i dont brew to style

[PCABrewing]

i dont brew to style. in a way it feels wrong. theres a reason that beers have styles. a pilsner is a pilsner. its been brewed that way for hundreds of years for a reason.



do most of you brew to style or just throw in whatever you have lying around?

Neither do I in many cases. I'll throw together a recipe bases on taste attributes that I want to try and I record it all so if I like it I can reproduce it.
I have used whatever was lying around several times and been very pleased with some and not so much with others.

But other times I'll rely on the style guide to keep a recipe within bounds of a style but mix-up the grains for flavor impact.
Like I might do a stout and try for a licorice taste on the palette.

 

[kevin58]

In a recent post by Ron Pattinson where he wrote about an English IPA and mentioned that it didn't match up much with modern IPAs but: "It didn’t seem to confuse beer drinkers in the 1940s. They had much less fixed ideas about beer styles."

Beer styles have always been fluid and many times a beer was labeled as one thing when an examination of the recipe show's it was more like something else. In the end, Ron says the beer was what the brewery called it.

There are other cases where a brewer would make a batch of a pale style beer but then add coloring to part of it to make it darker and sell it as two different styles.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

add coloring

"we drink with our eyes"

- numerous home brewing authors​

​

​

 

[user 246304]

Neither do I in many cases. I'll throw together a recipe bases on taste attributes that I want to try and I record it all so if I like it I can reproduce it.
I have used whatever was lying around several times and been very pleased with some and not so much with others.

But other times I'll rely on the style guide to keep a recipe within bounds of a style but mix-up the grains for flavor impact.
Like I might do a stout and try for a licorice taste on the palette.

Excellent.

 

[Bobby_M]

Styles are described primarily so that we have a language and vocabulary to use when we want to. We can say German Pilsner and we don't really have to say much more. The BJCP competition scene is really the only place where "brewing to style" becomes slightly more important but even there experimental and mixed style opportunities exist. I personally enjoy the competition arm of the hobby, but I also look at brewing to style a way of systematically understanding the world of beer more than I otherwise would if I was more improv jazz about my recipe creation.

There is enough room in the hobby to do it exactly how you want to do it and you don't have to apologize for it.

 

[DBhomebrew]

if I was more improv jazz

If I recall correctly, you have some background in music performance. I'm sure you know that the best improv artists are that due to their massively solid backgrounds in the classical basics.

 

[Bobby_M]

If I recall correctly, you have some background in music performance. I'm sure you know that the best improv artists are that due to their massively solid backgrounds in the classical basics.

I don't disagree. I do feel like the best recipe creators have equal parts discipline and artistic liberty. There are hundreds of new brewers that are happy to skip the classic styles clone thing and just kitchen sink everything. If it's weird, just add lactose, fruit and vanilla beans. It's not my style, and I wouldn't necessarily drink the beer, but I wouldn't begrudge anyone from doing it if it delivers what they want out of the hobby. I guess where my indifference may break down is anyone that uses the "I don't brew to style" as a sour grapes defense mechanism because they are unable to pull off a classic style. I'm sure that rarely happens.

 

[hottpeper13]

massively solid backgrounds in the classical basics.

That might explain why my recipes always turn out, it's because of the bag of MoJo I got at the crossroads!

 

[Velnerj]

For me, I always feel like I'm doing my best imatation or an homage to a style. That is I never get it perfectly right but I'm almost happy with the results. Sometimes my beer is the only time I've ever tasted a style, other times I brew and I feel it falls woefully short of what I thought to expect in the style but am usually happy with it in it's own sort of way.

I find that the styles are the most useful when sharing my beer with others. You'll always get the "what kind is it?" question. And very few people are knowledgeable about beer styles so it's best to be general. I.e. I recently brewed an homage to fullers London pride, it was one that fell short of that expectation, but when I tell others it's a English ale they enjoy it.

 

[day_trippr]

I find that the styles are the most useful when sharing my beer with others.

