There are a lot of kits out there for brewing beer. Many very good ones are available at local homebrew supply stores all over the world. But there are a lot that are for sale on the Internet. Which ones are junk? Which ones will help you brew great beer? This page will be a running review of many of the top sellers on the Internet with an eye toward making sure you get the best value for your money.

We should say that anything we recommend here will be suitable for use with our guides. We provide a very detailed list of what to look for in our guide so you can support your local homebrew shop, pick up equipment at thrift shops, or whatever floats your boat.  But if you’re shopping for new gear on the Internet this should help you get started in the right direction.

We don’t have a relationship with any of these companies, so we’re providing commercially unbiased advice here.  We do recommend that you check out our guides because you need to know the right info to brew great beer, even with the right kit.

Mr Beer

Available from: mrbeer.com

Price: $29.95

Ingredients included: Yes

Alright let’s start right off with the most popular kit on the Internet: Mr Beer. It’s a great name.  If I had thought of it first I would have trademarked it, too.  But what’s behind the name?  Not much as it turns out.  To be fair, this is not really a serious kit, it’s aimed at people who aren’t going to take the hobby seriously and just want to have an hour of fun. The kit is really cheap, but for anyone serious, you still don’t get much for your money.  Here is what you get for $29.95:

The kit is aimed at selling you refill ingredients and provides what is basically the absolute bare minimum needed to make something that approximates beer.  It’s better than you might think, but not as good as advertised.

You get a very small 2 gallon fermenter.  It’s tiny.  It’s single stage.  This is going to leave junk in the bottles if you use anyone else’s ingredients.  The fermenter is a plastic imitation keg.

The bottles are plastic, with screw caps.  They are plastic because they don’t break and are light to ship, and they have screw caps so you don’t have to have a capper.  They are functional but don’t exude that quality beer experience you may be seeking.

The ingredients include “booster,” which is basically a bag of sugars to help the yeast ferment quickly. It’s not a serious ingredient but since they’re using a one stage system it reduces the amount of sediment to use a bag of sugars rather than all malt.

The kit also includes a packet of dry yeast. There are some people who have had success with the one supplied, but you’re better off using liquid yeast packs. Or getting dried yeast from Coopers or another heavier weight supplier.  There are a couple of companies who now supply a huge range of liquid yeast strains in different varieties. Mr Beer doesn’t use them because these kits are made to sit on shelves for months and for that you need dry yeast. Some brewers have had success with this kit by just throwing out the ingredients and buying better ones. But then you’re basically paying $29.95 for the cheesy plastic fermenter-keg-thing, some plastic bottles, and the book, which is not much of a bargain.

Our verdict: this kit isn’t for people who really want to learn to brew. It’s just a toy. If that’s what you want, then it’s fine for that. Don’t expect great beer, but it might be worth an hour of fun.  If you want to use our guide, don’t even bother with this kit.

Northern Brewer Basic Starter Kit

Available from: northernbrewer.com

Price: $74.99

Ingredients included: No

Northern Brewer is one of the more prominent suppliers on the Internet for home brewers.  This is their very most basic kit.  It’s night and day different from the Mr Beer.  It costs more than twice as much but you get a system that will get you a lot farther down the quality road from the Mr Beer.  The company says it’s aimed at single stage fermentation, but you could use this kit two do two stage fermentation without a lot of modification.  Here is what you get in the kit:

This is a pretty good setup for the money.  All you need are a good set of ingredients and you’re ready to start making some pretty decent beer.  In contrast to Mr Beer you are brewing 5 gallon batches of beer with this kit.  This lets you use the vast majority of recipes and supplied ingredient kits that are available from homebrew suppliers without being locked into a single vendor’s brewing supplies.

The fermenter is pretty much what we recommend in our guide book.  It’s a 6 gallon bucket and that gives you a little space when brewing 5 gallons worth of beer.  This is the standard setup.  Some people like a glass primary, but we have a lot of reasons to like buckets for this purpose as we explain in detail in our brewing process.  The bottling bucket has a spigot to aid in bottling, which is not really necessary.  Still, even with the spigot you can use this second bucket as a secondary fermenter by using the lid and air lock from the primary.  Sure, it’s not as good a secondary fermenter as a glass carboy would be but buckets are fine for most home brewing.

The siphon pump, bottle capper, bottle filler, and the rest are all just what we would recommend for a good home brew product.

Our verdict: The price is right on this kit.  You get a lot for your money and can use the ingredients from any homebrew supplier.  You can use this kit as a beginner and easily grow it to a long term kit simply by replacing the second bucket.  We recommend this kit.

