all depends on the type of beer... as I said above, a hefeweizen if ready to drink almost immediately, in fact, it deteriorates over time... if you get behind on your brewing the hefe is a good beer to brew to get you caught back up... a hoppy sierra-nevada style pale ale will take about 6-8 weeks, some really big lagers like a double bock can take 3-4 months... a good barley wine will take upwards of a year...
I'm an all-grain brewer, start to finish for the mash and boil is about 6hrs, including cleanup... if you do extracts its about 3-4hrs...
words of advice from an experienced homebrewer, don't get glass carboys unless you are doing some LONG bulk aging... get the Better Bottles... they are much lighter, easier to clean and way less breakable...
in some respects you can spend as little or as much as you want to get a good homebrew setup... a basic starter kit can be had for about 150 bucks... a NICE one with co2 tank and kegging equipment will be near 4-500 (worth every penny imho)... over the years I've grown my collection of fermenters to about 12, some glass, some plastic Better Bottles... I use a stainless steel turkey fryer as my boil pot (40qt pot) and of course I use the burner as well... much less mess than doing it in the kitchen... you can use AL pots but whatever you do, DO NOT SCRUB THEM OUT!!!!! only use a water rinse and a soft cloth otherwise you will end up with a metallic taste in your beer... I made the swap to all-grain so i could use bulk grain to make my beers after about a year of extract brewing, it was about a 100 bucks extra but it reduced my "per batch" cost by about half... you learn some things over time, like recycling your yeast, buying hops by the pound and bulk grain purchases... the hefe weizen i did the other day cost me about 12-13 bucks for a 5 gallon batch (about 2.5 cases)... the most expensive beer I produce on a regular basis is about 18 bucks... some of my specialty beers are about 25...
if ya got any questions please feel free to PM me...
