Home brewing kit: which one to choose as a beginner?

A brewing kit lets you make your own beer in a kitchen, with no brewery equipment. The choice comes down to three questions: what type of kit, what batch size, and how much time you’re willing to put in. This guide compares the kits actually sold in France and says what else you need.

The three types of brewing kit

Not every kit takes the same amount of work. The difference lies in what has already been done before the box reaches you.

• Hopped concentrate. The brewer has already made the wort, then boiled it down to a syrup. You dilute it in hot water, add sugar and the yeast supplied, and fermentation does the rest. It’s the simplest option: about an hour of preparation on the first day. Brewferm and Coopers kits work this way.
• Malt extract. Same principle, but you boil the extract with hops you add yourself. A little longer, with a bit more freedom over bitterness and aroma.
• All-grain. You start from crushed malt: mashing, lautering, boiling, hopping. This is real brewing, the way breweries do it, on a small scale. Allow half a day. The Brooklyn Brew Shop kit quotes 5 to 6 hours for the first brew.

For a first try, or a gift for someone who has never brewed, concentrate is the sensible choice. All-grain is for people who want to understand what they drink, and who have an afternoon to spare.

Which batch size to choose

The batch size decides how much space you need, how many bottles you’ll fill and how heavy the fermenter is to move.

• 3 to 5 litres. About ten bottles. The fermenter fits on a worktop and the brew is done on an ordinary hob. This is the size of starter kits.
• 9 litres. A halfway option that Brewferm offers on some recipes.
• 20 to 23 litres. The standard homebrew size: around sixty 33cl bottles. You need a fermenting bucket, room in a spot with a steady temperature, and time for bottling.

A small batch is more forgiving: a mistake costs you ten or so bottles, not sixty. It’s also the easiest size to give as a present.

Comparison of kits available on Amazon

The kits below were on sale on amazon.fr on 28 September 2026. The prices shown are the ones we saw that day; they change often, and the current price is shown on the product page.

A simple rule of thumb: Brewferm concentrates are cheap but assume you already own a fermenter; complete kits cost more but are ready to use as soon as you open them. For a gift, go for a complete kit, otherwise the person can’t do anything until they’ve bought the rest.

What else you need to buy

A concentrate kit on its own isn’t enough. Depending on what’s in the box, plan for:

• A fermenter of the right size, with its airlock, if the kit doesn’t include one.
• Sugar for fermentation and for carbonation in the bottle: the kit instructions give the amount.
• A sanitiser for the equipment. It’s the step beginners skip, and the most common reason a beer goes wrong.
• Bottles and caps, with a capper, or swing-top bottles that do without.
• A thermometer, essential for all-grain and useful for everything else.

Giving a brewing kit for Christmas

A brewing kit is a gift that lasts: the person brews, waits, then shares what they’ve made. One thing changes everything: timing.

Between fermentation and conditioning in the bottle, a kit beer generally needs four to six weeks before it’s ready to drink. Two consequences:

• given at Christmas, the kit will produce its beer around the end of January. Present it as a project, not as a beer to open that evening;
• if the idea is to drink your own beer over the holidays, you need to brew around mid-November, so order in October or at the very start of November.

For someone who would rather taste than make, a Christmas beer gift set is still the safest present, or a beer advent calendar for one beer a day until Christmas. And if you can’t decide between several gift sets, our guide to choosing a beer gift set covers what matters.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need permission to brew beer at home in France?

No, not for personal consumption. Selling it is a different matter altogether: you have to register with customs and obtain bonded warehouse status.

What ABV do you get with a kit?

It depends on the recipe and how much sugar you add. Each manufacturer states it: the Brooklyn Brew Shop Everyday IPA kit quotes 6.8%, for example. Adding extra sugar to push up the strength makes the beer heavier more than it makes it better.

How many bottles does a 20-litre kit make?

Around sixty 33cl bottles, slightly fewer once you leave the yeast sediment at the bottom of the fermenter.

Does a brewing kit keep for long before use?

The concentrate keeps for a long time, the yeast less so: check the date in the instructions and store the kit somewhere cool. A kit given at Christmas can easily wait a few weeks.

The short version

To start out or as a gift, choose a complete, small-batch concentrate kit. If the person already likes to understand what they drink, all-grain will be more rewarding. And for a beer to drink over the holidays, order before November.

Disclosure: the links in this article go to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This does not affect the advice given here and does not increase the price you pay. Please drink responsibly.

Sources

• Everyday IPA: Beer Making Kit – Brooklyn Brew Shop (Brooklyn Brew Shop)