My homebrew vs commercial brewery beer

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Jako

Jako

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Everytime I drink a beer from a brewery I can't help but notice my beers lack that crisp and clean flavor you get on a professional level. Not that my beers are cloudy or still green it's as if the homebrew has more body or something extra within. Is this a result of not filtering my beer? Its Iike I am missing some malt backbone at times.
 
Jako said:
Everytime I drink a beer from a brewery I can't help but notice my beers lack that crisp and clean flavor you get on a professional level. Not that my beers are cloudy or still green it's as if the homebrew has more body or something extra within. Is this a result of not filtering my beer? Its Iike I am missing some malt backbone at times.
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Water chemistry.
 
Hoppy2bmerry said:
You begin by knowing how your water generally is, or use distilled or RO water to add what you need for the style, assuming you are using grain.
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I do 5G all grain. Currently building a new house and a brewery in the basement. About to contact the builder and have him rough in line for a RO system. Is that book called water any good?
 
Jako said:
[...]Is that book called water any good?
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I'd rank it right up there with Yeast.

I have to say there's a lot going on with the first post. "Crisp and clean" and "malty" and "more body" don't really fit together often, with the former tending towards dry versus the latter. And filtering has nothing to do with any of that...

Cheers!
 
Jako said:
I wouldn't doubt that for a second.. I feel kinda stupid that I didn't think of that. What's the best place to start? Right now I only add in campden.
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Well, an RO system with fairly basic additions (mostly Calcium Chloride, gypsum and lactic acid, or baking soda for dark beers) is a great way to start.

But yeast and fermentation temp control might be other areas to look at. So much of the "clean" vs "dirty" things that happen with beer revolve around yeast and fermentation.

Do you currently control fermentation temps? If not, that's a more important place to start than water chemistry. Although both can have significant impacts after you've got everything else dialed in.

And if you're close enough to participate in the O-Town Hop Heads I'd really suggest checking them out. They are one of the top homebrew clubs in Utah and are "north".
 
day_trippr said:
I'd rank it right up there with Yeast.

I have to say there's a lot going on with the first post. "Crisp and clean" and "malty" and "more body" don't really fit together often, with the former tending towards dry versus the latter. And filtering has nothing to do with any of that...

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Yeah i was typing it out and thinking how to I explain this.. it's safe to say I will never have my BJCP cert lol. I decided more information was better than none. Thanks for sticking it out.
 
Gameface said:
Well, an RO system with fairly basic additions (mostly Calcium Chloride, gypsum and lactic acid, or baking soda for dark beers) is a great way to start.

But yeast and fermentation temp control might be other areas to look at. So much of the "clean" vs "dirty" things that happen with beer revolve around yeast and fermentation.

Do you currently control fermentation temps? If not, that's a more important place to start than water chemistry. Although both can have significant impacts after you've got everything else dialed in.

And if you're close enough to participate in the O-Town Hop Heads I'd really suggest checking them out. They are one of the top homebrew clubs in Utah and are "north".
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I live in herriman currently and building in eagle mountain. But if the club is active I might be interested in driving up.

As for my yeast I tend to over build my starter's and always keep my fermenter on the lower end of the suggested range. unless I'm looking for more yeast character. My temps range tend move around 4 degrees throughout a day if my temp was 65 it would be 67 in the afternoon and 63 in the morning.
 
Jako said:
Everytime I drink a beer from a brewery I can't help but notice my beers lack that crisp and clean flavor you get on a professional level. Not that my beers are cloudy or still green it's as if the homebrew has more body or something extra within. Is this a result of not filtering my beer? Its Iike I am missing some malt backbone at times.
Click to expand...

Are you brewing all-grain or extract? It could be Water Chemistry, but honestly there are a dozen things I would put higher on the priority list.
 
I'd look at your water too. Not just mineral content, but pH as well. I know if the pH creeps up on my IPAs, they start to get kinda blah and non-descript. Keep the pH down, and they "pop" more.
 
Water chemistry might be something, but I'd always look at fermentation first. Most homebrews have a certain amount of alcohol on the nose compared to commercial beers.
 
