(FORTUNE Magazine) – What's the ultimate way to ensure that your product meets the idiosyncratic tastes of today's demanding consumers? Some San Francisco entrepreneurs think they've got the answer: Let the customers manufacture the product themselves.

That's the idea at Brew City, a do-it-yourself microbrewery that opened in December in the trendy Marina district. Here's the drill: You pick one of 60 recipes, which run from lagers to stouts. Brew City gives you the ingredients. You mix the stuff, per their instructions, in their copper-clad, stainless steel 15-gallon kettles. You go home; your concoction ferments. Two weeks later you come back and pick the stuff up, bringing your credit card and a dozen thirsty friends: The minimum batch is four cases (that's nine gallons) for $90 -- or $5.63 per six-pack.

Brew City can't guarantee that you'll love your batch of beer -- but the success of the brew-it-yourself movement, which began in Canada as a way around high liquor taxes, suggests that customers are getting the knack. So- called personal, or on-premise, breweries have now reached venerable beer towns such as St. Louis; Portland, Oregon; and Boulder, Colorado.

The S.F. startup is run by a local pub's former brewer, a former commercial real estate location scout, and a recently graduated Berkeley MBA, who cooked up the idea as a B-school project. Unlike microbreweries that do the work for you, Brew City doesn't need a beer license; the state lets it operate under the guise of home brewing.