Has home brewing changed your tastes in beer?

[madscientist451]

No doubt about it, I have tried many more styles and the list keeps expanding. Now getting into obscure historical beers....

 

[Lefou]

Can you tell me where exactly this recipe is, as it looks very refreshing i'd like to give it a try this summer

This is one reason why I like seeing what other people are doing. Taste preference is all over the map, but some styles permit a lot of leeway for variations.
Take a good pale ale, for instance. If you can make one and don't like the commercials, why not make your own version? One good example is the flexible light hybrid category. I made a kick-@$$ (my opinion) batch of blonde ale recently. Why not tone ABV down and make my brew even more drinkable and affordable? A nice, tasty sub-4% ABV beer is attractive, admit it!
Homebrewing allows creativity without getting stuck with buying a boring BMC product - and I like that.

 

[lawdawg]

May sound a bit arrogant but I'm finding that I prefer "most" of my beers to those I try at tap rooms, homebrew clubs and other commercial stuff. I find that most times I'll keep re-brewing a batch until I get it dialed in if it's something I really liked. But I also love to experiment and try new ingredients. Most recently NEIPA's and Chevallier Heritage Malt. I wish more people were using Chevallier but it is not easy to get your hands on. I'd love to see some ideas on recipes that would showcase it. Doubtful though since it's hard to get. I also really love Barke Pils........great malt!!! I use it in all kinds of stuff these days........Cheers!

 

[stz]

For those of you saying you prefer your brews to commercial stuff I'd say good on you. The best thing about home brewing is you can brew free of commercial restraints entirely to your own palette. You can use a broad range of ingredients which commercially would require multiple contracts with different terms for delivery. You can use fruit you found locally because you don't need hundreds of kilos. You can say sure, I'll leave it another 10 days in primary without that ruining life. The beer really does take centre stage over all other considerations. Like if I want to use a certain specialist malt I've got to see what malt supplier does it, what their minimum order quantity is and what the lead time is. It often isn't possible to use a small amount of something not readily available on your regular malt delivery so you end up working with what you've got rather than take a tonne delivery of something you will rarely use. You can hop things stupidly on a home brew scale as well because you don't have to worry about the fixed cost of plant vs efficiency and take off with losses to hops, every kilo of copper hops costs us 9-11L of beer in the fermenter and every kilo of dry hop another 7-9L so you look at a heavily hopped recipe which not only costs you extra in ingredients, but looks less attractive compared to an existing beer which sells very well because the take off will be lower in the end so you've got to factor in opportunity cost. What kicks ass commercially is getting hops for 1/7th of the price and the grain bill might as well be free. Want to home brew 50L of with a whole kilo of mosaic? Not a problem because it is going to cost you $22.

 

[k1ngl1ves]

I started out only making Belgians, Hefe's, and stouts on occasion. I wasn't a fan at all of IPA's.

Then I started making hop teas and adding pellets to commercial lagers to understand hops more, and experiment with the flavors.

Now, majority of my brews are heavily hopped IPA's and pales... and dry hopped sours.


I'm always changing my recipes, lots of times during brew day on the fly.

 

[lawdawg]

I also used to hate IPA's. But now it's probably the thing I brew most often. On the other hand I also went thru the phase of hating all the macro beer. Then one day at a restaurant I tried a PBR "just for the hell of it" and it was actually pretty good. I had a Miller Lite the other day while lounging around the pool and didn't hate it either. Took me back to the high school days. Hell I might even try a Busch Light or Naty Lite sometime soon. Yes, my taste have definitely changed and are still changing. I'm slowly getting on board with sours too....never thought that would happen. I only wish I could afford to drink as much and brew as much as I would like too!! Damnit man the boss man just got here......back to work.....Cheers!

 

[Morrey]

I started out only making Belgians, Hefe's, and stouts on occasion. I wasn't a fan at all of IPA's.

Then I started making hop teas and adding pellets to commercial lagers to understand hops more, and experiment with the flavors.

Now, majority of my brews are heavily hopped IPA's and pales... and dry hopped sours.


I'm always changing my recipes, lots of times during brew day on the fly.

