Just bottled our last two batches this past week.
First brew was a Russian Imperial Stout.
Then, Imperial Blonde Ale - this is the best one yet. Definitely a keeper for the fridge.
Honey wheat
A Belgian Saison.
Have a Daredevil IPA - in a one gallon fermenting.
Have a Irish Red to brew, but what is the one beer that everyone should brew, just once?
A 1920’s mild in the low 3% range. There’s no better beer for enjoying with friends, and if you keg you can easily psuedo-cask it.
Any historical recipe from Ron Pattinson. This is one of my personal favorites:
This is leaps and bounds better than any “Session IPA” being produced by US craft breweries right now, and at 1.036 it is really easy to make it disappear by the liter.
My second choice is an adjunct lager or cream ale. Once you have a dozen or so brews under your belt and are making good beer, you will be amazed at how flavorful and enjoyable the style can be when you’re not trying to intentionally make it taste like water.
Not trying to hijack the thread, but I’ve got a quick question on the '57 Whitbread recipe. In the description, Pattinson says No.1 Invert and the recipe calls for No.1 sugar. Is this simply table sugar? Or is there something ‘special’ about it?
Invert sugars, nos. 1-4, are invert syrups of varying colors (ranging from 16-325 SRM) used in British beers. Ron’s book The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer gives directions for manufacturing these. It’s not just sugar, and is also not the same as Belgian candi syrups (which add distinctive flavors as well as color.)
+1
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
I favor a good Pilsner. Bohemian or even American.
I was just talking about how beer would have tasted a hundred years ago.
There was limited availability of resources, money as well.
You made beer from what you could grow, or use a little of the excess crop.
I figured is wan’t too high in ABV, or very clear, either.
I’m going to check out these vintage brews and see what’s out there.
The easy answer is of course “brew whatever you want”, probably straight from Joy of Homebrewing, but for the sake of actually answering the question.
Rather than one classic style that everyone should make like a pale ale or a stout, I’m going to flip the question on it’s side a little and focus on the “just once” caveat.
I think, just once, everyone should brew something “weird”. Something non-traditional (by North American/European standards). A beer from Asia, Africa, South America. A beer that uses an alternate sugar like honey, molasses, sorghum etc. A beer that uses fruit or spices. Go wild. That’s the beauty of small batches, you can be really creative. It might turn out great, it might turn out awful. You might love it, you might hate it, but I guarantee you’ll learn something. Next time you want to use honey or grapefruit in a beer, maybe in a smaller quantity, you’ll know what it does. Even if then end result doesn’t turn out, playing with ingredients is always a good way to learn processes.
Hahahaha!!
I did that once, the airlock was 20’ away! A geyser of beer landed on the ceiling!
For this recipe I generally use Lyle’s Golden Syrup for the invert. I don’t know if it’s the exact same as the light colored invert sugars, but that’s generally what I use when a recipe calls for a light invert sugar.
I’ll keep that in mind but I went on youtube and found a couple of videos on making invert sugar that gave me what should be enough knowledge. Thanks, though.
A friend from works makes his own invert and candi sugar, from his descriptions it’s pretty simple. He makes it up in his brew kettle, then just runs his mash out on top of it.
I use Lyle’s as well, but want to switch to making it myself in the near future.
It’s simple, but involves several hours of standing and constantly stirring at the stove. Simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy.
He says it usually takes 25 minutes or so. Perhaps he starts with less water than is typical.
Check out Ron’s instructions. (I’m sure they’re on the blog somewhere too.) After the inversion is achieved and correct temperature is reached, he says 20-30 min gets the color for no. 1. Up to 300 minutes (again after the initial phases) for no. 4. Your friend may be getting the right sugar profile, but not the color. Lyle’s is always the easy option for no. 1. I wonder if some combination of some other sugar plus colorant like Sinamar could come close to the effect of the others, which look like the real PITA to make. But that’s way off topic in this thread, sorry.
Still off the main topic but on the recent comment–
Here’s a link to a dilution method using blackstrap molasses: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert
Full disclosure—I haven’t used this method so I can’t speak to results
I’m tempted to say New Albion Ale… and since it’s just NA 2-row and Cascade, it’s a pretty easy one to check off the list.