Getting started

Before you can get started you need a few things. First off, you need some ingredients - some malt, some hops and some brewing yeast are the bare essentials (and all you should use if you go with the old (and still well observed) German purity law - the Reinheitsgebot)
Then, you need some hardware. With luck you might almost be able to make a start with what you have in your kitchen. Basically you want:

• Big pot to mash in and boil in
• Big spoon (big enough to stir big pot)
• Strainer (or lauter) to strain the malt grain from your mash, and your hops out of your boiled proto-beer (they call it wort - for some unknown historic reasons I don't know). You can make do with a muslin bag for your first shot (This is called the Brew In a Bag (BIAB) method. Or you can make something out of stuff you found in cupboards (I did this - its the true way of the craft brewer) - or splash out and buy something from one of the many MANY online suppliers.
• Saucepan - to be used as a big ladle for slopping stuff around
• Fermentation bucket - they're cheap and last years
• Piece of tube for syphoning.
• Bottles - don't pay for these - save your empties (or other peoples) - don't leave that party empty handed.

One you're started you can just go on and on improving your kit. The money you save, you can plough back into a better and better brew set-up!

My new fave site for malt is The Malt Miller - they have a lot of exciting continental stuff as well as some standard British home produced malt and hops (US hops too) and they're really not expensive. For gear my faithful suppliers are The Hop Shop (good for hops too) and Brew UK.

As for know-how there are some good forums. Jims Beer Kit is a good one in the UK. For the US Home Brew Talk is great - and its a lot broader - lots of US craft beer types, and people trying to do continental styles (with a touching naiivity mostly). I'll write more about all the fine detail in the dueness of course. Browse those links for now!! 

BTW I'm looking for some good continental forums (German, Belgian, French, etc.) to trawl for ideas. Hard to find as a language-challenged Brit - any pointers gratefully received...