I make my own beer, though I am a very casual brewer. (No thermostat controlled fridges, I buy ready-to-use malt extract brew cans from the supermarket, plastic bottles instead of glass ones). I use Cooper's products for brewing, which will produce decent beer. To get started, Cooper's has a brewing kit with an initial supply of perishables which retails for around 80 dollars. The non-consumable parts of the kit is reusable, but if you get a successful batch out of it you have the equivalent of more than 2 cases of beer which already puts you in front price-wise. It's basically impossible to fail if you follow the instructions.
To go from raw ingredients to finished product typically takes a month or two, but it can be done in as little as 3 weeks. Brewing a fresh batch while consuming a finished batch will ensure that there's always good beer for enjoyment.
Brewing beer myself lets me experiment with the brewing process, though I try to limit my experiments to varying the amount of brewing sugar, the amount of hopped malt extract and pure malt extract that I put into the brew, so as not to make it too onerous for myself.
Brewing a batch of beer (23L) typically costs around 20 dollars, though sometimes I may add in an extra brew can or an extra packet of sugar to prop up the alcohol content or flavor, which in turn increases the cost of the batch.
From time to time I'll probably put up stuff about my brews on my blog. A full brew log's planned but it's not quite there yet.