Here's my theory on excellent beer: It's a function of a lot of specific process characteristics that, together, add up to excellent beer. Start making shortcuts and the more you do that, the less excellence your beer will exhibit.

That's why the "what's most important" threads and arguments are not that interesting to me. It's all important! That is, if you're trying to produce the best beer possible given your system and constraints.

I've followed an approach of continuous quality improvement in my brewing history. Every time I brew, I try to do something better. Reduce oxygen exposure HERE. Do a better starter THERE. Adjust my crush. Time my additions better (for reproduceability). Hops. Racking. Purging kegs. Reducing O2 exposure on racking. Etc. etc. etc.

Try to do something better. Every. Single. Time.

It adds up. Make it your mission to keep learning. You clearly have identified water as a place for improvement, so work on that. Read, read, read and see what you can learn about it, and begin to improve your brewing water. Once you think you have that settled, move on to something else.

Maybe....yeast? Are you pitching the correct amount? How do you do starters? Is there a better way?

Same with fermentation temp control. Are you doing that? Can you do it better?

And so on, and so forth.

*********

If you view this as a journey, it can be very enjoyable. Tweak this. Play with that. Adjust over here. Learn. Then learn some more. Whatever your "conventional wisdom" is, challenge it. Look for evidence there's another, better way. And if it appears there is, adopt it if you can.

Don't assume you're missing just the one thing. You're missing everything, if you're not continuously trying to improve your process.

Good luck, and whatever you do, enjoy the journey. It's a very good journey. :)
 
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If you want to get close to the commercial beers you're drinking you have to at least KNOW what's in your water, because they definitely do and make sure it's the exact profile they want.

In terms of your homebrew having more body, are you measuring FG? Maybe yours isn't attenuating quite as much as the commercial beers which could be fixed with yeast management.

'Missing some malt backbone' comment, honestly that could just be their recipe has something yours doesn't. Sometimes when I have a commercial beer I really like, I'll try to take note of the grains they used(if they list that info). It never has the exact % but knowing their grains(if the info is true) gives me something to work with. One of my favorite local IPAs says on the can they use pilsner, vienna, and wheat. I'm going to play around with that combo and see what happens.
 
mongoose33 said:
Here's my theory on excellent beer: It's a function of a lot of specific process characteristics that, together, add up to excellent beer. Start making shortcuts and the more you do that, the less excellence your beer will exhibit.
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I got back into brewing after a break with a focus on improving my process and the quality of my beers. I have two beers on tap that are two of the best beers I have ever brewed.

One is an IPA that includes all my latest improvements (salt additions, pH readings and adjustments, ferm temp control, closed keg transfers into fully purged kegs, and maybe a few other process improvements). I do feel like those things have made a difference. I also put a lot of time into the recipe for this batch (well...I drank a lot of IPA taking notes on exactly what I wanted in an IPA...it is heavy based on Racer 5).

The other beer is a Rye IPA/Amber. That beer was brewed in Feb. I did add some Gypsum, but did not adjust pH (I do recall taking a reading and it was in the 5.7 range), it was fermented in a glass carboy sitting in my basement bathroom, and transferred to keg using an auto-siphon following a basic headspace purge process. I would put that beer head to head with any commercial beer.

I agree with the idea that there is not just one thing that makes a person a good brewer (or cook, or musician, etc.). There are 100 things you can do to make minor improvements in your beers...but then 1 or 2 things done poorly can have a significant negative impact on your beer. My advise is to identify and fix those negative factors. It could be water chemistry, but it could be yeast management, or oxidation, or ferm temps, or recipe creation, or sanitation, or consistency, or process issues, etc.
 
mongoose33 said:
Here's my theory on excellent beer: It's a function of a lot of specific process characteristics that, together, add up to excellent beer. Start making shortcuts and the more you do that, the less excellence your beer will exhibit.

That's why the "what's most important" threads and arguments are not that interesting to me. It's all important! That is, if you're trying to produce the best beer possible given your system and constraints.

