How do I hook my Dad onto Brewing?

Greetings all!

I love brewing, but I'm trying to hook my dad. He's almost 60 and getting him unstuck in his ways is difficult. He likes Stella Artois and will drink most anything Budweiser, Miller, etc(yea, yea, I know.) What's worse is that he isn't convinced I can make something he'd like better and after only starting beer brewing, I'm not sure what to make to show him. I made one batch of a recipe that's close to an Ommegang clone because I liked it, but now I wanna make one for him to get him into home brewing. Any suggestions? I can't do all grain yet because I'm still in the process of a bigger setup. Or if it is all grain, it'd have to be a 1 gallon batch (if that's even a thing with all grain).

I'm a beginner so take it easy on me if I'm mistaken in things

ipe: Thanks in advance for your thoughts!


*Edit* I also live in the tropics and don't have a dedicated cold area, so I'm stuck with fermenting between 68-72 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

The beers you listed that he seems to like are all pale lagers. You'll need a fermentation chiller for lagers though as those need to be fermented and stored cold.

If you don't have a chiller or don't want to invest the time in a lager even if you do (those take a while) and want to stick with an ale...

You might want to try ales that would be closest to what he's familiar with. Something light in color, crisp, and lightly hopped.

Others around here know their styles *a lot* better than I do, but ales that immediately come to my mind that might be the closest include cream ale, Koelsch, and perhaps weizenbier. A blonde ale might not be too far off the mark either.

Good luck!

 

You aren't stuck at those temps unless you don't have a freezer.

I'd try making a cream ale or blonde. Maybe even a wheat.

I was actually going to try to make an ale version of an American light lager, but I had to change up my recipe, and used honey. Now it's a light honey ale. Damn...I'll end up drinking it all myself no doubt! It was intended for SWMBO's girlfriends that have tried my blonde and amber, but took a very long time to drink 5 oz of each. They all drink light this or that...

 

make a brew such as a traditional ale. then buy and consume a 6 pack of a similar brew. then bottle and gift him said bottles. if he likes it... SURPRISE!!! btw 68-72 is great for a traditional ale.

 

I had made a honey blonde that was intended to be very light, but noticed it had a higher than intended OG so I watered it down. I hadn't considered that it would lower the IBU's (15) too, which made it a very sweet beer at first. After a couple of months conditioning, and a month in the fridge it's actually reminiscent of a lager. Thin and lightly hopped (8-12 IBU's).

A kolsch is likely to be a good idea as Mozart mentioned.

 

Take a HARD look at Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde ale. It's a lawnmower ale, low ABV, but extremely tasty, easy to make and fast. Biermuncher even has an extract version posted on the page, and I think your dad will find it very drinkable. I just brewed the first batch, and bottled it last night, but the flavor was very good, and this is coming from a "big bodied beer" guy. I'm going to spring it on my Butt Light drinking sister in a couple weeks. I think it's a beer that is a great converter of the BMC crowd into the craft brew club. FWIW.

 

I recently brewed a recipe from Brooklyn Brew Shop 1 gallon WGD (world's greatest dad) light. It is great, light, a bit hoppy, clear. Its 2 row pale malt,caramel 10 and 20, and victory malt, along with cascade and Chinook hops, fermented with American ale yeast (S04).I highly recommend their book it has a bunch of 1 gallon recipes you could experiment with.

 

My experience with beer consists of a buddy telling me what to do, a piece of paper with instructions on Extract Brewing, and making a recipe I found (the color is probably really off because it's a Belgian blonde, but brown as a bear.) I feel like I skipped from basic math to calculus. In order to save your time from catching me up, could a few of you message me your favorite recipe in the category and I'll promise to spend the next two weeks in the book store reading beer-brewing books?


*Edit* I missed the posts from jfk69 and medbrewer while I wrote this. Thanks for the ideas guys!

 

What I did to make an ale that thinks it's a lager is use the same sort of malts lagers do mixed with some grains from light ales. Use hops like German & Czech too. I used White Labs WL029 German ale/kolsh yeast. It gives lager like crispnes & flavors. Best of all,it's ideal range is 75-69F!

 

This is where my light ale recipe began, though I modified it, and then ended up changing it.

Check out the recipe.

 

Might be interesting to try the WL029 yeast on that one.

 

I would try a kolsch or a California common. Both are basically lagers fermented in the 60's that use specialty yeasts. Both benefit from aging a while in the fridge too. Very light body and low hop bitterness.

 

I forgot to add that I recently got my almost 70 year old dad into brewing. I planned brew days for his visits a couple times as fun activities and he went out and bought a starter kit.

 

Here's a suggestion for hooking your dad into homebrewing...

Take the suggestions you've gotten here (and there have been a few), research the styles (a good place is the BJCP style guidelines, I'll post the link below), and present him with a few choices. Let him decide which style he thinks he might like, then find a simple extract recipe in that style and invite him over for your brewday to help you brew it.

If he has a hand in the selection of the recipe and the brewing of it, he might be more open to it.

And if nothing else, it'll give you a chance to spend a few hours with your dad. You can even have a story to tell together if you completely mess everything up.

http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php

Cheers!

 

Beerrecipe.org

 

Great idea mozart!!!

 

This. And while you make it extend his pallette a little. I have yet to meet a man who can turn away from a Dales Pale Ale.

 

Haven't made Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde ale recipe yet but it gets lots of good reviews so I would try that. I would avoid SO-04 or Nottgham yeasts because they give me and others off flavors at higher temps. Supposedly mauribrew ale dry yeast can ferment cleanly up into the mid 80s. I have a packet but haven't tried it. Definitely recommend having him help you brew then he will be more "invested" in the beer. It's just like cooking, if you put the work into it, it simply tastes better. Whenever I give my beer to someone who doesn't brew (or doesn't appreciate craft beers) they say something uninspiring like, "yup, it tastes like beer". Similarly, I never knew why people with kids would go on about their kids so much until I had kids myself. You showing pictures of your kids to someone that doesn't have kids, they say "cute" and leave it at that, not realizing that they've basically insulted you for not gushing about how beautiful/handsome/awesome they are.

 

Buy a kegerator and a keg. You will be forced to brew to keep it filled.

 

Pour a cold bottle of miller or bud into a glass and tell him you brewed it. If he starts telling you that it's not bad, but not as good as miller or bud, then give up on trying to convince him.

If he's mightily impressed then try introducing him whatever others suggest.

 

+1 for the centennial blonde. Its very light (particularly if you add most of you DME near flameout) and would be a good transition for BMC drinkers