All those folks calling for a boycott are doing a bang-up job. What a ghost town.
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What are your contrarian/"unpopular" beer opinions?
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All those folks calling for a boycott are doing a bang-up job. What a ghost town.
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Spoken like a guy that has never pulled a pint.
Kegging limits oxygen, gives balanced carbonation, bulk aging, dry hopping in the keg, drinking fresher IPAs. I also keg with a few beers which I wouldn't try for a bottling session. And kegging got me brewing more.
Barley_Bob
Well-Known Member
Cold crashing is a complete waste of time!
theowlman16
Well-Known Member
Real beer comes from a bottle, not a scuba tank.
Same here, I almost quit brewing because I hated the 2+ hour ordeal of sanitizing bottles, making a priming solution, siphoning to a bottling bucket, capping each bottle, and then cleaning up all of the drips and spills from bottling... AND then you have to wait two weeks before even knowing if all the effort was worth it.
Not to mention the hundreds of bottles lying around.
Now I keg in 10 minutes, virtually no mess, carbonated and ready to drink within 24 hours. I've used a pinlock setup with party taps for years and I'm in the process of building my keezer finally. Total cost of the initial setup = $250. That was 2 kegs, a taprite regulator, a used CO2 tank, QD's and gas and serving lines.
It has paid for itself 10000 times over in the cost of my time, effort, and bottles.
Challenge: triangle test the same beer, 2 pours from a keg, 1 pour from a bottle. I'll give you $1 if you can tell the difference in 3/5 tests.
BassElement
Well-Known Member
Not really contrarian but most of the joy I get from homebrewing is actually because it does take a long time... spending 5 hours on Saturday cooking up 2.5 gallons of wort using grains and hops makes feel connected to history and humanity. Waiting for a few weeks and bottling it up gives me a chance to consider the value of patience and discipline. Then 2-3 weeks later I find out how things went... I've made great beers and not-so-great beers but I've completely enjoyed the process of making every single one.
I'm clearly not alone in this opinion, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist
I'm clearly not alone in this opinion, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist
brewskiez
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My point was not that kegging is better or bottling is better but that bottling doesn't suck as much if you just put the bottles in the dish washer. I wish I would have figured this out from day one. As others said I almost quit because brush cleaning 50 bottles sucked so bad.
spittybug
Well-Known Member
Founders is highly overrated
$10 snifters are bull$()t
I don't want coffee in my beer
If my IPA makes my eyes bleed there is a problem
Left Hand's Milk Stout is nectar from Heaven
Brett, when done right, makes a beer worship worthy
Any brewery that doesn't welcome dogs isn't worth squat
People who take this too seriously aren't worth wasting time on
Man-buns need to go
Making my brewing rig/equipment is nearly as much fun as drinking my beer
Brewing alone isn't as good as brewing with your crew
Less than 5 taps on your home keezer is for pussies
I meant to sour that
Trust me
Yeah baby, it's sticky sweet
Give me a well made "style" beer over your PBJ pumpkin cafe latte crap
Maris Otter rocks
German Pilsner rocks
Noble hops...are
Subtle flavors are much better than overt. Like flirtations
Asparagus beer isn't as bad as it sounds. Actually can be quite good
Sanitation laws in the North suck. Too much government. Too few dogs
Brewery Vivant is pretty cool
Twobrewdogs.com is worth following
I could go on forever.
$10 snifters are bull$()t
I don't want coffee in my beer
If my IPA makes my eyes bleed there is a problem
Left Hand's Milk Stout is nectar from Heaven
Brett, when done right, makes a beer worship worthy
Any brewery that doesn't welcome dogs isn't worth squat
People who take this too seriously aren't worth wasting time on
Man-buns need to go
Making my brewing rig/equipment is nearly as much fun as drinking my beer
Brewing alone isn't as good as brewing with your crew
Less than 5 taps on your home keezer is for pussies
I meant to sour that
Trust me
Yeah baby, it's sticky sweet
Give me a well made "style" beer over your PBJ pumpkin cafe latte crap
Maris Otter rocks
German Pilsner rocks
Noble hops...are
Subtle flavors are much better than overt. Like flirtations
Asparagus beer isn't as bad as it sounds. Actually can be quite good
Sanitation laws in the North suck. Too much government. Too few dogs
Brewery Vivant is pretty cool
Twobrewdogs.com is worth following
I could go on forever.