I've followed an approach of continuous quality improvement in my brewing history. Every time I brew, I try to do something better. Reduce oxygen exposure HERE. Do a better starter THERE. Adjust my crush. Time my additions better (for reproduceability). Hops. Racking. Purging kegs. Reducing O2 exposure on racking. Etc. etc. etc.

Try to do something better. Every. Single. Time.

It adds up. Make it your mission to keep learning. You clearly have identified water as a place for improvement, so work on that. Read, read, read and see what you can learn about it, and begin to improve your brewing water. Once you think you have that settled, move on to something else.

Maybe....yeast? Are you pitching the correct amount? How do you do starters? Is there a better way?

Same with fermentation temp control. Are you doing that? Can you do it better?

And so on, and so forth.

*********

If you view this as a journey, it can be very enjoyable. Tweak this. Play with that. Adjust over here. Learn. Then learn some more. Whatever your "conventional wisdom" is, challenge it. Look for evidence there's another, better way. And if it appears there is, adopt it if you can.

Don't assume you're missing just the one thing. You're missing everything, if you're not continuously trying to improve your process.

Good luck, and whatever you do, enjoy the journey. It's a very good journey. :)
Click to expand...

I think this is very good advice. That said, like everything, there's a law of diminishing returns. You will eventually get to the point where you're exerting a huge amount of extra effort for a very minimal improvement. Does it yield better beer? yes. Noticeably better? probably not.

When I first got back into brewing (and started all grain), I posted here asking about what things turned an OK beer into a "Wow!" beer. I got a lot of good advice and I picked the common themes and employed them all in my first batch. The result? A NEIPA that was better that all but the top tier beers I'd had commercially. My first batch made my hard core beer nerd friends say "Wow, that's an amazing beer".

My point? Do always look to improve your process (and the resulting beer). But there's value to finding out where the "bang for the buck" is when choosing where to start those improvements. There are a handful of not-too-difficult things you can do that will enable you to make a big leap in your beer quality in one fell swoop. After that, continue to look for the next biggest improvement you can make.

There's nothing wrong with going for a) the low hanging fruit (things that are easy to do) and b) the things that yield the biggest improvement in the final product.
 
Water chemistry (eliminating alkalinity and targeting specific levels of Ca, Mg, Cl, Na, SO4, and CaCO3)

mash pH (learn why it's important and how to reach your appropriate target)

oxidation (particularly on the cold side) can lead to flavors described as dull or flabby, or the opposite of crisp and fresh

Recipe development (it's my opinion that homebrewers use far too much crystal malt for many styles compared to pro brewers)

Those would be my suggestions of things to tackle...
 
Jako said:
I live in herriman currently and building in eagle mountain. But if the club is active I might be interested in driving up.

As for my yeast I tend to over build my starter's and always keep my fermenter on the lower end of the suggested range. unless I'm looking for more yeast character. My temps range tend move around 4 degrees throughout a day if my temp was 65 it would be 67 in the afternoon and 63 in the morning.
Click to expand...
Oh, if that's where you're at check out Lauter Day Brewers or ZZ Hops. They'll be closer. I don't know if there are any big clubs in Utah County.
 
mongoose33 said:
Here's my theory on excellent beer: It's a function of a lot of specific process characteristics that, together, add up to excellent beer. Start making shortcuts and the more you do that, the less excellence your beer will exhibit.

That's why the "what's most important" threads and arguments are not that interesting to me. It's all important! That is, if you're trying to produce the best beer possible given your system and constraints.

I've followed an approach of continuous quality improvement in my brewing history. Every time I brew, I try to do something better. Reduce oxygen exposure HERE. Do a better starter THERE. Adjust my crush. Time my additions better (for reproduceability). Hops. Racking. Purging kegs. Reducing O2 exposure on racking. Etc. etc. etc.

Try to do something better. Every. Single. Time.

It adds up. Make it your mission to keep learning. You clearly have identified water as a place for improvement, so work on that. Read, read, read and see what you can learn about it, and begin to improve your brewing water. Once you think you have that settled, move on to something else.

