A quick question about Identifying a style of beer.

[athairfiachdubh]

Hailsa and blessings all,

The wife and I were talking about this the other day, she is a beer snob and I am just a beer enjoyer, however we got into knowing what type of a beer you have when you are mucking about with the recipes. How does one say it is a hefe or a wit or APA or what not. I see all of this classification on beers and was wondering how one can tell when you are putting together the ingredients on your own instead of getting them in a box. (Not quite up to doing all-grain beers yet but have really started mucking about on our own with different grains, malts and such.)

Thank you.

Athair Fiach Dubh

 

[Yooper]

That may be a quick question, but there isn't a quick answer!

Just like with anything you make, the ingredients should "go with" the style. What I mean is you don't use tomatoes to make oatmeal, and you don't use centennial hops to make a German lager. (Unless you do! That's the great part of making your own). Just like when you make spaghetti sauce, you'd expect to have onions, garlic, oregano, maybe basil, etc, and to have it taste a certain way although some are much better than others! When you make a hefeweizen, I'd expect hefeweizen yeast flavors of phenols and esters (like banana), a hazy look from the yeast and wheat, an ABV of 4.5-5.5%, a medium body, with no hops flavor or aroma. Some hefeweizens are better than others, but that would be a standard expectation.

Generally, a good guide to help learn the subtleties of different beer styles and what they entail is to read over the BJCP guidelines. They list the characteristics of each named beer style, and the ingredients typically found in the style. Here's the link: http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/catdex.php

 

[athairfiachdubh]

Thank you very much for the quick response. I will go over the list and hopefully learn more on the subject. As for when people ask me what type of beer I am currently serving or brewing I always just sort of give them a dumb look and say either Ale or Beer so it will be nice to actually have an answer. Thank you again.

 

[phenry]

While some people like to obsess over hitting the BJCP style guideline numbers, it really all boils down to how the beer tastes. My first beer was supposed to be an APA, but due to a poor hopping schedule and poor pitching rates and fermentation temperature control, it ended up tasting nothing like an APA but instead some Belgian-y plastic water. Yes it fell into the numbers the BJCP published for an APA, but the taste didn't.

So my advice? Try different types of beers, learn what they're supposed to taste like, look at recipes posted here on HBT to learn what goes into each style on a regular basis, then either brew some of the posted recipes or try coming up with your own.