Importance of staying in style

When you are building your recipes, how important is it for you to stay in style?

Since I do not enter in competitions, style guidelines tend to go out the window. But I do tend to check to see if I have any "glaring" differences. Like, FG way to far one way or the other.

Just curious what everyone thinks.

To me it is more important to make recipes that:
1. I like
2. Allow me to learn about individual ingredients
3. Fit the style
4. My friends like

Now, if I can get all these in one, great, if not that is the order of importance.

I'm still pretty green at building recipes from scratch so when I begin, I start with a particular style that I'm trying to emulate. If what I want takes me off style a little, I don't really worry about it.

Other than stout or hefe I tend to stray from guidelines.

The only time I'm in style is when I brew a clone or follow someone else's styled recipe, otherwise I make odd brews that appeal to me.

Depends on the brew. The hefe I did (Baron's recipe) was as simple and traditional as it is delicious. My favorite recipe, my red IPA, is too dark for the style but otherwise pretty much in style. My Tempation red ale, that I also love, is in style but within a very broad style (American Amber).

The times where brews have been disappointing to me, like my smoked porter, I've gotten a little off style (too many hops), or the mocha stout which was just a disaster. So, it depends on the brew, but I'm inclined to generally stick to the guidelines for the time being.

In my mind, the style guidelines really serve two purposes for homebrewers:

1. They are the definitive reference to which different types of beers may be compared for the purposes of fair and objective judging. Without them, beers could only be compared on the basis of subjective and personal opinion.

2. They also provide a great starting point for recipe creation. If you follow the style guidelines, you will have reasonable idea ahead of time regarding how a beer will turn out. Thus, if you like your brown ales a little maltier and sweeter, you can also have a good idea of what to add to make it that way (say some munich and some crystal malts).

BTW, if you haven't already read it, Ray Daniel's book "Designing Great Beers" does an excellent job of matching up ingredient lists to many of the different beer styles. Great reference.

Reason I brew is to find a "Style" I like and change it to something I LOVE!! My pale ale is more of an IPA, my IPA is more of an IIPA, My wheats, well, they have wheat in em...... Find what ya like and go for it. Just remember, none of these styles EXISTED till someone tried a beer and thought "I want to do this differently" Competition is one thing, but for around the house, just use em as rule's of Thumb

I agree Flyguy.

Staying in style is always my goal.

Anyone can put something together, use the wrong ingredients, the wrong yeast, the wrong everything and something good may come of it.

IMO, not brewing in style is like like slipping the tongue to your sister instead of a super-model.... (I know what you're thinking, Cheese...close your eyes.... )

i always take a look at guidelines as a reference, but if i think it's going to be good, i brew it. usually it is

I brewed mostly in style at first, but I've been mixing and matching a lot lately. I'm doing wheat everything for the summer: wheat IPA, wheat stout, wheat porter, etc. So it's good to know what the basic styles are, but there is no need to be restricted by them once you get a handle on things.

I want to brew strictly to style so I can get a better feel for how different ingredients work. Then I plan on striking out on my own.

If everybody always brewed strictly to style, then there would never be any new styles. I don't think that we've exhausted all possible styles yet.

-a.

I just brewed a "Oatmeal Stout" that I made up scratch.
9#Dark Malt Extract
1#Flaked Oats
1#Roasted Barley
.5#Chocalate Malt
1/2tspBurton's Salt
2oz. Northern Brewer Hops
1 pkg Nottingham Dry Yeast
I steeped the grains in 2 1/2 gal of 148 to 156 degree water then added 1# of extract and the hops. Boiled for 45 min. then added the other 8# extract and boiled for another 15 min.
Hydrated the yeast and pitched after cooling.
Would you call this a Oatmeal Stout?

One good reason to brew to style is to find out how well your brewing process works. If you can make a beer that fits into the style you attempted and it has no off flavors you are a good brewer and your brewing practices are sound.
Having said that, I don't really care about being spot on to a style. More important to me is the taste. I like to tweak my brews to where I like them best. At that point I couldn't care less about style guidelines.
Entering competitions is a whole nether kettle of fish...

of course I cooled the wort first

I brew 'in style' for some things. Mostly though, I used the bjcp as a reference to formulate many of my 'traditional' recipes. The purpose of this was two-fold. Firstly it gave me a strong backbone of technique...what I mean by this is when something works, it does so for a reason. Emulating these styles introduced me to technique at building recipes. Secondly, I like many 'traditional' styles.

Now I can run.

Being relatively new at brewing, it's easier to start with the guidelines and diverge from there...

2 cents: To me style guidelines are more than just a jumping-off point, they are a framework that offers a common language for beer as well as defining a number of common characteristics for a given style. These characteristics are related to brewers' and consumers' expectations from a beer. When I walk into a bar and see "porter" on the menu, I am going to have certain expectations about what is presented in the pint glass for my consumption. The same holds true of a beer offered by a fellow homebrewer.

Just because you have this existing framework and expectations it does not mean that it can not evolve or has to stifle creativity.


Either way, brew what you like.

Me? I usually try to say near the guidelines set forth by Beersmith, (IBU's, potential OG, SRM, etc) but I don't really get too worried about it if I am off some. I don't have a way to measure my color & IBU's anyway. I can only guess.

My standard recipe formulation process goes a little something like this:

1. Figure out what I think I want.
2. Consult "Designing Great Beers" by Ray Daniels for some suggestions on grain bill, hop bill, etc.
3. Start a new recipe in ProMash, pick the style I think I'm looking for, then add the ingredients (trying to stay roughly within the style guidelines using ingredients I already have if possible).
4. Post the ProMash recipe report here and ask for some feedback, then make changes accordingly.
5. Brew it up, see how it eventually turns out, then tweak the recipe if need be for future versions.

It's worked well so far. Between the BJCP style guidelines, the book and HBT, I've got a pretty good spread of knowledge and experience.

It is really dependent on what I am wanting. I tend to follow guidelines, but reserve the right to add my own touches if I want. But if you want to win the gold you will have to pay attention to style.

Also, most of us a used to thinking in terms of style (at least I am) and so if I want a pale ale I will brew something in that style. The place it gets hazy is in cross overs, like a hoppy brown ale, but even there style covers it as a Texas Brown.

Brewpastor said:

but reserve the right to ass my own touches if I want.

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Yeah, me too............................what!?

Reverend JC said:

Yeah, me too............................what!?

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LOL - add, the d is next to the s. Ass has been edited to add.

Brewpastor said:

LOL - add, the d is next to the s. Ass has been edited to add.

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In the IT industry, thats called............"fat finger"!

Thanks everyone for the votes and replies. I don't feel so bad now, when my recipes are a little...shall we say......"out of bounds"!