Maybe....yeast? Are you pitching the correct amount? How do you do starters? Is there a better way?

Same with fermentation temp control. Are you doing that? Can you do it better?

And so on, and so forth.

*********

If you view this as a journey, it can be very enjoyable. Tweak this. Play with that. Adjust over here. Learn. Then learn some more. Whatever your "conventional wisdom" is, challenge it. Look for evidence there's another, better way. And if it appears there is, adopt it if you can.

Don't assume you're missing just the one thing. You're missing everything, if you're not continuously trying to improve your process.

Good luck, and whatever you do, enjoy the journey. It's a very good journey. :)
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Wisdom right there
 
So I got results back today from a lager comp this past weekend.

I scored 34 on two beers and a 26 due to it being out of style. But it was noted I should keep an eye on the PH of my water.
 
Tons of incredible advice in this thread. Thank you everyone for giving me well a thought response.

I plan to reevaluate my process. I think I tend to cut some corners and can improve easily in some areas. I am definitely going to invest most of my efforts in water chemistry as I do absolutely nothing in this area as of now.
 
mongoose33 said:
Here's my theory on excellent beer: It's a function of a lot of specific process characteristics that, together, add up to excellent beer. Start making shortcuts and the more you do that, the less excellence your beer will exhibit.

That's why the "what's most important" threads and arguments are not that interesting to me. It's all important! That is, if you're trying to produce the best beer possible given your system and constraints.

I've followed an approach of continuous quality improvement in my brewing history. Every time I brew, I try to do something better. Reduce oxygen exposure HERE. Do a better starter THERE. Adjust my crush. Time my additions better (for reproduceability). Hops. Racking. Purging kegs. Reducing O2 exposure on racking. Etc. etc. etc.

Try to do something better. Every. Single. Time.

It adds up. Make it your mission to keep learning. You clearly have identified water as a place for improvement, so work on that. Read, read, read and see what you can learn about it, and begin to improve your brewing water. Once you think you have that settled, move on to something else.

Maybe....yeast? Are you pitching the correct amount? How do you do starters? Is there a better way?

Same with fermentation temp control. Are you doing that? Can you do it better?

And so on, and so forth.

*********

If you view this as a journey, it can be very enjoyable. Tweak this. Play with that. Adjust over here. Learn. Then learn some more. Whatever your "conventional wisdom" is, challenge it. Look for evidence there's another, better way. And if it appears there is, adopt it if you can.

Don't assume you're missing just the one thing. You're missing everything, if you're not continuously trying to improve your process.

Good luck, and whatever you do, enjoy the journey. It's a very good journey. :)
Click to expand...
I used to crush my grain once, started double crushing. I saw improvement.
I used to do single infusion mashes. I started step mashing . I saw improvement.
Last brew (Maerzen/Oktoberfest) I added a slight amount of water hardener powder I've had for a while. Seemed to improve.
I still use dry yeast, if its not broke I'm not about to fix it.
Although I have used a repitch from a previous brew yeast slurry and it has been outstanding fermentation.
I still check my gravity both before and after the boil. Numbers are spot on so I dont think I need to do anything different there.
I let my fermentation go 3 days after I see no airlock action and check gravity 2 days in a row and so far(except for the one time), I've not needed any more time before bottling .I can usually bottle that same day of the last gravity check.
My beers seem to improve every time. Theyre not the same brews ever but they taste better than the expectation, true to style as it were.
I suppose I could get into my water more. It is city/local water and since the water analysis came out ,its in the ballpark , the tiny amount of hardener powder seemed to help.
Someday I will brew something for the second time, maybe.
 
