A fresh wort kit costs $70-$90 in Australia, produces around 53 stubbies, and comes out to roughly $1.20-$1.70 per stubby once you've amortised your equipment costs over a few batches. That's the headline number. The longer answer covers what's included in that calculation, what most cost-per-beer articles leave out, and how the maths actually plays out over your first year of brewing.
Quick disclosure: we make fresh wort kits. We'll try to keep the numbers honest rather than persuasive.
How the per-stubby number is calculated
The simple version: divide the all-in cost of a batch by the number of stubbies it produces. The full version includes a few line items most people forget.
That $88.20 divided across 53 stubbies = $1.66 per stubby. Round up to $1.70 and you've got the upper end of the range. Brewers who buy bulk caps (1000 caps for $25 = $0.03 each) and use cheaper sanitiser bring that figure down to closer to $1.50.
What about the equipment cost?
This is where most cost-per-beer calculations get debated. Equipment costs $130-$220 to start (fermenter, sanitiser, hydrometer, bottling gear) but only get paid for once. If you only ever brew one batch, your effective cost per stubby is much higher than $1.66. If you brew 20 batches, it's much lower.
Here's the maths spread across batch counts, using $180 as a median equipment outlay:
The break-even point against commercial craft beer (at $5-$8 per stubby/can) happens at batch one. The equipment pays for itself within your first two batches just on the savings versus buying the same volume of commercial craft.
Your first batch effectively costs $5 per stubby because of equipment. Your second batch drops it to $3. By batch five you're at $2 per stubby. From batch 10 onwards, you're consistently around $1.80-$2.00 with equipment included, or $1.50-$1.70 if you only count consumables.
How that compares to alternatives
The cost-per-stubby calculation only matters in context. Here's how fresh wort stacks up against the realistic alternatives.
Commercial craft beer
Australian craft beer typically retails at $5-$8 per 375ml can or stubby, often in 4-packs at $24-$32 or 16-packs at $75-$95. Even the cheapest craft 6-pack is around $20, or $3.30 per can. Fresh wort kit homebrew lands well below all of those. The savings per stubby is roughly $3-$6, which compounds quickly — saving even $4 per stubby across a 53-stubby batch is $212 per batch in displaced commercial purchases.
Mid-strength supermarket beer
Standard supermarket lagers like XXXX Gold or Carlton Mid in a 24-can carton land at $2-$3 per can. Fresh wort kit homebrew is similar or slightly more per can — not a savings, but you're comparing a craft-grade Hazy Pale Ale to a mass-market mid-strength lager. They're not really the same product. The honest comparison is quality, not just cost.
Tin extract kit homebrew
Tin extract kits cost $25-$35 and produce comparable batch volumes to fresh wort. That works out to $0.50-$1.00 per stubby in consumables — roughly half of fresh wort. If pure cost-per-beer is your only metric, tin extract wins. The trade-off is the "kit twang" character most extract beers have, which we cover in our methods comparison.
BIAB or all-grain
Once you've got the larger equipment investment in place, BIAB and all-grain ingredients run $40-$70 per 23-litre batch. That's $0.75-$1.30 per stubby in consumables — cheaper than fresh wort by a meaningful margin. The trade-off is the equipment outlay ($300-$1,000 more than fresh wort to start) and the brew day time (5-7 hours vs 30-45 minutes).
Hidden costs to budget for
A few real costs that often get left out of "cost per stubby" calculations.
Replacement parts
Fermenter taps wear out. Airlocks crack. Hydrometers break. Bottle cappers eventually need new replaceable parts. Budget $20-$40 per year in replacement consumables across your gear.
Yeast (if not included)
Most fresh wort kits include matched yeast. If you're buying yeast separately for any reason, add $6-$10 per packet.
Dry hop additions (optional)
If you're customising a kit with dry hops, expect to add $5-$15 per batch for hop pellets.
Temperature control (essential in Australian summers)
A used bar fridge and aftermarket controller is $90-$210 one-off. The power cost to run a fermentation fridge over a 2-week ferment is roughly $1-$3 per batch.
Bottles, eventually
If you don't have access to a steady supply of commercial bottles to reuse, new bottles cost about $1 each. Most homebrewers manage to keep their collection going indefinitely by drinking commercial beer and saving the bottles, but it's worth knowing the replacement cost.
When the cost math doesn't work
Three situations where the cost story is less compelling than the headline numbers suggest.
If you only brew a few batches a year
Equipment cost amortises slowly when batch count is low. A brewer doing 3 batches a year takes around 3-4 years to fully amortise their $180 starter kit. The per-batch consumables economics are still good, but the equipment payback is slow. If you're not sure you'll stick with the hobby, the breakeven argument is weaker.
If you compare to cheap commercial beer rather than craft
If you're a supermarket-lager drinker who normally pays $2-$3 per can, fresh wort homebrew at $1.50-$2.00 per stubby is a smaller percentage saving (and arguably about equal in like-for-like terms). The big savings appear when fresh wort is replacing premium craft beer at $5-$8 per stubby.
If you don't actually drink the beer
One stubby produced is one stubby unless you actually drink it. Homebrew that sits in the cupboard for months has the same cost as homebrew you drank yesterday, but only the latter saves you money on commercial purchases. Realistic consumption matters.
If you place a high dollar value on your brew day time
A fresh wort brew day takes 30-45 minutes of active work plus a 45-minute bottling day. Total: roughly 90 minutes per batch. If you value your time at $50/hour, that's $75 of "labour" per batch. Adding that to the consumables cost ($88) brings the per-stubby figure to about $3.07 with notional labour included. Most brewers don't factor this in because brew day is part of the hobby, not work — but if you're treating this as a strict cost calculation, the time has a value too.
For most homebrewers replacing $5-$8 craft beer purchases, the equipment pays itself off within two batches and every stubby after that is in the bank.
The realistic annual saving
For a brewer who brews one batch per month (12 batches per year) and would otherwise be buying premium craft beer:
- Homebrew cost: 12 batches × $88 = $1,056 in consumables, plus $180 one-off equipment in year one
- Total beer produced: 12 × 53 = 636 stubbies
- Equivalent commercial cost (at $6 per stubby): 636 × $6 = $3,816
- Year one saving: $3,816 − ($1,056 + $180) = $2,580
- Year two onwards saving: $3,816 − $1,056 = $2,760 per year
Those numbers assume you'd otherwise be buying the same volume of commercial craft. Most homebrewers don't actually replace their consumption 1:1 — some of the homebrew you make is beer you wouldn't have bought otherwise. The realistic saving is somewhere between half and full replacement value, depending on your habits.
For more on what you actually get for the money, see our is a fresh wort kit worth it article. For yield specifics (the 53-stubbies-per-batch figure), see how much beer does a fresh wort kit make. For the equipment side of the math, see homebrew equipment essentials.