Lets get started

As of today, I’ll be posting my thoughts on beers that I have made and their recipes.  I’ll also post my thoughts of craft beers that I have tried and clone recipes for them.  I am going to try to post to this blog on a weekly basis.

A little back story on myself, I’m a home brewer.  I’ve been brewing since 2004.  With few exceptions, I have only brewed recipes of my creation, or at least ones that I have modified to suite my tastes.  I typically brew out-of-style.  My brewing philosophy is,

Styles are very important in terms of history, marketing, and competitions.

History:  When the vast majority of styles were developed, beer ingredients were not transported very far, people generally did not travel far, and the science of brewing was not well understood.  Once people starting traveling the world, beer ingredients began being shipped farther, and eventually beers began being shipped.  This meant that beer styles began influencing each other. 

Additionally, scientific methods and instruments began being used in the brewing and malting process.  Kilning methods changed.  Thermometers were used to enhance mashing.  Mashing techniques were improved.  Hops were crossbred.  Yeast strains were identified and isolated.  Sanitizers were used to reduce the potential for infected fermentations. 

Marketing:  Marketing is a very important part of making beer.  It is a means of the brewer to tell the drinker what to expect when drinking the beer.  What is the difference between a Porter and a Stout?  They overlap on starting and finishing gravities, percent alcohol, bitterness, and color.  They also use similar hops, yeast, and grain bills.

So what is different?  Well, for me personally, I expect a beer labeled “stout” to be blacker and taste a little roasty.  I expect a beer labeled “porter” to be browner and taste a little chocolaty.   But there are plenty of porters that are black and taste roasty and plenty of stouts that are brown and taste chocolaty.

But more than anything, stouts get better press (aka sell better).

You can do a similar analysis with Pilsners and Dortmonder Exports.  Exports are generally a little darker, maltier, and have less bitterness than pilsners.  But the style definitions do overlap the same way that stouts and porters do.  And… pilsners sell better.

Competitions:  In my opinion, this is the main reason that style “definitions” exist and can become a point of argument between people.  Competitions, by their nature, have to have rules.  There has to be a basis of comparing beers to each other.  If all beers were lumped in together, it becomes difficult to compare IPAs to stouts to pilsners to lambics.  So, a group of people came up with definitions so that the basis of comparison would be easier.

As a homebrewer, I firmly believe that style definitions, like BJCP, are a great place to start when formulating a recipe.  If you brew in-style, chances are that you will always brew a quality beer.  However, chances are that your beer will taste very similar to 90% of the other beers in that style.

I also believe that style definitions are not necessarily a great place to stop when formulating a recipe.  Learn and understand the history, the why, and the flavors associated with “the rules”.  Then systematically figure out when it is a good idea to “break the rules”.

When I’m formulating a recipe, I usually start off with a flavor that I want.  Then I start throwing ingredients (grains and hops) at the recipe that I think will give me the flavor that I want.  Once I get a good idea of the grains and hops that I want to use, I do a comparison to style definitions to see where I am and what sort of yeast and mashing schedule I should use.  After I select a base style for the beer, then I go back and modify the grains and hops to move the beer more towards that style.

My most recent example of my doing this was I was thinking of making a pilsner based steam (California common) beer.  But I decided that my current cellar temperatures (76F) were too warm for doing a steam beer.  But I could do an estery hefe.  I also decided that it was time for me to brew my winter warmer beer, so I set the ABV for the beer in the 8 %– 9% range.  Finally, I wanted it to have a bit of a more unique flavor, so I used Australian and American hops and dry hopped it.  But I didn’t want the dry hops to overpower the esters, so I minimally dry hopped it.

As for drinking beer, I have come to find that I like all beer styles.  There is usually something that I can find that I enjoy in a beer that is made well even if the style or ingredients are not my favorite.  My favorites are the darker, maltier ales (stouts, porters, browns), sour beers (lambics and saisons), and a select variety of German lagers (Dortmonder exports, bocks, and kolsches).

Some beers I find more challenging to drink and, if you are an American craft beer drinker, it will probably surprise you.  These tend to be overly hoppy American IPAs or DIPAs, especially if they have a c-hop & simcoe combination.  I'm just not that into grapefruit-pine flavors in my beer.

Not that there aren't some good ones.  But if you stocked my beer fridge with any dozen different beers, I would probably choose six or eight of the other ones before I chose the simcoe IPA.

Okay... let's begin