Soulshine2 said:
I used to crush my grain once, started double crushing. I saw improvement.
I used to do single infusion mashes. I started step mashing . I saw improvement.
Last brew (Maerzen/Oktoberfest) I added a slight amount of water hardener powder I've had for a while. Seemed to improve.
I still use dry yeast, if its not broke I'm not about to fix it.
Although I have used a repitch from a previous brew yeast slurry and it has been outstanding fermentation.
I still check my gravity both before and after the boil. Numbers are spot on so I dont think I need to do anything different there.
I let my fermentation go 3 days after I see no airlock action and check gravity 2 days in a row and so far(except for the one time), I've not needed any more time before bottling .I can usually bottle that same day of the last gravity check.
My beers seem to improve every time. Theyre not the same brews ever but they taste better than the expectation, true to style as it were.
I suppose I could get into my water more. It is city/local water and since the water analysis came out ,its in the ballpark , the tiny amount of hardener powder seemed to help.
Someday I will brew something for the second time, maybe.
Click to expand...

What's "hardener powder"? Never heard of it.

I don't know if it's possible to get to the highest levels if you don't repeat recipes; no way to tell, if you're brewing something different every time, whether you're truly making progress. I don't doubt that some of the things you've done above are process improvements. But...

Each batch tastes better, but is that a psychological expectation, a hope that things are truly getting better? I think there's a fear on the part of some home brewers, the guys and gals who won't brew the same thing twice. They're afraid that it will expose their process weaknesses; doing a different brew every time means changes can always be attributed to the new recipe, never to the process.

If you really want to see if you're getting better, hold the recipe constant and tweak the processes.

My 2 cents.
 
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I think a lot of the commercial vs homebrew is the placebo affect of it being homemade.

Hand someone a bud, bud light ,busch or miller and they drink a bunch of them, they know what to expect.
Hand someone a glass poured from a plain brown bottle filled with homebrew and they dont know what to expect because it just doesnt taste like the commercial beer their taste buds are accustomed to.
Theres the "wow, this is good beer" or "wow, you made this??"
My mom who is 78 yrs old doesnt like dark beer but the minute I poured myself one of my oatmeal stouts or the toasted coconut chocolate coffee porter, she tasted them and said they were both really good.
My dad chanced a few sips of nearly every beer Ive made, hes gluten intolerant but he was very interested in what I made. He used to drink Hamm's ,MGD and Old Style ,and years ago Meister Brau if anyone can remember that one. He said he wishes he could drink beer again. I still havent made him his own gluten free beer yet but its coming. I'm going to make a point to have a batch done for Fathers day.
 
mongoose33 said:
What's "hardener powder"? Never heard of it.

I don't know if it's possible to get to the highest levels if you don't repeat recipes; no way to tell, if you're brewing something different every time, whether you're truly making progress. I don't doubt that some of the things you've done above are process improvements. But...

Each batch tastes better, but is that or a psychological expectation, a hope that things are truly getting better? I think there's a fear on the part of some home brewers, the guys and gals who won't brew the same thing twice. They're afraid that it will expose their process weaknesses; doing a different brew every time means changes can always be attributed to the new recipe, never to the process.

If you really want to see if you're getting better, hold the recipe constant and tweak the processes.

My 2 cents.
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hardener powder...it was in a small plastic bag when my longtime buddy gave me the starter kit. makes soft water hard I guess.

Theres no fear in repeating a recipe, just so many styles to try first. Just havent gotten around to repeating one yet. The only one or two I would definitely repeat would be the Bavarian Hef (Northern Brewing) I made for my wife and the Maerzen (my own recipe) I mentioned. Those are like a good solid "daily drinking beer" .
 
mongoose33 said:
What's "hardener powder"? Never heard of it.

I don't know if it's possible to get to the highest levels if you don't repeat recipes; no way to tell, if you're brewing something different every time, whether you're truly making progress. I don't doubt that some of the things you've done above are process improvements. But...

Each batch tastes better, but is that or a psychological expectation, a hope that things are truly getting better? I think there's a fear on the part of some home brewers, the guys and gals who won't brew the same thing twice. They're afraid that it will expose their process weaknesses; doing a different brew every time means changes can always be attributed to the new recipe, never to the process.

If you really want to see if you're getting better, hold the recipe constant and tweak the processes.

