Dry beer explanation

I see a lot of comments about dry beer, but I have no idea what dry beer actually means. What causes dry beer and what does it taste like? How do you know if your beer is dry and is it necessarily a bad thing? Are certain styles more susceptible to this?

I'm such a newbie!

dry as opposed to sweet. dry just means less sweet.

you can mash at a low temp for longer to create more fermentable sugar to create a dry beer. higher temps for a shorter period creates unfermentable sugars which will make your beer sweet.

dry is not a bad thing, depending on the style

I'm shiny new too

GrogNerd said:

dry as opposed to sweet. dry just means less sweet.

you can mash at a low temp for longer to create more fermentable sugar to create a dry beer. higher temps for a shorter period creates unfermentable sugars which will make your beer sweet.

dry is not a bad thing, depending on the style

I'm shiny new too

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Nice explanation thanks. It's a minefield of jargon out there. That's the toughest part of the whole brewing

I think that dry would be the opposite of malty. Definitely a legitimate taste to go for depending on the style of beer.

HopZombie99 said:

I think that dry would be the opposite of malty. Definitely a legitimate taste to go for depending on the style of beer.

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sweet can be malty, like mashing at a higher temperature, but sweet can also be sweet like adding a caramel/crystal to the mash or low attenuation

HopZombie99 said:

I think that dry would be the opposite of malty. Definitely a legitimate taste to go for depending on the style of beer.

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Not necessarily. You can have styles like a dry Irish stout that have very strong roasted malt flavors, but aren't sweet at all.

I agree with GrogNerd's description. Dryness is a lack of sweetness and unfermentable sugars, and usually (at least in my opinion) has a lighter mouthfeel due to the lack of those unfermentables. Of course, there are other factors like carbonation level, hop oils, etc. that affect mouthfeel, so that isn't always the case.