Choosing your grains, yeasts, hops as a foundation for future brews.

[BarkingSpider]

When I first got into brewing as a hobby a couple years back.. I truly went crazy at first buying all sorts of different grains, hops, & yeasts to experiment with. So over time, I've figured out that there's quite a bit of stuff that I either didn't care for, or just didn't use too much. So I'm looking at a list of ingredients that would serve for a range of styles.

Base grains:
Pale Malt (3L): I consider this a well-rounded base malt. Probably an English variety (blend), but not Maris Otter (which for me is not a well rounded pale malt even though I do like it).
Wheat Malt (white): I do enjoy American/Belgium/German wheat beers!
Munich (Weyermann Light): Great flavor addition and has a decent amount of diastatic power in it. You can be more generous with it than the darker forms, and has more flexibility.

Specialty/Crystal Malts:
Crystal 70/80 (Bairds): I gravitate to this for most of my beers that use crystal over some of the lighter types.
Crystal 135/165 (Bairds): Darker flavors/color
Chocolate (Bairds 450L): Color, roasty, bitter/dark chocolate flavor. Dark enough for my needs for the most part.

Adjuncts:
Flaked Oats. I use this in quite a few brews for body.

Hops:
Citra: One of my favorite American hops! A combination of citrus and stone/tropical fruit.
Centennial: I gravitate towards this over Cascade. I like the floral aspect.
East Kent Golding: My default hop for English bitters/porters. Pretty mild.

Would like to figure out a hop that works for my tastes in both Belgium and German beers (Saaz?) Haven't gone here much yet...

Yeasts:

Safale US-05: Clean and well attenuating. My default for any American brew for the most part.
Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale: Fruity, malt-centric, low attenuation. This is the flavor that I remember from my trip to Scotland and England! Would consider it my house strain for anything English (below around 6%ABV perhaps...)
Wyeast 3522 or WLP550: I have only used 550 once, but I really like this one! Made a great Belgium Pale, but it looks like this could be used on anything from a witbier to a dark strong.

No doubt there's some other stuff I could throw in there. Sugars, spices, ect... but I think this is a start. So the purpose of this thread is to get others thoughts on their "go-to" ingredients and why they chose them.

 

[giraffe]

I have a pretty similar list, I find as batches go on, i am tending to use fewer ingredients per batch, and a narrower range for all styles. I brew alot of lagers these days so the ingredients show it.

Basemalts:
Weyermann Bohemian floor malt pils and bohemian dark (~8L Munich malt) Both are excellent malts and have a nice depth of maltiness without much else in the beer.
MFB Special Aromatic. Like a 4-5L Vienna, with a drier toastier edge. I use it instead of vienna in amber styles alot. Not traditional, but i Love its flavor.
(If im going to brew a bunch of english styles, im fond of Thomas Fawcetts MO, of the 4 or 5 brands ive tried)

Specialty/Crystal malts:
CaraBohemian (70L) and CaraAroma (120-150L). I dont use much light crystal at all. And these a a nice smooth fruitcakey flavor, without any burnt notes.
Carafa2/3 Special for dark coloring.

Hops:
Sterling/Santiam as a saaz replacement. Spicy, works well enough for a domestic. Liberty for Hallertau. Warrior for a nice clean bitter, its really quite smooth even in 50+ ibu beers. (EKG if im brewing some english styles.)

Yeast:
1469 for english styles, this yeast is reliable and has such lovely figgy fruit esters. Ive tested every english strain from wyeast and whitelabs over several batches, and I far prefer this one for all low-med gravities. Does need an extra week or two of aging compared with some strains for the esters to shine.

2000 for czech styles, not the cleanest lager strain, but has a lovely floral ester to it, and the malt really shines while finishing dry. A beautiful strain. Ive tested all the commonly availalbe czech strains, and this one never threw any diacetyl, fermented quick enough, and has faint pleasant esters while still being clean enough.

833. A reliable munich strain, with carefree fermentation and falls clear reliably. Im tested some munich-style strains i havent tried before this winter, so that may change.