Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Essential Beer Styles

On July 15, 2009

I have been thumbing though a favorite old recipe book of mine recently looking for inspiration. Temptation lurks on every page under the headings of Alt, Porter and Bock. I try to see these beers in my minds eye, and sometimes I imagine what they must taste like, or what the perfect example you taste like on my palate.

Then I think about the techniques and skills required to not just brew a beer willy nilly, but to brew it well. I am always preaching about being dedicated to brewing a couple recipes and brewing them well. The temptation to brew a new style every time we brew is very great as homebrewers. I think many brewers to jump all over style to style.

So I began to wonder, if I wanted to have one recipe that I brewed really well which would it be. Well simply picking one beer/recipe/style to brew over and over gets boring. (I have tried it!) So then I thought about maybe narrowing the field to fewer beers. But how many to include…. Well the new kegerator I am building will have 4 taps to start with. And, the more I hashed it over, 4 sounded like a decent compromise between variety and commitment to better brewing.

So I pose this question to myself: “Which four styles would you brew if you were limited to only 4 styles?”

Here’s my top four. I chose these because I find myself gravitating towards these recipes all the time. But I don’t dedicate myself solely to these styles because I occasionally toss in some other new style.

American Cream Ale
English Ordinary Bitter
English Northern Brown Ale
Oatmeal Stout

Interestingly, with these four I could save money to develop the perfect recipes, because three of them are English in nature. So that means buying English base malt in bulk and perhaps buying EKG hops in bulk as well. Lastly, if I plan my brewing sessions appropriately I could always pitch with yeast cake, or at the very least save English ale yeast for batch to batch…again significantly reducing the cost.

(Of course how does this fit into my new love of sour beers that I will obviously need to start brewing myself as commercial examples are far and few between???)

So what’s your top four???

BREW ON!

Protein Rest

By John Krochune

On July 13, 2009

In All Grain

Since I am brewing a wheat beer, I have been reading up on the proper mashing procedure. One of our readers, Winn, brought up an interesting point about wheat beers and the use of a protein rest during mashing.

I have read recipes that call for it. I have read posting that say it isn’t necessary.

What say you?

Do I need to do a protein rest for my honey wheat ale?

Perle Hops

By John Krochune

On July 10, 2009

In Hops

A few years ago, Mike made an Alt using Perle hops. I have finally got around to conducting some research on this variety. Here’s some info I compiled to write up this well rounded profile about Perle Hops.

They were bred using the Northern Brewer variety as one of their parents. This breeding was done at the Hop Research Center at Hüll in Germany, which sounds like a pretty cool place to be. They also bred Magnum hops.

1978 was the year it was reportedly bred and they were made available here in the States in the 80s.

Although you can get German-grown Perle hops, a good quantity is grown in Washington and Oregon, USA.

Origin: Germany

Aroma/Flavor: Green, Combo of the Northern Brewer minty flavor and the spicy nobleness of other German hops

Alpha Acid: 5.5% to 7.5%

Typical Usage: All sources pointed to that dual purpose moniker. I would lean towards flavoring. Seems to play well with others.

Beer Styles: Seems to be a large variety of beers. I would use them in German styles. I think my Dopplebock recipe calls for them. Some sources said to not use them in Pilsners.

Meh. Do what you want.

Honey Wheat Ale Shopping List

By John Krochune

On July 9, 2009

In Brew Log

Time to start up the ol’ brew log again. The next brew session will be for the honey wheat ale. I reviewed my recipe and I am putting together my shopping list. Here it goes:

4.5 pounds of American 2-row Malt
4.5 pounds of Wheat Malt
1 pound of Honey Malt
White Labs WLP001 California Ale
Rice Hulls

I was going to get some light caramel malt but I am going to keep it simple. Honey malt will be my specialty malt.

I was going to buy some hops for flavoring, but I have some Columbus left over from the pale ale brew session. I think I am just going to bitter with them and let the honey/wheat flavor dominate.

This brew will be a cautiously experimental beer. It’s more of an exercise of learning the value of honey malt than anything else.

Brew On.

P.S. If I have enough left over on the gift certificate, then I was planning to buy a secondary fermentation vessel…a glass carboy with a stopper…and I guess another airlock.

Fourth of July Beer Review

By John Krochune

On July 7, 2009

In General

When Mike posted his plan to make a Red, Wheat, and Blue beer array for his 4th of July party, there were a few readers who wanted an update.

The three beers were kegged and held in Mike’s converted garbage barrel. The taps were lined up like the colors in the flag…from left to right…red, wheat, and blue.

The strawberry blonde had good fruit flavor but no vibrant red/pink color from the berries. Mike said that the strawberries were a ghostly white at the bottom of the secondary vessel, but where all the color went is a mystery.

The plain ol’ wheat was a refreshing American style wheat beer. Mike said it didn’t have enough wheat flavor for his liking, but it had shaped up very nicely for the party.

The blueberry wheat had a lot of purple-ly blue color, but little fruit flavor. It was interesting to see how the two fruit wheat beers differed.

For the full roundup of the brewing technique for these beers, read Mike’s Red, Wheat, and Blue post.