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Grinder12000

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I'm just curious - if you owned a BrewPub and could have six styles of Ale - what six styles would you choose.
 
Let's see:

English Porter
Imperial IPA
Oatmeal Stout
Belgian Dubbel
Raspberry Wit
Rotating Seasonal
 
Six Ales

Dry Stout
Irish Red Ale
English Brown
IPA
American Wheat
Light Hybrid Ale like Cream Ale / Blond Ale
 
1) Stout
2) IPA
3) Seasonal Wheat offering
4) Rotating Belgian (Dubbel/Trippel/Strong Golden, etc)
5) Pilsner
6) Rotating Seasonal (Barleywine/Oktoberfest/etc)

Super cop out with three beers in rotation, I know, but only one really changes drastically
 
Just out of curiosity, what would constitute a seasonal wheat? Maybe a Krystal Weizen in the summer, and a Weizenbock in the fall or winter? Spiced Wit for Christmas?
 
Dry stout
IIPA (served with a hop cone in the glass)
English bitter on cask
Hefeweizen (no, we don't serve it with lemon/orange slices)
English Porter
Pale Ale - light, easily quaffable but still full-flavored for the BMC drinkers.
 
IIPA
American Wheat
American Brown
Rotating Stout (Imperial, dry, seasonal)
Rotating Belgium (Gold Strong, Tripel, Saison)
Barley Wine
 
Pale Ale (good session beer with a big C hop)
Rye IPA (high gravity, high AA, high everything)
Brown Ale (an easy drinking brown)
Stout (something over the top roasty)
Pilsner (for the lager lover's)
Rotating (Not calling it seasonal, cuz it should change as often as possible. Keep the regulars with something new.)
 
1. House Pale Ale. Not too hoppy, but not bland. Probably Amarillo hops.
2. House Porter - I'm envisioning a cross between a porter and a Hobgoblin clone
3. Rye Stout, a big mofo ... maybe alternate with A Brown ale or a Scottish 80/- or 90/-.
4. A crisp wheat beer, but NOT estery. Very American wheat beer.
5. Rotating House Belgian - Apricot Saison / Belgian Pale / Dubbel
6. Rotating seasonal / brewers' choice.
 
This is awesome - keep it coming - remember - not a wish list but what will sell.

How 'bout a little quid pro quo?

Hmm. Gotta think about this one.

Roggenbier
APA
Dry Stout
Brown Ale
Mild
Rotating Belgian (Saison, Belgian Strong Golden, etc)
 
How 'bout a little quid pro quo?

That's the problem - I have not tried many many styles = however from my limited knowledge and Chriso has some good ideas - I can see I should up this to eight!! Some of what I have seen I have never had!!

English Brown Ale / American amber
Mild
Stout or Porter
A crisp wheat beer, but NOT estery. Very American wheat beer.
IPA
House Pale Ale. Not too hoppy, but not bland (thanks chriso)

I can see there would HAVE to be some rotation here as I'm leaving out some good ones.
 
Sadly, from our local brewpub's experience at least, Mild's don't sell at all. It could be the best Mild in the world, served from a hand pump, and people would still skip it to have the Vanilla Porter or the Honey Gold instead. It got to the point where, for a "Beers of the UK" competition, they had to specifically ban homebrewers from doing a Mild, because they had already had two Milds win the competition, and neither sold well at all. :(

I think the REAL gem is a fantastic APA, not too hoppy, that the masses can get behind - but the geeks can still appreciate. That's why I picked Amarillo for mine - everyone I've served my Amarillo SMaSH to, can't believe it's such a simple beer, because it tastes so complex, but is still COMPLETELY quaffable. (Believe me. We tested that part rigorously. :p )

As for variety... well... Every few weeks, I have to give in to my temptation, and go to the "good" liquor store. I get a few 6-packs of various stuff that I've Never Drank Before -- or better yet, I blow $70 on nothin' but single bottles of Belgians. (That was the last three trips. :p ) Up till last week, I never knew I liked Chimay Red!!!!!
 
Good point on the Mild - not known enough. I want to keep the Hop heads happy but for MY little town full of Joe Six packs and hockey moms I would have to have a beverage that is not aggressive.

Found Amarillo SMaSH - DAMN - too many brews and not enough time - I already have 2 in teh carboys - one brew tomorrow and 2 more ready - now an Amarillo SMaSH (must I worry about CAPS? lol)


( I do have a driving reason for this post but I don't want to admit it).
 
1. Lawnmower, for your Joes and moms
2. American Pale
3. Hefeweizen
4. Nitro Stout
5. IPA, perhaps Rye IPA?
6. Rotating high-gravity (BW, Tripel, DIPA, Wee, Golden Strong...)

