Can you boil water without setting it on fire? If you said yes, then you can make your own beer!!

For your first batch, I'd recommend a pre-made kit. They are available in cans and as kits that are put together by the homebrew shop. These will come with everything you need and will also come with instructions. The normal kit and recipe is written to make a 5 gallon batch which will yield 2 cases of 12 oz bottles.

A word of advice though, insist on a liquid yeast. It will cost you a few dollars more ($4-$5) but it is well worth it. There is no worse feeling than having to dump 5 gallons of beer down the sink because the yeast died.

Always follow the directions on the kit or your homebrew store owner and you'll get good beer. With that said, here are the general directions for making your own beer.

If the biggest pot you own only holds 3 gallons (and you are doing a kit):

Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil, stir in the extract syrup, and boil for one hour. Your directions may say no boiling is needed but your beer will be better if you do. At the end of the hour, remove from the heat, transfer to your fermenting bucket or carboy (allow to cool some if using glass carboy). Add 2 1/2 gallons of cold water (or enough water to give you a total of 5 gallons). This should cool the wort quite a bit. If the temperature is below 80 degrees F then it is safe to add your yeast. If not, WAIT UNTIL IT COOLS. At best you will get off favors in your beer, at worst, you'll kill the yeast. Another method of cooling the wort is to put the brew pot in an ice bath. Once the yeast is pitched (dumped in the wort), you want to aerate the wort. The easiest way to do this is shake the wort around in the fermenter. You should see activity in your airlock in 12 to 24 hours depending on temperature and how old your yeast was. Follow the fermentation schedule for your type beer (7 days to up to 4 months!!). Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, add 1 cup priming sugar (corn sugar NOT table sugar). Boil for 15 minutes and then allow to cool. Add this mixture to your fermented wort and bottle. Wait 2 weeks and then pop one open and try it. Congrats you just made your first batch of beer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you have the means to boil 6+ gallons of liquid at a time:

This will make better (or more consistent) beer but requires that you invest in a large pot which can be expensive. The only difference in directions would be to boil the entire 5 1/2 to 6 gallons at one time. You should use a Wort Chiller as well. You can either buy one at the homebrew shop or buy some 3/8" diameter copper tubing at the local hardware store, add some plastic tubing and fittings to connect it to the garden hose or the sink faucet. Once you are done boiling the wort, use the wort chiller and/or an ice bath to cool the wort. Five gallons of wort will take several hours to cool on its own. The instructions from here are the same as above.

For local help take a look in club listings @ Beertown link on the left side of the page. This is a site that lists the homebrew clubs across, not just the U.S. but, the world. Some of their links are outdated and don't work or need to be updated but that is to be expected. The book below is an excellent source of information. I still use even after having brewed for the last 6 years.