| Summary: | Homebrewing of beer is a worldwide growing hobby, and using Stebbins’ theories on leisure, brewing can be classified as a serious leisure. Using a qualitative approach, the aim of this explorative bachelor’s thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of a group of serious leisure homebrewers through the use of semi-structured interviews. The research questions are: Which information resources are used by home brewers? Which information activities do homebrewers perform? To what extent do homebrewers share information with other home brewers? The transcribed interviews were analysed using Lloyd’s concept on information landscapes, Talja and Hansen’s concept on information behaviour and previous studies on the information behavior of hobbyists.The homebrewers use a variety of text-based, social and physical information resources for their hobby. Beer is the most important information resource, as interaction with different categories of beer create the brewers own taste. Taste act as a catalyst for consequent information activities. The brewers own experiences of brewing is also a valued resource since it creates know-how about the processes involved. The main information activities associated with brewing revolve around the making of recipes: brewers search for recipes that they compare, alter or combine to suit their own preferences. Information sharing is prevalent among the brewers in the study as it is expected by the homebrewing community at large. Sharing is seen as a method of transferring information from brewer to brewer in their quest for the ultimate brew.
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