Home Brew

"Everything else?" No. (Might be better than what your drinking now, tho').

Depends on you, your values, desires, current beer, free time, etc.

Yeah, like a brewery. Great smell.

It can be as good or as bad as you make it.

Trouble? If it's "trouble" you shouldn't be doing it.

It has no sensory organs. It cannot smell *anything*.

No. Sex, for instance, or a really good pork chop, is definitely better than homebrew. If you mean compared to commercial beer...homebrew that's better than good commercial beer is, in my experience, fairly rare.

To drink a good beer, if you're living in a place where good commercial beer is readily available? No, in my opinion. To learn about what beer is, to have a pride of creation, to have a hobby that actually produces something worthwhile. Depends on you.

Yes (leaving Joel's punctilious answer out), it does have an odor. Most of us find it quite pleasing. Many others do not. Screw 'em.

My wife is one of "the others". Screwing her does not seem to change her opinion on the matter. ;-)

Brian

In order: NO - providing you live where you have a selection of many microbrewed bottled beers and a few on tap. These days that's a lot of places.

YES - both for the beer and for the things you learn while brewing. You can control the process, so you can brew with malt, with grain, use ale or beer yeast, control the fermentation temperature and taste the effect.

A LITTLE - but unless you have someone in your house who doesn't like beer, and/or a VERY small studio apartment, there shouldn't be a problem. Good beer doesn't reek, but it does give off light smells you associate with beer. This assumes you keep things clean, stale beer smells like stale beer, home brewed or not. And if you don't keep your brewing equipment clean, you can get some baaad fermentation which emits odd but not usually unpleasant odors.

Think of it as a self-financing hobby which becomes more and more educational as you really get into it, and doesn't cost more if you get advanced.

I'm g It ain't brewing without boiling. Even if it's just a partial wort boil using extract, you gotta boil and you gotta add your own hops, and that REEKS (but in a pleasant way, of course). If you want to be a BREWER, not just a (spit!) fermenter, you gotta be prepared to stink up the joint. Well, that or move outside, where there's cold , wind, rain, snow, mosquitoes, wasps,... ech! ;-)

Brian

What I said, light smells associated with beer. I run an exhaust fan to get the moisture out, but not because of any strong odor. I usually use a long full boil and quick chill.