I bought 2 kegs and a CO2 tank when i bought my first kettle. I knew i was all-in before i ever made the first batch.
My 13th keg just came on Thursday (brand new AEB - i don't fiddle with that used non-sense anymore).
My 13th keg just came on Thursday (brand new AEB - i don't fiddle with that used non-sense anymore).
Ummm... This thread about contrarian opinions. Not "List all the stuff we all agree on".
(I have no idea about Vivant and twobrewdogs.com but the rest I agree with, except maybe having some coffee in my beer. Oh wait, you said you don't want coffee in *your* beer. I have no problem with that. Carry on!).
Not really contrarian but most of the joy I get from homebrewing is actually because it does take a long time... spending 5 hours on Saturday cooking up 2.5 gallons of wort using grains and hops makes feel connected to history and humanity. Waiting for a few weeks and bottling it up gives me a chance to consider the value of patience and discipline. Then 2-3 weeks later I find out how things went... I've made great beers and not-so-great beers but I've completely enjoyed the process of making every single one.
I'm clearly not alone in this opinion, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist
it is somewhat contrarian but I agree with you. spending some time alone (mostly not doing anything really), and then having patience to see/taste the product of your labor many weeks later is a very appealing, very "Zen" part of brewing.
a couple of kegs and CO2 tank and a regulator are not really worth a thousand dollars, but I agree with you - kegging is definitely more expensive than bottling (if you don't take into account your time, which is money). If you asked me 2 years ago, I would have said bottling is great. Don't fix what's not broken. I actually enjoy bottling and I still do it sometimes. Very relaxing (albeit time consuming).
But while almost everyone who is kegging has started with bottling, virtually nobody I ever heard of who went to kegging has sold their equipment and went back to bottling. I know more people who went from all-grain back to extract or people who went from 5G batches to 1G batches, and I mean it.
There are many reasons for that. Yes, a 5G keg at $30-50 or so is a big one-time cost for many, but it saves hours in labor (not just bottling but also cleaning and storing bottles) for every single batch, every single time. If you brew once a year, stick to bottling, but if you enjoy brewing and want to scale up to brewing more often, it's a great investment.
If you ever want to brew a great IPA, kegging is the only way to go, no way you can get even close with bottle-conditioning.
Separating sediment from the beer, force-carbonating with CO2 (over just a few days) and being able to dial it up or down, conditioning the beer while being able to drink/taste it (and fill bottles as needed) is ideal.
You can make secondary additions of various ingredients to entire keg (hopping, wood, lactose, coffee, cocoa nibs, peppers, fruit, etc.), in other words keep experimenting with the beer, while drinking it.
You can do beers on nitro, mix beers from different kegs, pour as much or as little as you like, fill growlers or bottles, etc.
I enjoyed my bottling days, they were great, but there is no way I abandon my kegs now. Not even if you paid me twice what I paid for them.
Not really contrarian but most of the joy I get from homebrewing is actually because it does take a long time... spending 5 hours on Saturday cooking up 2.5 gallons of wort using grains and hops makes feel connected to history and humanity. Waiting for a few weeks and bottling it up gives me a chance to consider the value of patience and discipline. Then 2-3 weeks later I find out how things went... I've made great beers and not-so-great beers but I've completely enjoyed the process of making every single one.
I'm clearly not alone in this opinion, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist
I agree heartily with all of that but 2.5 gallons? That's madness. I'm willing to put in the time but I want 10 gallons when I'm done. That also lets me do split batches.
For bottling I don't see what the big deal is. I use one liter bottles and wash em out after I drink. Not too much time and having big bottles keeps me from saying "just one more bottle..." and getting drunk when I don't plan on getting drunk.
Then just throw them in thecloset until brew day. Used to sanitize them right before bottling but I don't bother anymore.
And I don't use a bottling bucket or a siphon. I just funnel some sugar into each bottle and fill them up at the spigot of the fermentor. Works fine.