Indeed, my first thought while reading this thread was how one would offer a beer without needing to provide an explanation...

Cheers!

 

[Drewch]

I find that the styles are the most useful when sharing my beer with others. You'll always get the "what kind is it?" question.

Styles are useful descriptive points of reference. Like the jargon developed by any community of interest, brewers need a shorthand to communicate.

But no one should feel wrong for brewing something that doesn't fit a particular style.

A lot of my recipes start with an idea or concept .... and then I pick a style label to describe them after the fact.

 

[HM-2]

I treat styles as "suggestions" more than anything. I mostly use the BJCP guidelines for comic effect- especially for things like the Hazy IPA which if treated strictly would completely exclude many of the best examples of the style

 

[beersk]

I think "styles" give a good foundation on which to be creative. I liken it to knifework in cooking, or maybe better, understanding the broad flavors and techniques of a national cuisine. "Fusion" is cool, but without a foundation, it's garbage. Peanut butter tomato fritters with watermelon and onion foam.

I was going to mention fusion cuisine, like mixing Korean with Mexican food for Korean bbq tacos and food like that.
Personally, I don't like fusion cuisines much. I much prefer the more traditional cuisines. (I think the word authentic is used incorrectly, when most people mean to say "traditional". They are not the same thing).
And beer for me is the same. I brew beers to style. And I want to drink beers to style. When I order a pilsner in a brewery or restaurant, I do not want some lager-like thing with 50 IBUs of citra hops. Ick. That is fusion brewing and most all of American craft beer is fusion. Give me the traditional styles anyday.

 

[tracer bullet]

I brew to style, mostly, but not rigidly. I find it a good "jumping off" point. Find some recipe that won awards, brew it, then tweak it afterwards to my liking. It'd be out of style by the time I'm done, but for me it would be better. And I can still easily describe it if I'm going to give someone a glass of it.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

The thing that gets me is the BJCP guidelines on British Bitter. Ordinary, Best , Strong, Golden Ale. Complete rubbish Bitter is Bitter what ever you classify it. Calling a bitter @ 4.9% ABV strong bitter is so far out it’s comical. I use Brewfather software and have created a style called British Bitter that covers the lot.
I’ve also created a Strong Wheatbeer category for my Niagara wheatbeer which is 6.7%.
Rant over.

 

[grampamark]

Apparently, it’s OK not to brew to style. A lot of homebrewers, and far too many brewpubs, who think they do-don’t.

 

[Drewch]

Personally, I don't like fusion cuisines much. I much prefer the more traditional cuisines.

But every cuisine is a fusion cuisine. Even the quintessentially boring English cooking is a mix of Angle, Saxon, Celtic, Norse, and Norman French traditions.

 

[user 246304]

There's fusion cuisine, as whrn Catherine de Medici brought courtly, refined cooking to the cretinous French, creating what everyone thinks of as French haute cuisine ever since, and there's the fusion cuisine that everyone and their cousin thinks of when they think of fusion cuisine. Foie gras ice cream with ras-al-hanout caramel sauce and sea urchin lingonberry tuiles.

 

[bwible]

I think another reason we have “styles” is that people in different areas of the world work with whats available to them and try to play to their strengths. The soft water in Pilsen, the (lack of) availability of hops and malts in Scotland, the mineralized water in Burton, etc.

Then styles develop due to changing times, regulations, and/or tastes. For example all beers were brown at some point before malt could be dried cleaner, leading to pale beers and a fascination with clear glassware.

British beers became lower in gravity due to taxation. Brewers in the UK did not intentionally set out and plan to brew 3.5% and 4% highly hopped beers. In fact UK brewers brewed many strong beers, how many follow Ron Pattinson?

American beers got lighter during WW II when more men were at war and breweries were catering to the tastes of women.

Nobody was brewing milkshake IPAs 50 years ago. Thats a sign of the times - people have abundant time on their hands and alot of resources including newly developed hops to try something new.

