Mr. Beer/Wine Kits
- How does beer and wine happen, you ask? Bad news: it’s science.
- Beer kits come with brewing extract, speciality grains, and yeast so you can make a gallon of beer right in your home.
- Wine kits come with enough natural grape concentrate and clarifying ingredients to make 5 bottles that’ll be ready to guzzle in just 4 short months.
- Both come with a 1.5 gallon fermentor that features an airlock and a spigot so it won’t be a hassle to bottle.
- Choose a variety: American lager (Sam Adams Boston Lager clone), Shock The Moon (Blue Moon clone), Thunder Bay IPA (Lagunitas IPA clone), Cabernet Sauvignon, or Pinot Grigio.
- Sorry, we considered offering a Chardonnay kit, but we were worried the Swiss chard would go bad in transit.
- Model: 800Z3.
Beer We Go Again
It was on the young Master Beer’s 16th birthday that his father, Mr. Beer, took him for a long walk through the expansive gardens on their estate. The flowers gave way to a series of wooden structures on which vines grew. Young Master Beer skipped from one vine to another. “Simcoe,” he called out, smelling one. “This one’s citra. That one over there? Idaho 7.”
“Very good,” said his father, “but hold up a minute, son. I’d like to have a talk with you.”
The boy stopped. “What is it, papa? Have I done something wrong?”
Mr. Beer laughed. “Far from it! You see son, you’re now the age when my father took me aside and began training me to take over the family business. ‘Percival Beer,’ he said, ‘I’d like to retire soon, which means you shall soon be in charge.’ And then he educated me, over the course of the next two years, about the art of building kits containing a 1.5 gallon glass fermenter, brewing extract, speciality grains, and yeast so that customers could make 1 gallon of great beer in their own homes.”
Mr. Beer knelt in front of his son now and took the boy’s hands. “But I don’t want you to feel that same pressure. Just because we’ve built a home-brew kit empire doesn’t mean you have must be forced to take on work you’re not passionate about. I want you to feel free to do whatever you’d like. It might be to start a business of a different kind, or it might not be business-related at all. Perhaps you’d like to be a scientist, or an astronaut, or a painter. Perhaps you’d like to build boats or write dime store mystery novels or perform a one man show that makes no mention of beer at all, except in so much that it is your name. Perhaps you want to sculpt or blow glass or study puffer fish or–”
“Make wine kits?” Master Beer said.
“Umm, I mean, sure,” Mr. Beer said. “You could make wine kits. But what I’m saying we have the means so that you can do anything you desire.”
“I desire to make wine kits,” said Master Beer. “Picture this: a kit with its own 1.5 gallon fermenter and an airlock and spigot for easy bottling. And then everything you need to make 5 bottles of wine within 4 months. Can you imagine?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Beer, letting go of the boy’s hands and standing. “It’s not hard to imagine at all. It’s pretty much what we already do but for a different alcoholic beverage, which wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I was saying you could do–” But when he met his son’s eyes and saw the excitement deep within them, he stopped himself. “Okay, wine kits it is. Good talk.”
