Mr. Izz decided to try out home brewing recently. His first attempt was a brown ale (Newcastle type stuff). The result was really pretty good! I was pleasantly surprised 
Here’s a look at the end result (on Mr. Izz’s messy desk):
Cheers! 
Home brew can be really really good stuff.
Home stilling can produce some equally good stuff.
Is home distilling actually illegal - or is it the sale of privately-made spirits what is illegal?
Perhaps it’s just failing to pay taxes on it that’s illegal?
Shhh! I think Susnfx is a REVENOOER!
I am not going to wade through the ATF regulations( I did enough of that when we had the winery) but, I do know that you are allowed to make 200 gal. of wine for your own personal use, so I’d assume that beers and ales would have a similar rule.
It’s the white lightin’ that will get you in trouble- a guy off my mail route just got busted a few months ago for running a moonshine still. yep, that continues to be a lucrative way to turn corn into cash here in the mountains.
I think that home stilling is illegal in most countries.
That’s why I need an uninhabited island not owned by any governing body and located in international waters. Preferably with a climate suited to growing barley.
Yummy
Taste tester with impressive resumé and exhaustive experience available on request.
I can’t think of any state where home stilling is legal.
I know that homebrewing is legal in Texas, 200gal a year beer or wine for a family. I never brewed more than about 20 gal a year of meads and beers.
OMG.
Don’t you Yanks know anything? It looks nothing like ‘broon’, which the correct pronunciation. It is much lighter in colour and tastes like sugared methylated spirits.
A far better course would be to recreate Fed, the other Geordie brew, or import Doom Bar, Sam Smith’s or Young’s.
When I own the U.K., you’ll all drink Budweiser for that remark. 
Tyler good sir, that would be a fate worse than death. I’m American and have deliberatly avoided Buttwidener for quite a few years. It’s only worth what you pay for it if it’s free.
Try Saint Arnold’s or Arrogant Bastard instead.
…that’s the idea… 
Hmmm… 200 gallons per year, figuring a family of 4, divides to 50 gallons per person, divide by 52 for weeks in the year, works out to 0.9153846153846153846 gal/person/week… hmmm… If I redistribute the 50 gal/year that the 14yo can’t have, and the 50 gal that is ostensibly for the son who is away at college, and add in 50 gal for the 5th member of the family, who is actually about to be of legal consumption age, DH and I might be able to get by on 2 full gallons per week each! hmmm…
Oh, and Annie, I’ve submitted your request to my DH (the taste tester thing). I’m thinking that if you throw in a whistle roll in with your resumé, you might have a better chance
I don’t know, Tyler. Even that might be cruel and unusual 
As for OUR beer, I assure you it tasted nothing like the domestic swill afore mentioned. It was actually quite good (and I don’t mean “quite” in the British way, either 
)
2 gallons a week is a little over 2 pints a day. I just can’t drink that much. Especially when it’s mead, which is about triple the alcohol content of beer… Belive me, you don’t want me posting drunk
We have mead. Imported from Ireland and everything…Mr. Izz thought it was whiskey and bought it by mistake. We haven’t opened it, though because neither of us have ever had it. Is it worth a taste then?
It depends on the brand and what you like.
Some people like really sweet dessert meads..the kind that taste like alcoholic honey. I’m not one of them. If a mead has been fermented to the point that all the honey is turned into alcohol, it’ll taste like a really dry white. I’m not fond of them either. I like mine somewhere in the middle. Enough honey flavor to come through, without being overpowering, but not fermented so much it seems to suck the moisture out of my mouth.
My homebrew mead was at least partially responsible for the successful wooing of my wife, so she’d say it was worth a try at least. If you give yours a try, do let us know how you get along with it!
This thread reminds me, I need to crack open a bottle of the elderberry wine I corked up in 2000 the month my son was born, and see how it’s turning out.