah Rise, 9777-5457. www.homebrew.com.sg

Ibrew #01-205 Blk. 354, Clementi Ave. 2, 9009-0705. www.ibrew.com.sg