I know that new brewers tend to be all over the map with respect to original gravity (O.G,). However, we tend to find our own niche O.G. range for our house styles over time. For me, my Goldilocks O.G. is 1.060 and my Goldilocks O.G. range is 1.056 to 1.060. A Pre-Pro Pils brewed to 1.060 with 35 IBUs of Cluster (kettle) combined with Czech Saaz or Tettnang Tettnanger (late) is a thing of beauty. I tend to make this beer with 80/20 domestic 2-row/corn grits instead of the more typical 6-row/corn grits. I sometimes use flaked maize if I am not feeling up to doing a double mash; however, the beer tastes different when corn grits are used.
I prefer all malt beers usually American or British inspired styles with the occasional Czech or German inspired style thrown in for good measure.
I usually use Pale or Pale Ale malt and possibly varying shades of Munich or maybe Vienna as a base. I then branch off from there with Specialty malts, a little Crystal/Caramel/Cara- malt, and Roast malts. I rarely use adjuncts but have been known to use sugars. I try to use malts from the beer style’s home of origin.
I rarely brew a recipe exactly as written in a magazine, book, or website. I adjust it to my system’s efficiency which is dialed in to BeerSmith so I’m usually a percentage or three left or right of a recipe’s grist, SRM, IBU, etc. …but usually pretty close.
I usually select beers to brew in the 1.052 -/+.004 OG range but there’s been known to be a Bock thrown in.
I seem to be mainly in the 1.060-66 range. Down from 1.076-82 years back.
1.055. It’s not a range, it’s a hard number.
You would be surprised to discover how many British beers are not all malt. A large percent of British brewers use invert sugar and/or flaked maize. Newcastle uses corn and invert sugar. I used to be in the all-malt is better club until I read two articles in Brewing Techniques that changed my outlook on adjuncts forever; namely, “The Bushwick Pilsners: A Look at Hoppier Days” by Ben Jankowski and “Explorations in Pre-Prohibition American Lagers” by George Fix. I look at adjuncts as tools in a brewers tool bag. Adjuncts used judiciously work like magic in bigger beers. I consider big beers to be those with an O.G. of at least 1.060. An apparent attenuation of 75% on a 1.060 results in a final gravity (F.G.) of 1.015. That is too heavy for a lot of beer drinkers. However, we replace 20% of the malt with corn grits or flaked maize, it produces a mash that will attenuate like a smaller all-malt beer because the sugars extracted from corn tend to be more fermentable than the sugars extracted from malt. That gives us a lower F.G. beer with the taste of a bigger beer. That is the beauty of adjuncts.
By the way, I read the articles mentioned above when they were first published because I subscribed to Brewing Techniques for the entire time it was published, but MoreBeer has re-published many of the articles on this website. These two articles are online. While Zymurgy is a decent publication, Brewing Techniques was targeted at advanced amateur and small-scale professional brewers. I would never join the AHA for access to Zymurgy. It is just too basic of a magazine. Zymurgy fills the same role amateur brewing community as the ARRL publication QST fills in the amateur radio world in that it is targeted mostly at beginning and intermediate hobbyists. Sure, there are more technical articles every now and then, but I personally believe that it is time for the AHA to consider a supplemental publication, released on a quarterly or semi-annually basis, that is targeted at advanced amateur brewers. It would require a separate subscription like the ARRL publication QEX. QEX is to QST as Brewing Techniques was to Zymurgy.
Mine has settled into the 12 to 18 Plato range for most lagers.
Ales are brewed from 9P to 25P+. I’ve been doing more Special Bitter at around 10P. Will do some Milds around 8 to 9 this spring.
Mine is about 1.048, with a range of 1.040 to 1.055. The older I get the smaller I like my beers to be. Plus, this way I can mill all my grains in one hopper-load.
I seem to always aim for 1050-1055. But, I am stuck in a rut is as good an explanation for that choice as any other. When I go above or below that range the beers are still great.
No, I wouldn’t. I’ve read quite a bit about British beers. …which is why I say ‘inspired by’ vs ‘recreate’. I prefer all malt beers but have been known to use sugars.
I brew more 12-13 P lagers than stronger ones. I can have a few.
Ok I’m gonna be the wierd one, my OG nichee is 1.035-1.043 for most of my beers I do regularly, most low alchool british ale, some sessions american ale and a little low alchool german beers
Did you miss any common gravity with those ranges? 
I spent few years dabbling in that range with ordinary and best bitters.
For German beers it would be Schank beers at 8P, so Leicht Beer and Berliner Weiß. No strong Doppelbocks or Eisbier for me.
I do appreciate most English beer. I do see recipes for table beer, and a few others in the 3% or less range. The really strong ones are too much for me now, like Thomas Hardy’s ale. I might do an English Barley wine soon, but more in the 8% range.
Most of my hoppy American style beers have dropped to 6% ABV or just above.
One thing that has remained consistent in my brewing over the years is that my gravities are all over the place. I would have to say that over the last couple of years though, I have been making more beers in the 1.050 - 1.055 range.
I’d be the same way, except I like hoppy beers and I feel that some hop flavor is missing when a beer is under 5.5% or so ABV. I’m assuming that the alcohol helps extraction, solubility, or acts as a carrier for hop oils.
I’ve been chasing 1.034 to 1.040 beers for several months now and getting the hops right is elusive, indeed. The best have been a Leichtbier Helles and a Czech Pale Lager, but I have 3 Leichtbier Pils on tap at present with slight hop tweaks between them. My Ordinary bitters have leaned toward Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, but a bit smaller.
This has been my path as well (in addition to smaller and smaller batch size, been down around 1 to 1.25 gallons for a while now). Without even really thinking about it, after taking another look, all my beers except for one over the past 2 years have been from 1.045 to 1.055, with an overall average of 1.052. And the next one I have planned is an American Light Lager at 1.042. So I am definitely shrinking my OGs as I grow older. These days I care much less about gimmicky stuff and much more about quality.
My pursuit now for a little while anyway will be trying to nail down standard strength German lagers. I don’t even want doppelbock for now, though I might try a maibock. I’m going to brew multiple lighter lagers over the coming months. If I can finally get the German lagers figured out, then I can move on to other things. Unless I fail and just give up. But my last batch gives me hope that I am finally on the path. I expect average OG for all of these to be right around 1.050, maybe 1.055 tops.
To put it in engineer speak, I’ve been tightening the distribution of what I brew up to 9-14 P. There are still some pesky long tails that remain.
All my brews are 4 to 5% ABV.