checking the last several brews ive made, the “standard strength” beer in my mind that ive made have been
1.043 - 2
1.044 - 1
1.045 - 3
1.046 - 1
1.047 - 1
1.049 - 1
1.054 - 1
1.056 - 1
over 1.06 would be strong intentioned and id try to go much over that ie. 1.07 or so, that way i dont session a whole bunch of 6.2+% abv beers as standard beers
im narrowing it down further to keep it closer to 1.043 - 1.048 in the future mostly. discourage flabby FGs and keep alcohol slightly down
I didn’t seeing to miss the hops, my english ales have the hops just right, but those beer are not a american IPA, my IPA I tend to go with session but my most pride IPA was 6.6% ABV, so I think you’re absolut correct
Around 1.050 usually. I drink beer primarily as a thirst quencher. OTOH I love doppelbock and English style barley wine and I go out of my way for a well brewed IIPA so don’t hold me to that.
I went back and checked the brews I made during my first pass through the hobby. Surprisingly, very few were of greater than 1.056 gravity for most of that period. Most of the batches were in the 1.052 to 1.056 range. It finally dawned on me as to why they were in that range. I was using mostly domestic 2-row as my base malt and domestic 2-row comes in 50lb bags. Most the recipes were based on 10lbs of base malt and a pound of specialty malts, usually a half of a pound of torrified wheat and half of a pound of some kind of crystal/caramel malt. That brew house usually yielded 29PPG +/- 1PPG. I brewed 5.75-gallon batches, so that I could yield 5 gallons of clear beer to a keg. With an average extraction rate of 29PPG, that meant 11 * 0.029 / 5.75 + 1 = 1.0555. After I switched to using imported malt, I started using 11lbs of base malt per batch on average because imported malt comes in 55lb bags. That is when my range changed to 1.056 to 1.060. My desire to use a bag of base malt efficiently is what drove my O.G. range.
My everyday beers are usually in the lower 1.050’s, but I will occasionally make an Imperial Stout, or a Belgian Strong.
Brewing big beers is a lot of fun but most of my brewing is around 1.040-1.050. Mostly looking at beers I can have a few on a weekend night and not be hungover or feel like I put down 5000 calories in beer.
yup, i think homebrewed beers have a tendency to have higher FGs than commercial craft beers, and certainly much higher FGs than bigger company made beers. those remaining gravity points are in a way money lost when they are trying to put out beer that is “X% ABV” as long as it isnt noticeable.
as i stated, i admittedly made some flabby beers lately and it feels like dessert plus a beer putting some of them down. definitely going harder on getting dryer beers now.
Any beer above 6.5 abv tastes medicinal to me. 5.0 abv is the target for nearly all my brews and I brew mostly milds, browns, porters, and stouts.
My ideal numbers are 1.048-1.052 and 38-42 IBU.
Not surprising to hear my favorite beer styles are:
California Common
Altbier
German Pils
American Pale Ale
Most of the beers that I want to drink 5-10 gallons of fall in the 1.042-1.052 range.
I ran the stats on the last 10 years of brewing, and have a mean original gravity of 1.054, a median of 1.052, and a mode of 1.046. This reflects my “perfect” original gravity pretty well, I think. A beer that hits ~1.050 and finishes just a hair south of 5% abv makes me happiest!
The yearly mean starting gravity has declined slightly over the past five years (1.057 in 2016; 1.052 in 2020), because I’ve started to do session beers more frequently. I rarely brew high gravity beers; if I want something “big,” a single bottle from the store is usually enough to satisfy my cravings.
Yep, I’m a data nerd.
i dont know if its still popular but the styles of american pale ale and american amber ale with OGs of 1.055 to 1.062 or so were really popular for a long time in the earlier years of homebrewing. i see a lot less of them at the store now i believe.
At least here in SoCal, American pale ales are still rather common at many breweries (and homebrew kits). But if I want an amber ale, I’ve gotta brew one! Hardly any of the smaller craft breweries make 'em now, whereas they were everywhere 15 or 20 years ago!