My 2 cents.
Click to expand...
not where I got it but this looks like the same powder .

https://chicagobrewwerks.com/collections/water-salts/products/water-crystals-1-2-oz
 
Most things have been covered already. But here's my take:

Commercial beer is rigorously conditioned, polished, and packaged. Processes are tightly controlled, from water chemistry to mash pH, absolutely consistent temperature control on both hot and cold sides, and painstaking exclusion of oxygen post-pitch.

Homebrewers are either complacent or lack the tools/knowledge to emulate some of this. I didn't say all of it. Just some of it. We can come very close in many respects, actually. But not if we're lazy. And many homebrewers are. We've all seen these types of statements a million times:

"I just use my tap water. I dunno, my beer tastes great."

"My temps are okay. Maybe a little warm. Goes from 65 at night to 70+ during the day. Not a problem for me."

"I bottled it last night. But I sucked some trub into the siphon and half the batch is now a bit hazy. Hoping to drink this in a week, though!"

And it goes on and on. @mongoose33 has the best response on the thread. Each little thing is perhaps a small factor, but all of them together make up something huge. Do the best you can with everything, and try to learn/improve just one thing every time you brew. Eventually the difference between commercial beer and yours may not be much at all!
 
McKnuckle said:
Homebrewers are either complacent or lack the tools/knowledge to emulate some of this. I didn't say all of it. Just some of it. We can come very close in many respects, actually. But not if we're lazy. And many homebrewers are.
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That's me....actually I have ten times more hobbies than I should have and my work/commute takes up 70-80 hrs a week, so If I just focused on one thing I suppose I could be a top notch homebrewer. I would like to have more time to be a lazy brewer.
But hobbies are supposed to be fun. Fun for me is doing a bunch of different things,(other than beer) and when I do have time for brewing, to brew something that isn't something I can buy at the store.
The stores around here are all stocked with IPA's. So I brew porters, stouts, English Milds, Saisons, Lagers for the summertime, and experimental beers with new hops and different combinations of local fruit.
The OP wants to compare his brew to commercial beers and that's a great goal,
but isn't there some value in making something different that you'll never see in a store?
My suggestions to the OP would be to invest in a small scale, get all the various water additions you'll need and brew a batch with distilled water built to the style you like.
Use an established clone recipe for a commercial beer you like.
Brew the same thing with your local water and see which one you like better. And compare it with the commercial example.
A great resource is the old "Can You Brew" It podcast. If you listen to the discussion and do what they did, its not all that difficult to make homebrew as good as commercial beer. From what I remember, they always did water additions, used the same malts the commercial brewers did and followed a specific fermetation temperature schedule.
Here's all the recipes in one place:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/can-you-brew-it-database.178064/
 
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Soulshine2 said:
hardener powder...it was in a small plastic bag when my longtime buddy gave me the starter kit. makes soft water hard I guess.

Theres no fear in repeating a recipe, just so many styles to try first. Just havent gotten around to repeating one yet. The only one or two I would definitely repeat would be the Bavarian Hef (Northern Brewing) I made for my wife and the Maerzen (my own recipe) I mentioned. Those are like a good solid "daily drinking beer" .
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Forgive me, again, but if they aren't worth repeating....are they really any good? Or just past "drinkable?"

The first time I nailed a recipe my initial response was "I'm brewing that again!"

I note in your other response that you added the hardening powder and it seemed to help; how do you know? If you didn't brew the same recipe, with and without, how can you tell?
 
McKnuckle said:
Most things have been covered already. But here's my take:

Commercial beer is rigorously conditioned, polished, and packaged. Processes are tightly controlled, from water chemistry to mash pH, absolutely consistent temperature control on both hot and cold sides, and painstaking exclusion of oxygen post-pitch
Click to expand...

If only this were true!! There's a lot of breweries that are basically just larger homebrewing operations.

I've been on too many tours of small breweries and asked simple questions about water chemistry, sanitization, yeast management, etc where the brewer's answers showed that they really didn't have an understanding of the many of these things.

And, of course, their product shows that...


