Well, the difference between the US and Canada is that all alcoholic beverages are a lot more expensive in Canada because of the hefty taxes the government puts on them. I haven't bought beer for about 20 years, but a 750 ml (which is very close to 1/5 of a US gallon) bottle of vodka costs anywhere from 20 to 30 dollars Canadian, depending on the brand. A 12 of beer is exactly 1 Canadian gallon of beer, and that costs about 21 dollars at the beer vendors I've been told. When I was in the US years ago, I could buy a 6 pack for 3 or 4 dollars.
If you like beer, then you can definitely make VERY tasty beer at home for a small fraction of what it costs to buy the stuff here in Canada. What you'll need to make truly great tasting beer is a very large pail of some sort. I use a 10 gallon pail that was used for swimming pool chlorination crystals. (I understand that it's better to use a "food grade" plastic which is much purer than general purpose plastics with no fillers in it. But, I guess I just wasn't that concerned about chemicals leeching out of the plastic, and over the past 20 years I can't say that I've ever suffered any ill health effects from not using food grade plastics in my beer and wine making.
Any place that sells beer and wine making supplies will sell 5 gallon primary fermenters, and often they will simply be a 5 gallon pail. It's not a good idea to use these because they are JUST 5 gallons, and when you allow for the foam that forms over the beer while it's fermenting, that can add another 2 inches which you won't have room for. If you can't find any large plastic pails from the places listed under "Containers and Cartons" in your yellow pages, then you should be able to find proper 7 or 12 gallon primary fermentors at the beer and wine making stores. You need the extra room to allow for the foam that forms over the beer during the first few days of fermentation.
Basically, the process is as follows:
1. Fill your PRIMARY fermentor (which need be nothing more than a big pail or even a garbage can lined with a food grade plastic bag) with about 3 gallons of cool water, and dissolve the recommended amount of dextrose sugar in that water. Dextrose is recommended, but I never noticed any difference between using dextrose and ordinary granulated sugar you can buy cheap from Walmart or Zellers. I honestly think that the people working at the beer and wine making stores recommend Dextrose sugar because they sell Dextrose sugar. If they recommended ordinary granulated sugar, then you'd buy it cheaper from Wal-Mart instead of from them. Any place listed under "Wine & Beer Making Supplies" will tell you what the standard amount of sugar to add is, and I think it's 6 to 8 cups of sugar for 5 gallons of beer. I would just add 2 two liter bottles of granulated sugar for making 10 gallons of beer.)
2. Stir the contents of a beer or cider making kit into a large pot of very hot water so it all dissolves in the hot water. Beer kits will have a syrup inside it about the consistancy of pancake syrup, or a bit thicker. Cider kits are more expensive, but the liquid inside them is as thin as water.
3. Pour the hot water from Step #2 into the cold sugar water in Step #1, and then add more cold water to come to a total of 5 or 10 gallons. I always made my beer 10 gallons at a time because the amount of work is about the same whether you're making a 5 or 10 gallon batch, so making larger quantities is more efficient from a labour perspective.
4. Now, add your yeast. The beer and wine making stores will tell you that you should have both a thermometer and hydrometer to measure the temperature and specific gravity of the beer before you add the yeast. If the beer is too hot, it could kill the yeast cells. Knowing the density of the water before you add the yeast will give you it's potential alcohol content after fermentation. I had both a thermometer and hydrometer 20 years ago, and found that I stopped using them just like everyone else. I just have one of those plastic foil temperature gauges that people stick to their windows stuck onto my primary fermentor, and use that. I've never had yeast die on me cuz the water was too hot, so my guess is as long as your water is luke warm or cooler, it's OK to add the yeast.
There is beer yeast and there is wine yeast. Use beer yeast if you want a nicer tasting beer. If you want a strong beer, add more sugar in step #1 and use wine yeast (which will tolerate an alcohol content of up to 15% before fermentation stops).
5. Now, cover your beer to prevent bugs and such from getting into it. I use clear plastic lawn bags so that I can check the fermentation is going rapidly by looking through the clear plastic. It'll take anywhere from a week to 2 weeks in the primary fermentor for the beer to ferment. The fermentation continues at a progressively slower rate after a week to 2 weeks, and most people will then siphon their beer into a "SECONDARY" fermentor. A primary fermentor need be nothing more than a pail. A Secondary fermentor will be a large jug with a neck on it in which you can fit something called an "air lock". An air lock allows the CO2 accumulating inside the secondary fermentor to escape without allowing air to get into the secondary fermentor. I always used a 10 gallon primary fermentor and two 5 gallon secondary fermentors. The secondary fermentor can be either glass or plastic. Plastic gets stained a brownish colour after a while, but glass secondary fermentors can break if you drop them, so be aware that dropping a full glass secondary fermentor can result in major water damage in a house.
6. Once the fermentation rate in the secondary fermentor has slowed to a crawl (judging by how often you see the air lock "bubble"), then it's time to bottle your beer. I would use plastic 1 liter soft drink bottles for my beer because of the 1 liter size of my beer steins, but any container that can be closed tightly will do. Basically, what you do is siphon your beer from the two secondary fermentors back into the one primary fermentor and add some sugar. Typically, about 1 to 2 cups of sugar for 5 gallons of beer is about what you'd use (if I recall correctly).
You then siphon the sweetened beer from the primary fermentor into the bottles, and seal the bottles immediately. The fermentation process will continue inside the bottles. The by-product of fermentation of sugar is the production of CO2 gas, and it's this secondary fermentation that goes on inside the bottle that carbonates your beer. Another by-product of fermentation of sugar is the formation of dead yeast cells at the bottom of the primary and secondary fermentors as well as right inside the bottles. Basically, you soon learn how to pour (or "cant") the beer off into a large beer mug without disturbing the "dregs" (dead yeast cells) on the bottom of the bottle. The longer you leave the beer bottled, the more solid the dregs on the bottom will become, and the easier it will be to cant the beer off into a mug or stein without disturbing the dregs.
Also, you want to keep your beer mugs or steins in your freezer. You pour cold beer into a cold beer mug or stein. Pouring cold beer into a room temperature mug causes the beer to warm up quickly with the resulting loss of CO2 in solution in the beer. It's that CO2 that gives the beer much of it's taste, so you want to keep the CO2 from coming out of solution as bubbles for as long as possible to keep the beer tasting good as you drink it. Sometimes you see special beer glasses with "scratches" on the bottom of the glass made by a lazer to promote the formation of CO2 bubbles on the bottom of the glass rather than on the sides of the glass. It's a stupid idea from someone who knows more about selling stuff to people with more money than brains than he does about beer. You WANT to keep the CO2 dissolved in the beer, and the best way to do that is to pour COLD beer into a COLD glass and drink it outdoors in a Manitoba winter.
And, that's really about all there is to making great tasting beer.
PS:
Did you notice that beer steins will always have a hinged metal lid? This feature dates back to the middle ages in Germany where it was believed that the Black Death (the Bubonic Plague) was caused by flying insects falling into the beer men drank. The cover on beer steins was a legal requirement and every Inn that sold beer had to provide the beer in mugs with covered tops to protect the beer inside from flying bugs dropping into the beer. This is why those metal covers are always "cone" shaped... to shed any bugs on them.
Beer Stein Article – “A Brief History of Beer Steins”
Today we know that the flying insects were never responsible for the Plagues that swept across Europe, but the traditional hinged cover on beer steins still carries on as a quaint tradition rather than a legal requirement.