Anybody brew their own beer?

It should make some passable brew if you follow the instructions well. It'll also give you a basic introduction to the process of brewing. That said, if you happen to enjoy the results enough to want to try another batch...

Don't use the Mr. Beer kits. Go to Northern Brewer, MoreBeer, or Williams Brewing, buy one of their starter equipment kits and a basic recipe kit, and use those. The equipment will cost you about $75 and the recipe kit another $35ish. You'll get 5 gallons of brew out of the deal (instead of the 2 or so from Mr. Beer), and the results are miles ahead of anything you'll get out of the Mr. Beer kit.

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Don't use the Mr. Beer kits. Go to Northern Brewer, MoreBeer, or Williams Brewing, buy one of their starter equipment kits and a basic recipe kit, and use those. The equipment will cost you about $75 and the recipe kit another $35ish. You'll get 5 gallons of brew out of the deal (instead of the 2 or so from Mr. Beer), and the results are miles ahead of anything you'll get out of the Mr. Beer kit.

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i've been checking some other sites out and they mentioned using the mr beer kit with other recipe kits. would you know where to pick up some better recipe kits that are 2 gallon instead of 5? my apartment is relatively small and it would be easier for me to have a 2 gallon kit

Homebrewing is a good time... check out Austin Homebrew, or Midwest Brewing supplies online, they might have some smaller kits.

It has always been something of interest to me and one day I am going to do it.

If you have a real interest in this stuff, come to the beer tasting in N.O. Can't remember the specifics right now, but one of the radio stations puts it on in the late spring. Lots of good retail beer, but the different home brewer associations have people there letting you sample home brews. Good stuff.

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i've been checking some other sites out and they mentioned using the mr beer kit with other recipe kits. would you know where to pick up some better recipe kits that are 2 gallon instead of 5? my apartment is relatively small and it would be easier for me to have a 2 gallon kit

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Not entirely certain what the Mr Beer kit's equipment consists of, but the 5 gallon kits don't take up all that much space. Basically 2 7 gallon plastic buckets and some gadgets to go with them. Fits pretty well in the back of a closet or in a corner. The real space concerns come when you fall deep into the hobby. At that point, you'll need to find space to house all of your kegs, carboys, ingredients, growlers, bottles, gizmos, gadgets, and the like.

You could probably buy an ingredient kit, split the batch in half, and then use the Mr. Beer container to ferment it in two separate batches. I used a Mr Beer once, about 10 years ago, so I don't really remember how well suited it would be to do the job though.

If you are planning to reuse the kit, I'd recommend finding a source of EZ-Cap bottles (swing-cap Grolsch style) to do your bottling. Better than plastic screw tops, much better than putting crown caps on regular beer bottles.

If you buy a pre matched recipe kit, it'll usually be fore 5 gallons, but you can just use 2/5ths of the ingredients. A 5 gallon beer recipe kit usually ranges between $20 and $50.

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Yeah, I just realized you had to buy and use a pressure pouch with each 5L batch. The mini-keg looks interesting, I may get one and if I like it, pick up 2 more. They hold 1 and 1/3rd gallon, so I guess that will get me most of a 5 gallon brew.. or do you think one should just load one mini-keg at a time and keep the rest of the brew in the secondary fermenter for a while?

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If you don't have a kegging system in place (which is the ideal solution for all but portable situations), then I'd buy enough of the mini kegs to fill whenever they're done in your secondary. Siphoning multiple times from the secondary increases your chances for getting a spoiled batch, not to mention being a pain in the arse to siphon off a gallon at a time.

If you do have a kegging system, you can just have your keg rigged up and fill one mini keg at a time. Of course, you'd only do this for portable purposes if you've got a kegerator in place.

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I need to go buy a book about this stuff, the kegging part especially confuses me.

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Plenty of good ones out there. Palmer's "How to Brew" is an excellent resource. Papazian's books are good ones as well. Check out the forums at MoreBeer and Northern Brewer, as well as the rec.crafts.brewing newsgroup for a big community of online brewers.

As far as kegging, it seems a lot more intimidating than it really is. All you're doing is using an old soda keg (the things Coke and Pepsi used to ship their syrup in) to hold the beer. You have a gas in and a liquid out connector on the keg. CO2 goes in, and the liquid out is attached to a faucet of some variety (either a nice chrome one or a picnic faucet). The parts may seem complicated, but once you really look at it, its not bad at all. And you'll never bottle again - expect for competitions.

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Bottling homebrew is too much of a hassle and creates uncomfortableness when you explain to your friend that it is used beer bottles.

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I disagree. I have never heard anyone have trouble using "used" glasses in a bar or restaurant. Difference?

I would argue that after the sterilization required for homebrewing, those USED bottles are cleaner than most glasses in most restaurants, probably even cleaner than most glasses in your own house.