I don’t think these things were planned. They are adaptations. I don’t see styles as set in stone, harshly defined things. Styles evolve over time to be a combination of what brewers can produce and what people at any time want to drink. Breweries wouldn’t make NEIPA if nobody was buying it. British breweries would brew more Mild if more people were buying it.

Style is just an attempt to describe what somebody is or was making somewhere in the world at some point in time.

 

[Bobby_M]

I think another reason we have “styles” is that people in different areas of the world work with whats available to them and try to play to their strengths. The soft water in Pilsen, the (lack of) availability of hops and malts in Scotland, the mineralized water in Burton, etc.

Then styles develop due to changing times, regulations, and/or tastes. For example all beers were brown at some point before malt could be dried cleaner, leading to pale beers and a fascination with clear glassware.

British beers became lower in gravity due to taxation. Brewers in the UK did not intentionally set out and plan to brew 3.5% and 4% highly hopped beers. In fact UK brewers brewed many strong beers, how many follow Ron Pattinson?

American beers got lighter during WW II when more men were at war and breweries were catering to the tastes of women.

Nobody was brewing milkshake IPAs 50 years ago. Thats a sign of the times - people have abundant time on their hands and alot of resources including newly developed hops to try something new.

I don’t think these things were planned. They are adaptations. I don’t see styles as set in stone, harshly defined things. Styles evolve over time to be a combination of what brewers can produce and what people at any time want to drink. Breweries wouldn’t make NEIPA if nobody was buying it. British breweries would brew more Mild if more people were buying it.

Style is just an attempt to describe what somebody is or was making somewhere in the world at some point in time.

I grant all of that. Styles just exist because they are regional or cultural and evolve like any other part of culture. Some styles are ancient and they are held in high regard due to their long history. The BJCP's intent has always been to document what is, i.e. descriptive. These are the styles and here's how they compare and contrast to other styles. The guidelines are also pretty transparent about how fleeting things can be and that they don't rush to create new categories just because two breweries started making a thing that doesn't fit into current styles (other than mixed or experimental).

 

[beersk]

But every cuisine is a fusion cuisine. Even the quintessentially boring English cooking is a mix of Angle, Saxon, Celtic, Norse, and Norman French traditions.

You're right. I guess what I mean by the use of the word fusion is more modern fusion cuisines rather than any sort of traditional cuisines. Of course, a good example of a more modern fusion cuisine would be Americanized Chinese or Tex-Mex. But I think I was meaning even more recent than those two. Americanized Chinese and Tex-Mex have been around for at least half a century or more? That's just a guess, I don't know when either were introduced.

 

[user 246304]

We re torturing the term fusion cuisine into the meaningless. "Fusion cuisine" is a specific term and has its roots in the 1970's nouvelle cuisine "revolution" in French cooking, when chefs like Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Michel Guérard, the Troisgros brothers and others jettisoned the emphasis on heavy sauces and plating that had been in place since at least Escoffier (himself a "nouvelle" response to the truly classical cuisine of Marie-Antoine Carême). These chefs drew from Asian techniques and flavors (in particular, Japanese) and combined them with their battery of French techniques to make a lighter, more spontaneous, more nuanced cuisine.

As with all things, what started authentically turned ridiculous as lesser chefs aped the fathers of nouvelle cuisine by ending up with a pea on a plate and calling it art.

To say "all food is fusion" while technically true, doesn't get us very far in truly dealing with the concept of style.

 

[Danny Wallace]

I use ale yeast for almost everything, including Oktoberfest and Bock (nobody complains). I don't want to lager or ferment at low temps.

I'll share that secret here, but don't tell anybody else.

I do this too!!! No one notices and I don't have to change my setup.

 

[user 345769]

While I haven't honed my beer-tasting skills to the level as all of you, I can still create delicious beer most of the time. Although I aim to craft my recipes around a specific style, my limited experience in discerning flavours makes it challenging, I guess you could say I have a style all my own.