Over big beers.

Safe to say that I am now over my inital craze of making rediculously big beers. Its not that they weren't fun, but now after 20 batches of brew I have found that all the best tasting beers I have made were under 7% abv. Plus since I don't have kegging facilities, I have found that some of my 9-12% abv superbrews can take months to carbonate in the bottles.

I would like to think of it as becoming more "mature" in my brewing tastes. And while I will probably do a DFH 120 clone at some point, I am planning on focusing now on finding more balanced beers that have amazing flavor instead of just spectacular alcohol content.

I welcome any recipes that you particularly liked that are below 1.060 and what it was specifically about it that you thought made it great.

Thank you in advance

I like an occasional big beer, But I make a lot of smaller beers to drink from day to day.
Most of my brews are in the 5-6.5% range. I have been doing more on the lower end recently.

I have found that the sweet spot for IPAs is 1.070's, 1.055ish for American ales and 1.052ish for dark beers. My specific taste of course! Ican't get enough of IPAs and pretty much everything I've brewed has been bloody wonderful but my current favorite beer is https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/valentines-day-amber-235097/

I've scaled it down to 1.058 and lowered the IBUs just a tad but it hits all my taste preferences. For Stout I am quite particular so take it or leave it but my lowish gravity dryish stout is fantastic https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/nice-dry-easy-drinking-stout-223069/

Lastly but not leastly I have taken to blending the above stout with my "oops I made this a *leetle* too bitter" APAs and the result is always spectacular. To the point that I make an APA on the edge of being too bitter as a matter of course if I have my stout around just so I can blend them. One of these days I'll just go ahead and make a keg of the blended beers...

FWIW and YMMV etc
Sds

I agree with you. I find many homebrewers jump on the big beer bandwagon. They are a lot of fun to make, and, IMHO, are actually fairly easy to make. Doing a great barley wine or imperial stout isn't easy, but doing a decent-to-good version is.

You don't say what kinds of beers you prefer, but I thought I would happily share my Amber Redhead. I've made it at home and I've made it in a brewpub (Jersey Jim's Brewing Co., 1996-99). It clocks in right at 1.060. If you want to go big, you can just increase all the ingredients in proportion and it becomes a decent barley wine.

As is, I find it to be a nicely balanced ale.

For a 5 gallon batch:

Pale malt (I prefer Maris Otter), 9.5 lbs
Crystal 60, 1.5 lbs
Amber malt, 1 lb
Pale Chocolate, .25 lbs

All hops are Cascade. At 6% AA,

1.5 oz 75 minutes
.75 oz 30 minutes
.50 oz 15 minutes
.50 oz knockout

I often, but not always, also dry hop with between .5 and 1.0 oz Cascade.

Yeast is your choice, but I'm partial to Wyeast Northwest Ale or Thames Valley. London ESB also works well.

I think on of the most appealing things about a big beer early on in ones brewing career is that they are really good t masking some off flavors. Making a flavorful brew at a small abv is a challenge as any little problems with the brew shine right through. Most of my early beers were big and dark. It wasn't until I made some smaller beers that I discovered some flaws that helped me improve my brewing process.

Plus it's nice to kick back with a few brews without having to crawl my way to bed.

I appreciate the feedback. Yes, I've noticed some flaws in my smallest of beers! As far as styles, I haven't found one I dislike.

I like all types of beers tbh. You can't drink a 800 calorie 12% RIS all day long. But you can have one here and there. I figure every half dozen beers I'll make a big one. Most of my beers are around 6% I like this abv for whatever reason.

Beezy said:

I like all types of beers tbh. You can't drink a 800 calorie 12% RIS all day long. But you can have one here and there. I figure every half dozen beers I'll make a big one. Most of my beers are around 6% I like this abv for whatever reason.

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I think 6% is the sweet spot for me too. I typically will only ever drink one 22 on a weeknight, and 6% seems to be the point where it takes the edge off of life, but wont give me liver failure down the road.

I think heavy beers are great - once in a while.

Most of my beers have been generally 1.050 - 1.060, though truly one of the best beers I've ever had was a concoction my old roommate put together back in the mid 90's.

It was early on when we were still on malt extract (lme, at that). He must have used 15lbs or more in a 5 gallon batch of Imperial Stout, plus lots of hops, steeping grains and various adjuncts, like chocolate, licorice, etc, etc. 1 vile of liquid yeast, no fermentation temp control (prob ferm'ed at 80degs), and bottle conditioned with sugar.

It was just horrible after a few weeks in the bottle. So sweet and thick and I thought we blew that batch. We put away the six packs and forgot about them. Since we brewed 1-2 batches every week, we had a big production cycle going, and those beers sat for almost a year before we remembered them one evening.

We chilled a six pack of the dusty bottles, and were absolutely BLOWN AWAY by how it had matured and balanced itself out. That beer turned out delicious. That moment is what made waiting so long worth it. I'll probably always have a big beer going in one form or another - looking for that type of experience again.