hoping for some answers, but just picked up some westmalle dubbels and it is just a beer ive been wanting to recreate or hit for so long.
i have admittedly struggled with it a lot, and my attempts were honestly some of my most disappointing brews based on what i perceived as research in the right direction. what are some styles that you have been trying to get spot on or close to and have struggled with?
Someday I want to make the perfect German helles. My lagers turn out pretty good, but there is something special about imported German lagers that seems almost impossible to achieve. If I could figure this out sometime before I die, I will die a very happy man.
For me it’s been the Hefeweizen. I have tried everything under the sun to get those classic banana notes and I achieved it once and cannot duplicate it. I’ve tried under-pitching, fermenting warm, lower temperature rests, etc and the results are mediocre at best.
Are we only allowed to list one? ;D
English Porter - Maybe I don’t know what I’m shooting for, but try as I may, I can’t seem to nail that soft, malty, caramel/chocolate flavor that I think is necessary. Recent attempts at Porters have given me what I would call 1) a really nice Brown Ale and 2) a rather mediocre Stout. My next go will be based on David Heath’s “London Porter”, simply because he sounds so believable.
I think a better question would be, “How many styles have you absolutely mastered?” Umm…
Yeast selection is important, and don’t treat them too nice. Underpitch and never make a starter. Ferment warm. If you haven’t yet, try WLP300, WLP380, or Wyeast 3068. I also hear good results from Lallemand Munich Classic, I have not tried that one yet but the others will definitely produce banana when treated as I stated.
I make pretty wicked dark beers, including porter, stout, altbier, schwarzbier, etc.
Regarding my perfect porter, what I’ve discovered about that style in particular is NOT to keep it simple. I use 10 to 12 different malts in my porters. I learned this from a Best of Show winner. It really makes for not a “muddled” flavor but complexity and deliciousness. Toss in anything and everything you can think of, in tiny amounts of a couple ounces each. That’s a great porter, IMO.
The Low O2 guys say they have Helles figured out. The secret ingredient could be sauergut. You might try that.
My current goal is a good full body, full flavor, low ABV beer. The beer I am drinking now is pretty close to what I am looking for. I seem to be getting closer with my recent process changes.
I’m pretty happy with my tripel. It’s so simple it’s hard to screw up.
I have three that I’m chasing:
A truly local sour (local yeast, grow my own hops, as local grain as I can get, farmers’ market fruit, etc). Lambic/farmhouse mythology adapted to my own environs.
The same as 1 but low ABV. Think Jester King Petit Prince.
A good oak-maple-chocolate-coffee stout for my wife.
Interesting. Not sure I’ve ever heard anyone recommend that approach before. I think I’ll need to hear that in David Heath’s voice before I can believe it. 
I make a really nice Stout…roasty, dry and eminently quaffable…and the grain bill is pretty simple. So maybe as a way of separation, a more complex grain bill will get me to the Porter that I’m after. Duly noted.
Rauchbier, getting closer.
I tell this story a lot to anyone who will listen. I chased a lot of beers over the years, but the one I chase the most is an American Lager. It’s probably one of the stupidest beers to chase (as I have been told many times), but it really helped me to take my brewing to another level.
My wife challenged me with “I’ll bet you can’t brew a beer I like”. When I asked her what beer that might be, she told me to brew a Michelob Golden Draft. It got me to brew lagers and that style is really can be tough. As they say, any flaws in the recipe, ingredients or process stands out like a sore thumb.
I started with American Lager yeast and found the best yeast for American Lager is Fermentis 34/70 dry yeast. The best adjunct I was able to find is Minute Rice. The best malt is Rahr Premium Pils and any low alpha acid German hop works really well in that style for bittering.
I started in 2014 and started winning medals on and off for the first couple years. As the beer progressed and I got closer to my wife’s liking, it picked up bigger wins until 2021 when it won a silver in NHC. Then the next year (2022) I won another silver in the NHC. The process led me to brew German beers and those are now my favorites. I started out brewing brown ales and now I brew mostly lagers. I never thought it would go this direction. So next time someone challenges you to do something you never intended to do, at the very least, think about.
The bad part is I have to brew the beer and have it on tap more than I would like, but honestly it’s one of my favorite beers.
What’s your process with the Minute Rice?
Yeah, that would have to be mine too. Granted, there are still a lot of styles I’ve never tried to brew yet…
My most recent rauchbier was really nice after 6 months (after having been disappointed with it in the earlier bottles), but I struggle to get that perfect balance of flavors. I think a lot of it for me is the variation in the smokiness of the rauchmalts themselves. I think I am brewing another rauchbier next week, as a matter of fact.
Just add it to the mash. It’s pre gelatinized so you don’t need to do a cereal mash.
Exactly. I tried making a flour out of it and adding it to the mash hoping to increase mash efficiency, but all it did was create a stuck mash. I add the grain and then add the rice to the top of the grain bed and let it rip. I have a RIMS system, but you could just mix it into the mash and it would be fine.
EDIT: It has the same PPG as flaked rice.
You need to smoke your own grain for freshness.
I make a good smoked beer, but not a traditional Rauchbier because I have trouble getting the substyle perfect. My secret is to cold smoke my own malt and use it fresh.
On the other hand my German Wheats are almost always too banana forward.
One beer I would really like to have on hand is a Belgian Pale Ale, but I can’t quite make it right.
It is interesting to hear the styles that folks are pursuing. Like Brew Bama, I have been making classic styles that are much lighter than the style guidelines contemplate or styles that are smaller in ABV - for example, a German Lichtbier version of any number of other styles, keeping the ABV below 4.2 - often in the 3’s. I call the project “Chasing the Unicorn”. It has really been a fun and rewarding process, because the lighter beer styles can be quite flavorful and even medium light to medium bodied when intentional about both ingredient and process. A few medals along the way have made the quest worthwhile, too. Not every style adapts well to the Lichtbier orientation, but most seem fine to me.
