Formulate or follow a recipe?

So, how many of you tend to formulate your own recipe vs follow existing recipes?

I do about 60/40 recipes/formulations. Seems like I see so many interesting recipes in BYO, the web, books, etc. that I want to try, so I try them. I also enjoy formulating my own, but find I'm still very much in the learning stage there which is occasionally disheartening, but I figure there's only one way to get through it...

I havent followed a recipie yet. I'll look at a bunch of them when I am trying to figure out what I want to use but mainly go by the BJCP guidelines and then tinker with it from there

I do the whole range from extract kits to my own all-grain recipes. I have a handful of great original formulations, but many of my best results come from taking a recipe and making adjustments. About the only time I'll follow a recipe exactly is when I'm brewing from a clone kit.

So far... I have taken recipes and tweked it. It never looks like the original one. Added this or taken away that... don't know... does that mean it's a new recipe?

Personally, even if I base a recipe on one of Chuck Papazian's, I try to mix and match and add new elements to come up with a beer I can really call my own. Even if it turns out nothing like what I expect, it's always a learning experience and very rewarding

Guess I'm like most of the rest here. I always do something different from a prescribed recipe. Just to call it my own creation. But I do keep a brew log so I can repeat it in the future.......... or change it.

I go to Papazian to see what the basis for a certain style of beer is. Then I "research" by drinking beers of that style. I try to ascertain what makes that beer have the characters that it has. Then I go to Northern Brewer (not trying to sell you on that site or anything, but it's what I use) and see what's available, and what seems to make the kind of beer I want. By the end, my recipe is usually slightly different from what Papazian says.

I started out trying to freestyle too often and made crap. I try to do a couple "by the book" recipes with no ad-libbing, then make one on my own. I've had variable results either way. I like finding a published recipe that uses grains I'm unfamiliar with just so I know how much or little to use, then bring it into one of my own recipes.

For example, my supposed Hoegaarden Clone (which is nothing like Hoe) uses Belgium Aromatic, and way too much of it I think. Now I know to be conservative with it.

I'll read many receipes for a particular style I want to follow, then use them as a guideline for a recipe I'll formulate (moreso for hop ideas). Haven't been disappointed yet.

I malt my own barley in my kitchen and usually only make a base malt, some crystal and a munich-y malt. Then I aim in the direction of a chosen style.

I constantly find recipes I'd like to brew on these here interwebs -- yet always end up doing my own thing.