Kyle, there are ways to be the Master of your own fate and Captain your own ship.
Well . . . okay . . . life has a way of making us toe the lines that others draw. But there are ways to emancipate yourself from the tyranny of corporate brewers and stand proud and tall as a free, yeoman beer-drinker should.
Samuel Child nailed it on the head back in the 1790s:
I shall now conclude with recommending to all persons to make the experiment [[i]homebrewing], and I am persuaded they will be convinced of the propriety of Brewing for themselves; they can suit themselves in taste, in strength, in flavour, in quantity; they will have beer much cheaper; they will have it more wholesome.[/i]
Samuel Child, "EVERY MAN HIS OWN BREWER" - A SMALL TREATISE, EXPLAINING THE ART AND MYSTERY OF BREWING PORTER, ALE, TWOPENNY, AND TABLE-BEER; Recommending and proving the ease and possibility OF EVERY MAN's [sic] BREWING HIS OWN BEER, IN ANY QUANTITY - From one Peck to a hundred Quarters of Malt, CALCULATED BY EXPOSING THE DECEPTION IN BREWING; To reduce the expence of a Family, and lessen the destructive practice of Public-house tipling . . . Fourth Edition, Carefully Revised (London: 1794).
