The environment has survived meteorites, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, disease, famine, hurricanes, ice caps, solar flares, and heat waves. It will survive my brewing. I am not that arrogant to think that I can affect it on a planet-wide scale. I just make sure that I don't pollute because I want to drink the water that the government pours our waste into. However, brewing doesn't hurt anything.
Anything you brew yourself is greener than shipping millions of gallons of water around the planet by diesel. Coke figured this out long ago and began shipping only concentrate to local distributers - and that was when gas was <$1/gal. Thank God I still get my St Arnold Lawnmower without having to add water (or Hallertau for that matter).
I’m an extract w/grain brewer who keeps it simple. I have a brew pot, hop sacks, burner, and 3 Mr. Beer fermintors that cost ~$10 each. I brew 4.4 gallon batches that I split between two fermentors that make it versatile when making different fruit flavored beers. I use the 3rd fermintor as the secondary, clean the primary, and then use it for the secondary for the other 2.2 gal batch in the rotation. My favorite brew is a Vienna lager using Superior lager yeast (at room temperature) and use only a single fermentor. My Vienna lager even won the 3A category in the 2007 Samuel Adams Long Shot Boston region completion. By keeping it simple, I have the lowest cost system around and still manage to brew great beer.
You ask "What other kinds of beverages do you make at home?" I also make wines & ciders but can only vote for one option, perhaps this could be considered when compiling future polls.
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