Your post reflects my brewing ideals very closely. Two years ago the term "IPA" was a turn-off. Now the beers I make and gravitate towards are hoppy and sophisticated. In a recent conversation with a buddy who is a professional brewer, he said home brewing is way more flexible than commercial production in that experimentation can be the rule rather than the exception.

 

[Morrey]

May sound a bit arrogant but I'm finding that I prefer "most" of my beers to those I try at tap rooms, homebrew clubs and other commercial stuff. I find that most times I'll keep re-brewing a batch until I get it dialed in if it's something I really liked. But I also love to experiment and try new ingredients. Most recently NEIPA's and Chevallier Heritage Malt. I wish more people were using Chevallier but it is not easy to get your hands on. I'd love to see some ideas on recipes that would showcase it. Doubtful though since it's hard to get. I also really love Barke Pils........great malt!!! I use it in all kinds of stuff these days........Cheers!

Don't think this sounds arrogant at all.....sounds like you are a good home brewer!

 

[schematix]

After going low oxygen i'm finding that it's very difficult to drink and enjoy commercial beer anymore.

Now that i've (mostly) tackled oxidation i got rid of the last off flavor in my beers. Commercial beer has some major disadvantages that i don't have to deal with.... filtering, pasteurization, warehouse storage, etc.

I also can't find an IPA hopped the way i like it any more. Everything new is low IBU and juicy. Blech.

 

[mpolybius]

Yes, it's changed my beer drinking dramatically - I now greatly prefer drinking my home-brewed beer! But your question was more about styles. I've found over the years that my favorite styles are English Bitters or Scottish 60/ or 70/

 

[mongoose33]

If I could go back and change my vote, I might.

I've got a buddy who does the RateBeer thing. He's always looking to try something new. Lives to rate, as it were.

If I find a beer I like, my inclination is to have another one! And like others before in this thread, I tend to like my own beer better than what I can get in a store or a taproom.

Just got back from a trip down south, and a trip to Milwaukee; I probably tasted....maybe 20 beers over those two trips. About half were decent, half were "meh." In Birmingham I ran across a wheat beer, fairly heavily hopped, that shocked me. I don't care for wheat beers much, but whatever they did with the hops, they masked that wheaty flavor and it was very nice. It's Bearded Lady from Good People brewing. They even tell you what they're using for hops and yeast in their beers. The Bearded Lady uses Falconer's Flight hops in addition to Magnum; I've bought some so I can give this a shot.

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I wonder if some of the "I like my beer better" response--which is me, too--comes from knowing exactly what we're going to get. I know, when I pull that handle, exactly what that beer will taste like. Sort of a "since I'm used to it, I like it better" phenomenon? I don't know that this is true, but wonder if it might be.

On the other hand, my local watering hole never has beer I'd prefer over my own.

 

[z-bob]

I don't know how to answer the poll. I used to brew something wildly different every time. This year, I bought a sack of continental Pilsner malt and I've been using it to brew minor variations on the same recipe over and over. I think the continuity is really helping me brew better.

The very next beer in my brew schedule is quite different again (a witbier), but then I'm going back to my master recipe.

 

[Kharnynb]

I have some standby's that I tend to keep in stock, but mostly I make what I feel like and whatever smash i can make cheaply with hops that were on sale.

 

[Morrey]

I don't know how to answer the poll. I used to brew something wildly different every time. This year, I bought a sack of continental Pilsner malt and I've been using it to brew minor variations on the same recipe over and over. I think the continuity is really helping me brew better.

The very next beer in my brew schedule is quite different again (a witbier), but then I'm going back to my master recipe.

I think we all go thru "phases" and with that often comes change. I went thru a phase that I wanted to try brewing a large variety of styles...then I wanted to try changing this and that within the recipe so I could hone it in. But some of these styles would not become my favorites nor ones I'd want in my pipeline as a permanent tap.

Surprises came along the way. I never liked hoppy beers, now it is my go to pour. Wheat beers...NAH....now I make a hoppy wheat beer that is my #1 favorite of anything I make.


