Homebrewing is supposed to be a hobby. Judging by our readers, it’s more like an obsession. Or, at the very least, a significant diversion.

In honor of the magazine’s fifth anniversary, we looked at our subscriber studies, put our right brains to work and calculated that BYO readers have generated 16,005,000 gallons of homebrew since 1995. If you had the heart — or the bad taste — to mix this beer together, you’d fill 166 Olympic-size swimming pools before the kegs and carboys were empty. If you bottled this batch and laid it end to end, the line would stretch from Milwaukee to Cleveland. Another factoid: In the past five years, BYO readers have spent more than $106 million on homebrew equipment and supplies ... and some $204 million on commercial microbrews and imports.         

Over the next twenty pages, we’ve put together an anniversary package with a numeric theme. (Hint: It’s the number five. We are very clever.) Before you go forward, take a minute to look back at five years of BYO covers. Don’t get all jazzed up about the bathtub guy again; we did not put the bottle there on purpose.

Cheers! And thanks for reading the magazine.  — The Editors