Has anyone...bought up some random ingredients

...Ever gone to the homebrew store and just bought up some random ingredients and made up a decent batch of beer? I just made my first batch and followed the directions to the 't'. When i cook (which i love to do) i will throw all kinds of random spices and seasonings into whatever i am making (of course making sure the spices go along with the other spices and whatever i am cooking, flavor wise). Has anyone ever tried brewing up some random ingredients?

Naw, not really random but I have made many a beer from just looking at the wall of grains.

No, but one year I purchased a 40 lb box of miscellaneous partial bags of extract from Williams. Since they have a broad range of extracts from extra pale to stout, it made for some interesting brews. I made an IPA from 9 3/4 lbs of MO extract & all of the C's that were in the freezer.

Redskins838892 said:

When i cook (which i love to do) i will throw all kinds of random spices and seasonings into whatever i am making (of course making sure the spices go along with the other spices and whatever i am cooking, flavor wise)

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That's the key...it's not really random since you know what to expect with your additions. If you know what to expect from the ingredient list/grain bill/hop bill when you toss your brew together, it's the same thing.

I take your question to mean: "Have you ever just formulated a recipe on the fly with no consideration to what style it is"

I would say absolutely yes. I have done a number of experiments in brewing that have turned out great.

It is great to re-create an 800 year old style, but I liken brewing to cooking (which I also enjoy thoroughly), not necessarily "a little of this a dash of that" but "3 lbs of this, 6 of that, let's try this hops that I have never used, etc."

My most recent success was a 3 batch experiment where I used only pale malt, one kind of hops, and one odd adjunct.

I made one super cheap but delicious IPA, a roasted pumpkin seed ale that is good, but it showed me that I am damn well going to make a pumpkin seed porter for next year. And I made a habanero ale that is off the charts. My mom even loves it. I know you don't know her, but picture a typical "mild" mom.

I learned more about bullion hops, cascade hops, pumpkin seeds, light malt, and peppers in breweing than I ever would have by brewing other people's recipes.

The milk stout I just bottled was the result of a bunch of older ingredients that I couldn't bear to throw away (they were about 4 years old) and some lactose I bought. The only new ingredients purchased were the quick oats, lactose and new yeast. In all honesty, I think it's the best brew I've done so far and it's only a week into the bottle.

nb

I picked up 5# of pale and 5# of MO one day on a whim, thinking I would add some MO to something and to have 5# of pale on backup.

They sat for 3 weeks and finally we just did up all 10# with whatever 1/4-1/2 oz of random partial bag hops were left in the freezer and made our 'Random IPA.' Different every time I make it.

If what you are really asking is "can I experiment with beer recipes" the answer is yes. As you get to know more about the ingredients and how they interact, you can start to modify existing recipes to your tastes and develop your own.

Personally, I would not just buy a bunch of stuff at random and throw it all together though.

For more info on recipe design, have a look at the book Designing Great Beers.

I often make what I like to call "left over" beers. After making recipes and following the instructions, I often find myself with a few extra pounds of grain or extract left over. If you save these up for a little while, they can amount to a 5 gallon batch or more. I usually just throw them all together and make a beer out of that. Some comes out well, others just eh. I really like to put the wort on top of a yeast cake left over from a previous brew, when I make left over beer. It makes me feel like I am getting free beer for nothing.

www.beertools.com has a recipe generator that'll take what you've got for inventory, you give it a style, and it spits out a recipe.

it's all about leftovers. i've went to the LHBS several times to supplement my current stock and thrown some beers together. my funnest experiments were with rye. i made an awesome rye stout.

i always find a recipe i think i'll like, but i always end up changing hops, sometimes i'll change the grain bill, but mostly hops. i was at a microbrew a while back that alot of their beers used Vanguard hops, never used them, so the next time i was brewing a pale ale, i changed one of three hops it called for with Vanguard, i also changed the bittering hops to some German style. i just bottled it last weekend, i tried one just last night and it was ok, still WAY GREEN yet, it sort of had a cider-ish taste to it...hopefully that'll mellow out some in a few weeks. if it turns out awesome, ill never know what kind of hops i used for bittering i forget! haha, o-well

God love my LHBS! They are awesome but small. I realized today that everytime I go in there I improvise....(no cara-pilsner, no german 2 row, no german pilsner...even though they are German lol)

I generally don't make "random batches" but hell ya some of my batches get sloppy seconds