Author: Marshall Schott

It recently occurred to me I’ve yet to report on the results of the survey I sent out back in June of this year. Not that the results are Earth shattering or anything, I mean it really doesn’t cover all that much, but I thought some folks might be interested in this slice-of-pie peak into what the modern homebrewer looks like.

When I initially sent the 10 question survey out, I was planning to use the data to inform the order in which I chose to do exBEERiments, as well as include some of the information gleaned in xBmt results posts. I certainly wasn’t expecting such a huge number of respondents- 892 homebrewers completed this thing! I’ve done formalized research projects and completed a dissertation (blegh), this is the type of sample size I could only dream of in those days. Let’s all remember that this is an informal survey, not a controlled experiment, folks followed a link and answered a few questions, that’s it. My plan is to present the data in its raw state and comment briefly on some without presupposing too much. My hope is that this spurs some interesting discussion, please feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions about these results in the comments section below! And now without further adieu…

QUESTION 1:

How rad that over a quarter of all the respondents joined the hobby less than a year ago and a full 71% have been brewing for 3 years or less? If anything, this seems to be a testament to those who have helped make homebrewing approachable including the likes of John Palmer, Denny Conn, The Brewing Network, Basic Brewing Radio, and of course all the hard work of the American Homebrewers Association.

QUESTION 2:

The majority of homebrewers make 1 or 2 batches per month while a fairly significant number brew less than once a month. Then there are the obsessed, those of us who work our calendars around making beer as opposed to the other way around. For better or worse, I solidly fall into the last category in the image above. Given the age of this survey, I’m curious how many folks who completed it would answer differently today.

QUESTION 3:

I’m not sure this surprises anyone and, admittedly, it’s a statistic I’d like to see change. While extract only brewing is definitely the easiest approach to making beer, I have a hard time understanding the argument that extract with steeping grains is any easier than all-grain. This remark always seems to breed a bit of conflict, which isn’t my point at all. If you’re reading this now and you’re brewing with extract, you might consider the very simple and incredibly effective Brew In A Bag (BIAB) method. Partial mash brewing appears to be an approach that is falling out of favor with homebrewers.

QUESTION 4:

Whoa! When I started homebrewing over 10 years ago, it was pretty rare to come across another brewer who wasn’t using extracts, something that seems to have flip-flopped. Again, I can’t help but believe that this has so much to do with the demystification of certain processes by some truly great people as well as the development of easier to understand approaches.

QUESTION 5:

Credit where credit’s due: my transition into all-grain brewing was fully inspired by my reading of Denny Conn’s Cheap ‘n’ Easy Batch Sparge Brewing (the link appears to be broken at this time). I ended up putting my own personal touches on the converted cooler MLT I made (and still use today), but my process matched his. Perhaps not all of the 357 folks who said they batch sparge started at Denny’s site, but I’d bet cash money the person they learned from did. Cheers to you, Denny! Also, what a testament to the advocates of BIAB, easily the most novel approach to mashing, yet more brewers use it than traditional fly sparge. I like to think homebrewing is moving away from a “copy the professionals” model and toward a more “do what works best on our scale” approach.

***The following set of questions have to do with a very specific process variable, the use of a secondary fermentor, which I’ve since completed an exBEERiment on.***

QUESTIONS 6-10:

I did not expect this at all, I thought at least 75% of respondents would have answered YES, which is likely a function of the fact it was sacrilege not to use a secondary vessel when I began brewing and felt almost blasphemous when I dropped the practice a few years ago.

Okay, so of the 51% of homebrewers who started by regularly racking to a secondary, a gigantic majority have at least tried fermenting in primary only.

So most people (64%) still choose to rack to a secondary for one reason or another. Personally, I’ve yet to experience any benefit at all to the practice regardless of whether I’m making additions (I’ve done fruit, hops, and wood), lagering, or even for sours (I’ve an xBmt planned for this one).

I got a little flack for this question, as some folks thought I didn’t include enough options; while their suggestions were great, the survey had already been published and I couldn’t change it at that point. That in mind, it’s still fascinating to me that people believe transferring beer to a second container somehow has a positive impact on the flavor of hop/fruit/wood additions or ultimate clarity of the beer. My hunch is some of these beliefs are a product of good ol’ confirmation bias and not comparative analysis. Old habits die hard, I guess.

The next question is one I asked out of sheer interest in the human condition. I tend to be the type of person who is comfortable abandoning a held belief if presented with either compelling evidence for an alternative or if there is a paucity of evidence supporting my contentions. Perhaps I’m over-critical, I’ve been told more than once that I should leave well enough alone, but I value truth and have found that by eliminating those suppositions that are less-than-true, I’m able to live a simpler and happier existence. This responses to question 10 caught me off-guard:

What. The. Fuck?! I know there are some codgers out there who stick by their old ways purely for the sake of, well, sticking by their own ways, but my goodness. I would never have guessed that nearly 1/4 of homebrewers, folks I’ve likely encountered, would downright refuse to change their process even if presented with solid evidence it had no benefit to or had a negative impact on their finished beer. Wow. My guess is this is a sentiment that doesn’t just have to do with using a secondary, it likely bleeds into myriad other areas. Maybe I’m missing something, I feel I’m being a bit presumptuous– if you’re one of the folks who did (or would have) answered NO to this question, please clarify, I’m curious as hell.

Finally, I asked respondents to rate how good their beer is on a scale of 1-10. Since this wasn’t multiple choice, I’ll present some of the more interesting numbers:

Average rating for all respondents: 7.02

Median rating for all respondents: 7

Number of respondents who rated their beer higher than 5: 862 (97%)

Number of respondents who rated their beer as 10: 20 (2%)

Number of respondents who rated their beer as 0: 5 (.56%)

It would appear most of us think our beer is as good or better than the next dudes while only a few believe theirs is as good as it gets– if you’re one of these people, I’m happy to provide honest feedback! I’m assuming the 5 folks who responded with a 0, maybe even some of those who ranked their beer 1 and 2 as well, weren’t necessarily taking the survey all that seriously.

So there you have it, like I said, nothing terribly mind blowing. I’ve considered putting together another survey with even more process questions, perhaps I’ll get to that at some point. Until then, stay tuned for more xBmts, cool product reviews, and other random ramblings from yours truly. Cheers!

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