For some beers. If I'm using a strain that doesn't flocc well and have a bunch of hop trub it's great, otherwise meh.
flars
Well-Known Member
There is no such thing as the 1.020 curse. High FG is due to the yeast used or a fault in the brewing process.
My contrarian opinion is not so contrarian because it's backed up by decades of scientific research:
1. Abstaining from alcohol is really bad for your health (20-50% higher mortality overall compared to moderate drinkers)
2. Moderation in alcohol consumption is not just "1-2" drinks a day, but more like 2-4 drinks a day (for men) and ideally done on daily basis, with food and ingested slowly. Even people who drink 6+ drinks a day every day have lower mortality rates than abstainers. But 1-2 drinks is where the optimal lowest mortality point is, there is gradual slope of increased mortality at higher doses.
1. Abstaining from alcohol is really bad for your health (20-50% higher mortality overall compared to moderate drinkers)
2. Moderation in alcohol consumption is not just "1-2" drinks a day, but more like 2-4 drinks a day (for men) and ideally done on daily basis, with food and ingested slowly. Even people who drink 6+ drinks a day every day have lower mortality rates than abstainers. But 1-2 drinks is where the optimal lowest mortality point is, there is gradual slope of increased mortality at higher doses.
My other not-so-contrarian scientifically backed opinion (which still surprises many people): You don't taste beer (or most foods) with your mouth.
You can get basic taste - sweet/sour/salty/bitter/umami - from tongue taste buds but the real complexity of tasting something comes from retronasal aroma that is sent to olfactory bulb - receptors on top of your sinuses that sit right behind your eyes, directly below your brain.
Another amazing fact is that even though humans have far fewer taste/aroma receptors than dogs or even mice, the sheer number of receptors is not what matters in the end, and we humans are actually better at tasting and smelling most flavors/smells - primarily because of our big brains (and also proximity of olfactory receptors to the brain), we are able to catalogue, recognize and classify aromas far better than dogs, especially when it comes to complex molecules. Dogs are only better than us at recognizing small molecules and at tracing the scent - mostly because they can filter out dust and other particles and can get very low on the ground. But for most other tasks humans (primarily because of "software" of brain, not just hardware of taste/smell receptors) are actually as good if not better, and better than most chemical analytical methods (so-called "electronic noses").
You can get basic taste - sweet/sour/salty/bitter/umami - from tongue taste buds but the real complexity of tasting something comes from retronasal aroma that is sent to olfactory bulb - receptors on top of your sinuses that sit right behind your eyes, directly below your brain.
Another amazing fact is that even though humans have far fewer taste/aroma receptors than dogs or even mice, the sheer number of receptors is not what matters in the end, and we humans are actually better at tasting and smelling most flavors/smells - primarily because of our big brains (and also proximity of olfactory receptors to the brain), we are able to catalogue, recognize and classify aromas far better than dogs, especially when it comes to complex molecules. Dogs are only better than us at recognizing small molecules and at tracing the scent - mostly because they can filter out dust and other particles and can get very low on the ground. But for most other tasks humans (primarily because of "software" of brain, not just hardware of taste/smell receptors) are actually as good if not better, and better than most chemical analytical methods (so-called "electronic noses").
I don't know, I've had some weird flavors from old LME that'd be sitting in brew shop shelves for god knows how long. Good fresh DME shouldn't cause any issues though.
Like a lot of stuff a lot of techniques that are more commonly used by newbies produce bad beer not because they're bad techniques but because they're are commonly used by newbies and newbies **** up a lot.
I think that's where a lot of "I started doing X and then my beer finally got good." X probably doesn't matter at all, it's that coincidentally you got the basic of how to brew beer nailed down when you started doing X.
Certainly. I've got screwed up sinuses which hurts my sense of smell which means that I just can't taste a lot of flavors even though nothing is wrong with my tongue. That's why I like massive hop bombs, I can actually taste them.
Well, if you agreed with me, it wouldn't be "contrarian" now, would it.
Actually I don't think I'm really disagreeing with you. Really old grains are going to make nasty beer and really old extract is doing to make nasty beer.
