Drank my first batch... now what?

Ahh! Perfection! at least that's what I felt like when I opened my first bottle of my first ever homebrew.. a cream stout. After bottle conditioning for two weeks, it seemed to have just the right amount of bubbles, great color and taste. Oh yeah, I'm hooked. So now that my first beer is cooling in the fridge ready for me to empty it.. and my second batch(wheat beer) is in bottles.... what now? I'm thinking of going with a pale ale for my next batch, but I've had some that were just way too bitter, and some that weren't bitter at all... so, how exactly do I use the IBUs to approximate how bitter a beer can be? Thanks!

What beers were too bitter? I'm pretty sure that if you named the ones you like we could find the IBU level and you could plan the next brew from that point. Sierra Pale Ale for example is around 37 IBUs. Lagunita's has the IBU rating on their labels. Personally somewhere in the 33-40 range IBU level is just about right for my tastes.

Blender said:

What beers were too bitter? I'm pretty sure that if you named the ones you like we could find the IBU level and you could plan the next brew from that point. Sierra Pale Ale for example is around 37 IBUs. Lagunita's has the IBU rating on their labels. Personally somewhere in the 33-40 range IBU level is just about right for my tastes.

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Actually, Sierra Nevada is very popular around here so whenever I party with friends, that's usually what they bring; however, my for my wife, it's a wee bit too bitter, I'm thinking somewhere below that... I do like the hoppy flavor though, so do I reduce the bittering hopps and increase the later additions? Thanks!

Yeah, shoot for something in the 35IBU range and see how it works out on your system and to your tastes. Adjust it up or down by 5IBU's or so if it needs it, and just experiment until you find what suits you. Note than due to the vagaries of hop extraction and how it's affected by different variables, we can't say that 35IBU's on my brewery is the same as 35IBU's on yours.