This is another hobby of mine that I hope to eventually spend more time doing. I've tried brewing my own beer many times with very moderate success. I do love it though. It's fun, it takes some skill and practice but isn't so hard you can't do it.
My best batch so far was my first. I used a kit to brew a traditional IPA. It came out just fine and tasted really good. Ever since then I have had a few interesting failures and some very mediocre beer. The batch I was really bummed about was a raspberry-flavored wheat beer. I must have pitched the yeast while the wort was still too hot because fermentation never started. I even tried restarting it with a fresh batch of yeast but no luck. My most spectacular failure was when I broke a thermometer in the brew kettle. I was almost done with the brew when I noticed my glass thermometer was missing. A little spooning turned up the broken thermometer. I figured that wasn't going to taste good and threw the whole thing away.
But I'm not discouraged. I'm thinking about my next batch now and will probably do something that will taste good at the end of summer.