Things I've actually heard from different commercial operations:

"We had our ground water tested and it's great for all styles"

"We use the same yeast for all styles and just mix up the grain bill and hops"

"We don't really worry about oxygen much because we're kegging"
 
I'd never state that it was true for 100% of commercial breweries. But the ones with consistent quality and character in their beers are not cutting corners to the extent that homebrewers do. How could they?

If you're talking about very small American breweries, I haven't visited those. I've been to several small, medium, and large breweries in the UK though, so I take my cues from what I saw there. The same can be said for German and American operations that I've seen in videos. These are generally places where everything is dialed in and endlessly repeatable, reliable, and predictable.

A brewery's groundwater might be great for all the styles they brew. I guess if the beers were flawed due to water, it would be detectable, unpleasant, and the beer wouldn't sell. If the flavor is good, that's all that matters, even with a laissez-faire attitude towards water.

Many breweries do use the same yeast for all styles - it's their house yeast after all, and often defines them. I'm speaking more about classic breweries here - English, German, Belgian - than the latest American micro using a White Labs strain.

And I doubt that a brewer's flippant answer about "not worrying" about oxygen really translates into practice. If it does, then I agree with you that such a person is foolish.
 
McKnuckle said:
Many breweries do use the same yeast for all styles - it's their house yeast after all, and often defines them. I'm speaking more about classic breweries here - English, German, Belgian - than the latest American micro using a White Labs strain.
Click to expand...

I agree, and would think that in many cases the same could be said for the water, as well. :mug:
 
McKnuckle said:
I'd never state that it was true for 100% of commercial breweries. But the ones with consistent quality and character in their beers are not cutting corners to the extent that homebrewers do. How could they?

If you're talking about very small American breweries, I haven't visited those. I've been to several small, medium, and large breweries in the UK though, so I take my cues from what I saw there. The same can be said for German and American operations that I've seen in videos. These are generally places where everything is dialed in and endlessly repeatable, reliable, and predictable.

A brewery's groundwater might be great for all the styles they brew. I guess if the beers were flawed due to water, it would be detectable, unpleasant, and the beer wouldn't sell. If the flavor is good, that's all that matters, even with a laissez-faire attitude towards water.

Many breweries do use the same yeast for all styles - it's their house yeast after all, and often defines them. I'm speaking more about classic breweries here - English, German, Belgian - than the latest American micro using a White Labs strain.

And I doubt that a brewer's flippant answer about "not worrying" about oxygen really translates into practice. If it does, then I agree with you that such a person is foolish.
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I've been to a number of local micros where the beer would lead me to believe the poster you quoted. For some of these places, their best beer is not as good and my middle of the road stuff. When I can get a flight, all styles that I enjoy, and not a single beer is something I'd want to drink again, that's a problem. It's not all that rare. Those places typically don't last long unless they also server good food.

I may not be the best judge though, since I take beer very seriously and put a fair amount of effort into getting (and brewing) the best I can get.
 
McKnuckle said:
A brewery's groundwater might be great for all the styles they brew. I guess if the beers were flawed due to water, it would be detectable, unpleasant, and the beer wouldn't sell. If the flavor is good, that's all that matters, even with a laissez-faire attitude towards water.
Click to expand...

Nope, their water was okay for darker styles, but not for lighter beers. They also told me they did no modification at all.

Many breweries do use the same yeast for all styles - it's their house yeast after all, and often defines them.
Click to expand...

The particular brewery I'm referencing used the same yeast for stouts, IPAs, hefe's and kolsch.

Have you ever had a decent hefe made with us-05?

And I doubt that a brewer's flippant answer about "not worrying" about oxygen really translates into practice. If it does, then I agree with you that such a person is foolish.
Click to expand...

All of this particular brewery's beers were oxidized. Not to the point of cardboard, but flabby, lifeless, and significantly darker than they should've been...

With 5000+ breweries (or whatever the number is now), there's an awful lot of bad beer out there....
 
Fair enough. Suffice to say, then, that the OP wasn't referring to those breweries when he was comparing his homebrew to commercial beer! :)

So in my response I had the same perspective. Just talking about the places that make beer of consistent professional quality and flavor.
 

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