Unless you're a damn good home brewer ala sweetcell, why would you want to get stuck with over 600oz of mediocre beer?
not all of my beer is great. i only serve to others the good stuff, so people have an inflated view of my brewing skills
the fact that SideX wants to move up to 5 gallons tells me that he beer is more than mediocre.
5 gallons of beer is about 50 12-oz bottles. give a few away to friends and family, throw a party and boom, you're out before you know it.
some people like making things with their hands and others just like to pay other people to do things
most great successes are preceded with a long list of failures, but when you get it right...it's worth the effort
+1 gazillion. some people just like making their own things, including food and drink. it's easier to buy bread than to make it, but plenty of folks bake their own bread. plus, it's just boss to be able to say "i brew my own beer"; or to hand someone a beer, have them say "hey this is good, what is this", and be able to answer "mine."
Homebrewing is so 30 years ago. When the only alternative was mass-market swill, homebrewing would have made perfect sense to me. Given the amount of amazing beer out there available at perfectly reasonable prices in 2015, I can't imagine why I'd want to suffer through my own likely mediocre creations.
fine, but what if it wasn't mediocre? homebrewing isn't that hard. anyone can make good beer with just a little practice and the right equipment. and there are all sorts of other reasons to brew: ability to make any beer you want (ever had a citra dry-hopped rye stout? can't buy one...). the process is a lot of fun, my brew days are mini vacations. ability to control ingredients. preparing for the zombie apocalypse. etc.
Plus, the idea of drinking 600 ounces of any one beer just seems preposterous to me. I prefer variety.
for those of us that drink more than 3 oz per sitting, the task is a little less daunting...
