I prefer dark ales with very low esters and haven’t been able to find them in local grocery store craft beer aisles or even in the average liquor store. Most of my brewing efforts go toward crafting brown ales, porters, and stouts with US05 yeast to minimize esters.
Do any of you have favorites that you cannot find commercially and are customizing to your own preferences?
Any of the beers from St Peters brewery in the UK can’t find them anywhere and they can’t ship their home brew kits to me.
I basically started brewing beer because I couldn’t get stuff I wanted to drink locally. It isn’t the reason I actually started but most likely one of the reasons I began brewing regularly. The first time I ever tasted a IIPA was a Pliney Clone I brewed.
Altbier and Cali Common aren’t nearly enough represented on retail shelves for my tastes, so I brew my own.
What couldn’t you find locally, and are you modifying it beyond normal style parameters?
When I moved here from PA (I live in Alabama) in '93 Sam Adams and Pete’s Wicked Ale was about all I could find. Now, of course, it is completely different we can get just about anything and have several small breweries (I’ll take credit for some of that, Alabama, you are welcome).
As far as going beyond normal style parameters … not really I guess. I used Crystal Hops in my Kölsch and I did use some interesting spices in my Belgian styles but for the most part I can’t think of anything that far out of the ordinary. I really liked German style beers that I had tried while travelling and so I would try to replicate them at home (like doppelbock for instance) and I would try to get them as close to the style that I had tried.
I second altbier
Lazy,
I implore you to try Nottingham for your dark beers if you like dry yeast. It’s even cleaner than US-05.
I didn’t get into brewing to brew what I couldn’t get at the store. I got into it because it seemed like a really cool thing to do. It still is; it’s the greatest hobby on Earth. Nowadays, I do find myself brewing more stuff that I can’t really get readily available or fresh. Certainly no real reason to brew a hazy IPA right now. Finding myself brewing west coast IPA more since here in Iowa you can’t really find it anymore - a few varieties, that’s about it.
Oatmeal stout - what the hell happened to this style? No one makes it anymore, Sam Smith’s is the absolute benchmark in my book. And now I have my nitro setup ready to go. So excited for oatmeal stout on nitro. I really miss Summit Oatmeal stout. Used to be on nitro at the local bowling alley. No we don’t really even get Summit beer in Iowa anymore…stupid pandemic.
Helles - Some breweries make them but they really fall short of what I feel a good helles should be. And ain’t none of us going to make one anywhere near as good as Weihenstephaner, the benchmark of helles. Sorry lodo guys. We just don’t have the equipment, time, knowledge (although I think we have the knowledge now for the most part), resources, etc. to make what they make. But, you can get close and many breweries aren’t even in the ballpark. But I also find I’m not always in the mood for that uber malt flavor that the German lagers have. Just that American versions are usually too hopped up or use crappy malt.
Black IPA - no one makes these anymore and I liked and brewed the style before it was cool back in 2008 (yeah, I said it, I meant it, I’m here to represent it).
Vienna lager - no one around here makes these although they seem to be getting a bit more popular.
And IMO BRY-97 is cleaner than either of those.
Well, there you go. I haven’t brewed with that yeast in years.
It’s pretty much become my go to when I don’t want to make a starter.
I love Belgian ales. I can get them here but they’re pricey. I’ve finally honed in on a dubbel and tripel recipe I really enjoy and find they stack up well against available beers. I still haven’t been able to make a quad come out as well as I hoped.
Once in a while I brew a good ol’ American Amber, the kind that was very popular in the mid-90s. Great style that these days doesn’t get the love it deserves.
Spruce Amber beer is in my regular rotation.
When I go to the bottle shop I am often surrounded by a lot of beer I would never buy… over-the-top IPAs, Belgians, gimmicky beers, etc. So many of my batches are meant to fill that void: German styles that I feel are better than what I can get here because the ones in the stores are usually aged. Mine are clearly not “better” but they are good and they are “fresher”. Middle of the road pale ales… like APAs. Hard to find in a bottle shop. Dark lagers along the lines of Mexico’s INDIO which I don’t think is available here. Think 5%, SRM 15 or so and IBUs of maybe 20. Yuengling when I’m in the mood for it. Can’t get it in Illinois. There is an Amber Lager by Live Oak in Austin called Big Bark. Can’t get it here so I asked the brewer for the recipe and he obliged.
Hmmm I might disagree with you there. Amber ale was probably the blandest of all styles, even worse than blonde or American wheat. I think there’s a pretty darn good reason why that style all but disappeared. I’m sure the same can be said for black IPA (a style, like you and Amber ales, I appreciate).
I would say my favorite style is a Czech Lager and lagers in general. I can find a few offerings in bottles which I avoid because Ive been skunked one too many times. Wish I could get in cans but haven’t seen any near me. Aldi’s sells some german pilsners that are damn tasty and for a fair price. So, to the point, I brew a Czech Lager that is pretty friggin awesome. I try to keep 3-4 kegs in rotation but for some reason find that difficult because I have friends and neighbors who seem to think its awesome too.
Like yourself I tend to brew beers that are not commercially available. We brew roggenbier, alt and ordinary bitter. We also brew a rye saison for the summer. There are so many IPA’s, etc. that we don’t need to compete with such commercially available beer.
Thanks to Denny and beersk for the yeast suggestions, I’ve not experimented with a lot of different kinds. And for beersk, I make oatmeal stout and porter with flaked oats quite frequently.
Great. I’ve got one ready to tap this Friday with 1084, stoked about it. I toasted the oats for 25 minutes at 325F also. Adds a nice dimension I think.