Northern Brewer Better Basic Starter Kit

Available from: northernbrewer.com

Price: $109.99 with plastic, $120.99 with glass

Ingredients included: No

Again this is from highly reputable Northern Brewer and contains most of what is in the Basic Starter Kit described above. It is basically the same kit except that they have substituted the bucket for a glass carboy. The kit includes:

In contrast to the Basic Starter Kit this one doesn’t really go in the right direction.  You lose the lid to the bucket so you can’t use the “bottling bucket” as a fermenter in any stage.  That limits this kit to single stage whereas you can hack the Basic kit to work as a two stage system.  The arguments the vendor supplies for using a glass or plastic carboy have to do with buckets “not being airtight” which is a an argument the FDA would not sanction considering these buckets are used in food grade storage all the time.

You do get some extra equipment here that can be useful, including a thermometer and a baster for moving small amounts of beer around and reading the hydrometer easily.

Our verdict: Stick with the Basic Starter Kit, you get a lot more for your money and will have a more flexible system.  If you want a carboy for secondary fermentation, buy one separately.

Monster Brew New Brewers Complete Homebrew Kit

Available from: monsterbrew.com

Price: $119.99

Ingredients included: Yes

Monster Brew advertise all over the Internet and you’ll certainly see them linked from other sites.  They have a number of kits available, but this is their most basic.  It compares closely with the Basic Kit from Norther Brewer for contents with the major exception that it comes with a complete set of ingredients for a batch of beer and a complete set of glass bottles.  They supply this in the kit:

They are again aiming at single stage fermentation but you can use the bottling bucket with the lid from the primary as a secondary fermenter by being careful.  All of the comments that applied to the Norther Brewer Basic Kit apply to this kit as well. so lets just focus on what distinguishes this kit from the others.  First is that it contains a complete ingredient set and a set of bottles.  We haven’t brewed the Brown Ale they include so we can’t comment on the quality of the product, but the ingredients look like they’ll get you something good to start with.  You ought to be able to follow our system with their ingredients if you’re willing to do a little leg work (ask us if you need help).

You also get a set of bottles, which might or might not be worth it depending on whether you feel strongly about cleaning your own bottles or not.  We describe a simple system for doing that so this is not that big of an advantage.  Particularly if you’re paying for shipping of glass bottles.

The price on the surface is quite high.  However with the cost of the ingredients and the bottles figured in we think this is a reasonable price.  Shipping will undoubtedly be more than the Northern Brewer Basic Kit because of the bottles.  And we prefer to get our own ingredients locally if possible.

Our verdict: This is a good kit if you want to one-stop shop.  You can probably do a little better for your money, but it’s a quality kit.

Monster Brew Maestro Homebrew Kit

Available from: monsterbrew.com

Price: $69.99

Ingredients included: No

This is a simpler kit from Monster Brew (they have a dizzying array of kits), aimed at a low entry fee for the new brewer. The price on this kit is significantly lower in part because it doesn’t include all the extras we don’t feel are necessary in the other kit, but in part because it doesn’t include some things we do think are necessary. The maestro name is a little bizarre for a very very basic starter kit, but it’s probably good marketing. Here is what they do include in the kit:

This compares on the basest level with the Nothern Brewer Basic Kit but you don’t get the siphon pump or the bottle caps. That’s too bad about the siphon pump because the it is one of the best tools you can have for bottling or for a two stage fermentation process.

The bottle caps in the Northern Brewer kit are really an extra, since they’re a consumable, but when considering prices you have to take that into account.

Again because you have two buckets you can use this kit as a two stage kit even though it’s intended as a single stage fermentation kit.  That’s a plus.

Our verdict: Almost there, but missing some equipment we think is important.  For barely five dollars less than the Northern Brewer Basic Kit this kit is missing pieces that cost more than the difference.

Monster Brew Maestro Homebrew Kit with Autosiphon

Available from: monsterbrew.com

Price: $79.99

Ingredients included: No

Shortly after we reviewed the Monster Brew Maestro kit, they released this kit.  It’s exactly what was missing from the previous kit.  It’s a two-stage capable (but not advertized) system and it includes the one piece of missing equipment: the siphon pump.  Here’s what you get:

This kit now closely compares with the Northern Brewer Basic Kit, lacking only bottle caps, which as we said before are not really a necessary part of the kit.

Our verdict: Good kit, with all the pieces you need.  This compares well with the Northern Brewer kit but costs a few bucks more.  Recommended.