You're welcome! :D
 
1. Dunkelweizen
2. Hefeweizen
3. Vanilla Porter / rotated with Milk Stout
4. Belgian Tripple
5. Schwarzbier
6. Altbier


Simple Sausages, freshly baked breads and hearty soups on the menu --
Maybe a barmaid named Greta.

Bottles of mead and cider available when available :)
 
Simple Sausages, freshly baked breads and hearty soups on the menu --
Maybe a barmaid named Greta.

Bottles of mead and cider available when available :)

It's too close to lunch for me to be reading this kind of thing... MMMM! The mead and cider sounds good too!

1. Rotating porter/stout (milk/coffee/chocolate/dry)
2. Rotating IPAs (single hop/multi-hop/intensely dry-hopped)
3. Kolsch
4. Rotating wheats (American/German/Fruited)
5. Rotating Belgians
6. Pale ale
 
lets see here...

1. IPA
2. Hefeweizen
3. Belgian Trippel
4. American Amber Ale
5. Oatmeal Stout
6. Seasonal (Oktoberfest, Spiced Winter Ale, Springtime Bock, Saison)

BAM! If you don't like good beer, go somewhere else.
 
some surprises so far - first off I believe only 1 vote for a Kolsch

The top six at the moment are

IPA
APA - basically an English Bitter style I suppose
English Brown (mostly English, two Americans)
Rotating Seasonal
Stout
Hefewizen

American Wheat
Blond Ale
Porter
Rotating Belgian are all on the bubble

Also American Amber has only 1 vote, if you add American and English Brown.

I think what I would do is have 6 regulars and two more that are experimental. Just keeping something out there for people to try that they might not have a chance to try. Maybe one could replace a low seller or something.

just thinking out loud.
 
1. IPA
2. American Pale Ale
3. Irish Dry Stout
4. Irish Red
5. American Amber
6. Seasonal, likely targeted to drinkers not familiar with beers beyond typical commercial beers...
 
Grinder12000 said:
some surprises so far - first off I believe only 1 vote for a Kolsch

I think a Kolsch is a great way to go, but you are asking here. We all love strong, in-your-face brews. If you are going to limit us to 6, we will pick a big 6.

But a Kolsch would work very well as your house beer to recommend to the BMC drinkers. A nice solid ale that a Coors Light man won't choke on while he is drinking it, but you will also get some Beer Snobs ordering one without feeling dirty.

Grinder12000 said:
APA - basically an English Bitter style I suppose

See Here
An APA is all about the high citrus American hops on a very light, low malt ale. For my APA, I like the aroma to be super heavily hopped, from lots of dry hopping.
 
I think a Kolsch is a great way to go, but you are asking here. We all love strong, in-your-face brews. If you are going to limit us to 6, we will pick a big 6.

Exactly. You're asking a bunch of beer snobs what to fill the 6 taps with. We're going to come up with a lot of good suggestions..........for serving beer to a bunch of other beer snobs.

Is a Bavarian Hefeweizen going to sell well? Maybe. If you're in a town with a very German population, and they still remember real hefeweizens (as opposed to switching over to Milwaukee's Finest Light American Lager back in the '50s) then maybe you've got a good shot at selling a ton. But odds are, it won't sell too well because it's "weird" and tastes like bananas. WE know that's a good representation of the style. THEY will just think it's weird.

Is a Tripel going to sell well? Perhaps. If you make it on the boozy side, like New Belgium's Tripel (blech, IMO!) then it might not. If you make it super-light and refreshing, but still potent (I'm thinking Duvel, or Chimay White) then it might sell well. But how will you market it? Will Belgian beers be your "schtick" like New Belgium or Ommegang? Or will it just be a feature, amongst a bunch of American-style brews?

I know that if I ever get to open a brewpub here in NE, it's going to be British style. Porters, bitters, stouts, and browns. Maybe a goofball seasonal - and maybe sometimes that seasonal might even be a Belgian ... but mostly, target an English-pub atmosphere, serve some good bangers & mash and some good hot sammiches and chips.

At the end of the day, matching the beer variety to the food variety will get you very far.
 
Two totally different styles.

Bitters and Pale Ales? Not according to "Designing Great Beers" Very similar.

HOWEVER - do you put a pale ale in the same category as an APA? Perhaps that is where I am wrong???

In fact that is the first sentence "American brewers tend to think that bitters and Pale Ales are two distinct styles. IN truth the various entries for bitter and pale ales are more alike then are the substyles of many other categories.

many writers and brewers who have studied the British beer scene conclude that bitter and pale ales are virtually the same.

further below . . . . . . Although there are some differences between bitter and pale ale, the two are descended from the same linage, and they share far more similarities then differences. Furthermore, recipe formulation for bitters and pale ales are almost identical - the recipe rely on the same malts and hops and same brewing procedures.
 
HOWEVER - do you put a pale ale in the same category as an APA? Perhaps that is where I am wrong???

An APA and an English Bitter are two different styles, though they are both considered pale ales.
 

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