I make less changes now since I have honed in my favorites, but for a period of time, I virtually made no two recipes the same. Even shifting SO4:Cl balances meant changes in my recipes. It really does take lots of time to cycle thru these phases to hone in on what we want to stick with for the long run.

And YES, home brewing has certainly changed my tastes in beers!!

 

[arcorey]

Since homebrewing, I have become a beer snob I feel. I use to be wowed by a lot of the local and not so local craft beer samples. Now I turn my nose up at a lot of them and don't offer a chance for a second taste as I am not as easily impressed anymore. I have brewed many beers that I would pay double to drink over a free sample of the commercial offerings I find. I do still find some really good beers now and again, but it is rare I want to fill a growler with one anymore.

As for brewing styles, I have a handful of recipes that I routinely brew and they stay pretty true to the recipe as they have either been what I like that I can't find in a taproom, what a lot of friends like, or award winners. I do try new things between my routine batches and do several iron brewer competitions a year that make me think outside the box.

 

[Brownalemikie]

My view may be a selfish one. After visiting about a dozen breweries and sampling flight after flight of a wide variety of beers, I've narrowed my interests down to brown ales, stouts and porters. And I gotta say I'm more than pleased to brew within those 3 styles. If friends/relatives stop by, they either drink my selection or bring their own Bud Light. Matters not to me......like I said, maybe I'm selfish regarding beer.

 

[shallywag]

I used to drink bud light, now I only do when i have no other choice.

 

[Bosh]

To give this a bump, what I find myself buying commercially is mostly hop bombs since I don't like most yeast flavors and I find it much easier to get malt to do what I want than hops. If I buy a high IBU IPA I'll generally enjoy it but most commercial stouts etc. I don't like as much as the ones I brew so why buy them?

 

[tomakana]

Before I started brewing earlier this year, I was fairly narrow in my beer tastes, although not that limited. I just thought I knew what I liked and stuck within that range. After doing my first couple of kits and reading a ton of posts on this site and others, I realized that if I wanted to keep this hobby interesting and begin to actually get creative with it, I had to know more about the beer I was only reading about.

So, I started trying everything I could, even if it was something I'd never heard of or "knew" I didn't like. Because of that, I've found that there are a lot of really good beers and styles that I never knew were out there. If a restaurant or brewery I've never been to has flights, I'll get that so I can sample a number of their brews. I'm also pretty shameless about asking for samples, which no self-respecting brewery will refuse if you're already buying something. I've sampled things that I never thought I would like but wanted to taste out of curiosity, and have come across some gems.

Case in point - at Vice District Taproom in Chicago I sampled a beer called "Cluster, Damn Near Killed Her" that was 90IBU and 8.5%ABV - both usually well outside my preferences. Turned out to be one of the best beers I've had this year. (Highly recommend Vice District overall, as well).

Long story short - just getting into this hobby has fairly radically changed how I approach drinking beer, definitely for the better. Now the only problem is the long waiting list of beers I want to try to make myself...on the bright side, I've got plans that should take me well into 2020 at the pace I'm going!

 

[stpug]

I won't vote because I don't feel any of the options truly encompass my approach to homebrewing, but if I could combine the last three choices then I feel that it describes my brewing approach fairly well.

I have some favorite styles of beer but the recipes I brew tend to change almost every brew due (mostly) to ingredient availability or recipe development, and I can't remember making the exact same beer twice. I'd say I'm still searching for the "holy grail" of beers

 

[GPP33]

I have some styles that I like to tinker with and others that I have locked down. I have one clone that I have left as designed by the brewer, Pateros Creek Old Town Kolsch, just because that beer is perfect and they no longer distribute it. Others I have tweaked to the point that I am satisfied that it's a great beer and really really enjoy it as is. Hoppy beers get tweaked a lot because I like seeing what different hop and specialty grains bring to the table. I also haven't found the perfect brown/Stout/porter but that's mainly because I don't gravitate to those styles so they don't get brewed often.

As for commercial, I usually grab new stuff, always on the lookout for something new I can try to incorporate into a brew. However on the odd chance all my taps are dry I'll head to one of my old time favorites to hold me over.