A number of factors will affect the shelf life of your wine - both the wine you make at The Brew Kettle, and commercial wines you buy from a winery or liquor store. (Recognizing that most people want to drink wine as soon as they buy it, without cellaring, wineries are making wines for earlier consumption. One figure I have heard quoted is that 95% of all the wine made in the world is meant to be drunk within 2 years of production. Wines meant for long cellar aging are the exception rather than the rule.)

Most of the kit wines do not require much aging. Even the makers of our Selection and Cellar Classic 75% juice kits suggest on the box that the wine will be ready for drinking as soon as it is bottled, although we strongly recommend some aging. The trade-off in producing wines for early consumption is that these wines will usually be softer, with less tannin and acid than higher quality wines that will stand up to (or require) more aging. I personally beef all of my reds up with more tannin, through the addition of more oak, and have added acid to some whites to give them more backbone and longer life. If you are interested in trying some of this customization with your wines, I will be happy to help.

The addition of sulphite to a finished wine will slow down the oxidation that will eventually destroy any wine, and most wines that you buy or make have had some added. All of our kits include a pack of sulphite that is added midway through our processing of your wine. We sometimes add another smaller amount just prior to bottling. There is a trade-off again in the use of sulphite, in that a higher level will keep the wine fresher longer but may be detectable (by nose or taste) in a wine consumed soon after bottling. Our current practice is to do the second addition only to the longer term eight week wines. This is again something that we can tailor to your requirements, and we will be happy to discuss them with you.

To ferment a lager beer requires cooler temperatures than for an ale. In the days before refrigeration, ice was used to cool the fermenting wort. In the Southern US, however, the large quantities of ice required were not available. Instead, the beer was fermented in very shallow open vats to allow the heat of fermentation to escape. (It is essentially a lager fermented like an ale.) One explanation for the source of the name is that the vapour rising from the vats looked like steam. The second is that the carbon dioxide hissing from the closed secondary fermenters sounded like steam. In either case, the term stuck and the name for this style of beer was born. The Anchor Brewery in San Francisco is an historic producer of this style, and Sleeman’s this year introduced a new beer produced this way.

At least twice a week we get into conversations about the merits of juice versus kits. The common assumption is that a wine made from juice will be better than a wine made from a kit. Because we carry both, we try to answer the question as objectively as possible, and to steer the customer to the right product.

While it is true that the best wines will come from pure juice, it is also true that not all juices will make great wines. A pail of "juice" is not necessarily real or pure, and the buyer needs to beware. Some "juice" is nothing more than reconstituted concentrate, and unfortunately there is no requirement to label it as such. Most reputable suppliers are packaging real juice, but they may blend in some concentrate or liquid sugar as well. The higher priced varietals (Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon, for example) may also be blended with cheaper juices to keep the price down. The old adage that "you get what you pay for" seems to hold - while there is juice on the market for $40 (retail) per pail, my cost (wholesale) for a pail of top quality pure Chardonnay is about $80.

We have carried juice from five suppliers over the years. The best is available only at the harvest, and in limited quantities. If you want to make the best wine that you can, you should talk to us about starting a batch in the fall. The juice that is available year-round makes good wine, but not necessarily a better wine than the premium kits we also carry. We do carry both - the choice is yours.

We talk to you about your taste and preferences, and select a style as close as possible to the commercial brand you prefer. Many customers start with one of our most popular styles.

The process is simple, proven and reliable. We give the customer as much assistance as they want, the first time and every time. And it is unconditionally guaranteed.

The customer's responsibility is to initiate fermentation of the beverage, then return for bottling several weeks later. In between, we monitor the fermentation, transfer the batch as required, filter it, and do all the cleaning up and dirty work. In just two easy visits, your batch is ready for drinking or cellaring.

The beer recipes can be customized for strength, colour, and taste. We will be pleased to consult with you in creating a personal brew.

We believe that our price list offers the best value available, but making comparisons can sometimes be difficult for the consumer. A customer recently asked us about a deal being offered by a competitor. The offer was for a premium wine with a significant discount. Looking more closely at the offer, however, revealed two facts that called into question the value of the deal. First, the other store used the term "premium" to refer to a kit that is predominantly made of concentrated juice, while our industry generally uses the term "premium" to refer to kits that are at least 75% juice based (like our Selection and Cellar Classic kits). Second, the other store’s list price for the product was much higher than ours, so even with their big discount our price was better for the same product.

We will be pleased to help you make the comparison, confident that you will find the best deal at the Brew Kettle. AND IF A LEGITIMATE COMPETITOR IS OFFERING A BETTER DEAL, WE WILL MATCH IT !