But it seems that really old LME gets sold a lot more than other kinds of malt so those nasty tastes crop up when they really wouldn't for all grain unless someone's beer keeping their big sack of malt in the closet for years.
mmiddleton
Active Member
Not really contrarian but most of the joy I get from homebrewing is actually because it does take a long time... spending 5 hours on Saturday cooking up 2.5 gallons of wort using grains and hops makes feel connected to history and humanity. Waiting for a few weeks and bottling it up gives me a chance to consider the value of patience and discipline. Then 2-3 weeks later I find out how things went... I've made great beers and not-so-great beers but I've completely enjoyed the process of making every single one.
I'm clearly not alone in this opinion, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist
I'm with you on this, and I think I'd take it a step further. I'm completely uninterested in adding electronics, or even electric heat, to my brew system. A little elbow grease is a good addition to beer, IMO.
Silver_Is_Money
Larry Sayre, Developer of 'Mash Made Easy'
Adjusting mash water to match some world famous brewing locations perceived water profile is a total waste of time, and it gives you more chance to destroy the quality of your product then it does to improve it.
ShareBrewing
Well-Known Member
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I hate the flavor of American oak. There I said it. French oak is better and IMO tends to have a more complex range of flavors (or maybe "terroir"). I'm not really into wine, nor do I make it so that's not my bias.
American oak (and therefore whiskey/bourbon) just have way to much vanillin in the wood, making what you age it with a caramelly, cloying, vanilla bomb. French oak, depending on which of the 5 main forested regions it is from, can have delicious smokey notes, earthiness, a hint of caramel and vanilla, spicy flavors, and contributes a nice tannin structure (body) to the beer.
Right now I'm actually soaking some medium toast French oak spirals in Espolon tequila for a honey-lime tequila barrel sour. There just aren't enough Tequila infused beers out there...
American oak (and therefore whiskey/bourbon) just have way to much vanillin in the wood, making what you age it with a caramelly, cloying, vanilla bomb. French oak, depending on which of the 5 main forested regions it is from, can have delicious smokey notes, earthiness, a hint of caramel and vanilla, spicy flavors, and contributes a nice tannin structure (body) to the beer.
Right now I'm actually soaking some medium toast French oak spirals in Espolon tequila for a honey-lime tequila barrel sour. There just aren't enough Tequila infused beers out there...
TANSTAAFB
Well-Known Member
Mmmmmmm...Tequila sour...I just got very thirsty and have a strong desire to go somewhere warm and snow free!
JediJoel
Well-Known Member
I don't think the beer category should be called "Sours". Not all beers with mixed or non-sacc fermentations are sour. They are Wild Ales!
TANSTAAFB
Well-Known Member
At the very least Brettanomyces beers that do not have any bacteria should be a separate category. Funky? Yes. Sour? No.
I disagree, to an extent. I believe water chemistry is actually a very important part of brewing, and that there are extents to which you cannot replicate a particular "terroir" of beer if you don't replicate the water.
I didn't start making water from RO until about 9 years into my brewing career. But even then, I noticed an immediate improvement. I had knocked out all the other process issues and was making very good beer before that, but water put it at a new level.
Now--where I agree with you. Trying to mimic water in a particular area does no good if the local brewers don't actually brew with that water without modification. I would expect that any large-scale brewer in the world understands their water sources, tests them for each batch, and adjusts to what *they* want. So even though we have a profile for "Burton on Trent" it doesn't necessarily mean that the profile as we understand it is what they actually brew with. Therefore you are correct that blindly trying to match some "historic" profile may not be productive, since that "historic" profile isn't necessarily correct as it relates to actually brewing with water.
Silver_Is_Money
Larry Sayre, Developer of 'Mash Made Easy'
I fully agree!
Dmlsys23
Well-Known Member
Totally agreed. I made an extract IPA that got a 30. The same all-grain IPA? 30. I've never tasted a twang. I think it's all in people's heads from hearing about it from other brewers.
Well I guess I'm bit of a weirdo as well. Eh, make that I am a proud weirdo. I don't mind bottling, and I do have a setup to dispense kegged beer for parties, the investment was better than being the bartender and less stressful than instructing every beer drinker that wanted homebrew how to pour.
+1 to bottling. I haven't got space for a kegerator in my kitchen. But I have got a nice cool cellar. Plus I like being able to go downstairs and pick from 8-10 varieties depending on my mood and what I'm eating.
