what's the best way to make beer at home?

Answer 1

Whether making wine or beer remember it is essential to sterilise the equipment usually with sodium bisulphite and then washing it out with boiled water.
The easiest way is to buy a beer 'kit' which has the hops, malt etc ready mixed in it. You can make beer from individual ingredients but this involves more messing about - I have done both!
The ingredients are dissolved in water and boiled to kill 'nasties' which would at least give the beer an off flavour. Once cool add the yeast - get a beer yeast, a friend of mine used the sort sold for bread making and all his beer had a bread flavour!
It is best to ferment the beer under an airlock like wine making. Leaving it to ferment in a bucket - for example - can introduce foreign material in particular those bugs which turn the alcohol into acetic acid - vinegar.
Once the fermentation stops - no more bubbles - leave it for a day or two to settle and then syphon the liquid off of the sedimented yeast into a pressure barrel. A couple of teaspoonfuls of sugar to a 5 gallon barrel will restart the fermentation and pressurise the barrel. If the beer is not kept under pressure it will taste flat and yucky!
Once the beer drawn from the tap is clear CHEERS ad BOTTOMS UP!
RoyS.

Answer 2

You can't. It will turn out like it did for the Three Stooges in Beer Barrel Polecats!

Answer 3

Between RoyS and Trid there isn't much more to add, except check out the forums at either www.brewboard.com or www.northernbrewer.com (Northern Brewer is the storefront, the link for their forum is on the bottom left.)

Answer 4

Look here for how:
http://howtobrew.com

Look here for all the supplies you could possibly want:
http://morebeer.com

Also, do a google search for home brewing stores in your local area...they're a wealth of information and supplies.