How many of you brew "to style?"

SoupNazi · Apr 3, 2013

Remember, brewing beer is an evolution, not a finite science. Push the limits! Remember what beer was like 100 years ago, and think what will be brewed in 100 years. You just might create the next big ...

gandelf · Apr 3, 2013

Varmintman said:
Never even looked at the guidelines for beer and never will. I do not enter competitions and never will.

I brew what I like and I like what I brew so why mess with it :fro:

+1000 I brew what I like; brew free.

bobmcstuff · Apr 3, 2013

My second brew was a bit of a disaster because I made up a recipe badly, so these days I tend to have at least a cursory look at the style guidelines for a bit of a "sense check" when I'm putting something together. It's for inspiration as much as anything else, in the same way as I look at recipes on here and elsewhere.

But I don't really follow them to the letter, unless that happens to be what I want to brew.

abrix · Apr 3, 2013

But here's the rub: competitions can be a great source of (relatively) unbiased feedback on our beers. So there's value in brewing to style in order to get feedback from judges. Otherwise -- if you're me -- you end up needing to enter all of your beers in the 'Specialty Beer' category.

bovineblitz · Apr 3, 2013

I almost never brew to style. Beers are often inspired by a couple of styles but probably less than 1/3 of the beers I make are able to be entered into a competition. However, even with things that are not to style I often reference style guidelines to help me get an idea about the type of balance I'm trying to achieve.

xtian116 · Apr 3, 2013

SoupNazi said:
Remember, brewing beer is an evolution, not a finite science. Push the limits! Remember what beer was like 100 years ago, and think what will be brewed in 100 years. You just might create the next big ...

Haha!
I was talking to one of the 'old timers' at one of the LHSB, he was asking what I was brewing. He laughed at me and said "son, putting lemons and zest in at 20 min will kill your yeast!" I explained that I had always done it. Next visit, I took him a bottle, he said " this is damn good beer. I thought it would be too bitter, or just kill the yeast."

I explained to him how I've been playing with the recipe for a couple of years and yes, it would be too bitter if you did a huge 60 min hop addition.

He said "that's what's good a out some people not knowing the rules, you kids are crazy."
(I'm not a kid anymore, I'm 40, but took both as a complement.)