Need some motivation and encouragement..

[dawn_kiebawls]

Hey guys and gals, lately I've been entirely to busy to brew which means I'm rationing my remaining homebrews and having to throw a lot more craft beer from the store in the mix. I'm not complaining because I get to drink more good beer, but drinking my brew along with the actually good stuff got me wondering.

How long does/did it take for me/you to brew GOOD beer you can be proud of? I like my beer because I made it but I think I've got a little bit of that 'ugly baby syndrome' you know? I want to brew something I can show off and share without saying 'I'm still new so I understand if you don't like it'. That being said, I am still very new with only 5 or 6 batches under my belt (3 AG) so I fully understand there is a rather large learning curve, but just HOW big it is remains a mystery to me.

For Christmas I am getting everything I need for a keezer/chamber so I will finally have control over my ferm temps which I know will make a big difference. But how long is/was the road ahead of me/you? I won't be intimidated, at this point I'm more or less looking for some advise, encouragement or words of wisdom! Thanks again for the help, kind words and the time you took to help a novice!

p.s. quick question about keg carbing. When force carbing, do you simply hook the keg up to ~40psi, pressurize the keg and disconnect the gas line and let sit for 24 hours or do you leave the gas line hooked up and 'on' the entire time? Thanks again!

 

[BeardedBrews]

The road to great beer doesn't have to be super long, you're probably only one or two simple steps away!

Practice makes perfect as long as you take notes and learn something each batch. You may need to find a brew club, or a fellow brewer in the area to taste test with. Also you can brew smaller batches each time so that you don't feel like you have to do something with the mediocre beer.

A good recipe goes a long way. Pick something popular that you like and that you can buy commercially. Comparing yours to the commercial example will help identify the differences.

Leave the gas line connected and on for the 24 hours, then lower to serving pressure. You can also just set it to serving pressure and wait.

 

[doug293cz]

How long it takes depends on how much you pay attention to detail, and fix any deficiencies from your last brew on your next brew. Getting feedback from knowledgeable beer drinkers (judges are can often provide the best feedback) can help you diagnose issues with your beer. If you don't know any really knowledgeable folks, joining a homebrewing club can help. You can be brewing beers you are proud to serve to friends in under 10 brew sessions if you work diligently at it. Or, you might never get there if you don't pay attention to what you are doing.

On accelerated carbing, you can use:

• 40 psi for 24 hours
• 30 psi for 36 hours (what I use)
• Other combos where psi * hrs ~= 1000

Pressure must be maintained on the keg for the full carb time (CO2 valve open.) If you don't leave the CO2 on, the pressure drops as the beer absorbs the CO2..The beer should be cold when you start carbing, and remember to purge the headspace multiple times to remove (almost) all of the O2.

Brew on

Edit: Looks like bearded types faster than I do.

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

The road to great beer doesn't have to be super long, you're probably only one or two simple steps away!

How long it takes depends on how much you pay attention to detail, and fix any deficiencies from your last brew on your next brew. Getting feedback from knowledgeable beer drinkers (judges are can often provide the best feedback) can help you diagnose issues with your beer. If you don't know any really knowledgeable folks, joining a homebrewing club can help.

Thanks for the encouragement! Fortunately for me, brewing is one of the few things in my life so far my OCD (inherited from 2 parents with Masters Degrees in Microbiology and food science) and attention to detail really has its place. I take detailed notes so I should be able to progress in a timely manner. I am a 'member' in a brew club but have been 100% inactive due to prior unemployment and inability to participate how I wanted to be able to. Now that I am employed again and finding time to brew again I will definitely try to get any and all feedback I can get from them! Thanks again for the help!

 

[Frodo]

As you indicated, control of ferm temp is big so maybe you'll see an improvement and more consistency with a fridge. If nothing else having control of that variable is very important, especially with big beers that start cranking. Fermentation produces a lot of heat, so the actual ferm temp for an ale can be 5-10 degrees higher than the fridge temp in the first couple/few vigorous days. I trust the stick-on temp strips to tell me the temp of the fermentation, keep the fridge temp low (low end of yeast ferm temp or lower) until things settle down, and incrementally increase the fridge temp up as fermentation slows.

But back to your question--every little improvement matters, and the road can be long, and winding, and sometimes you might go backward. I personally think that makes it more fun. Imagine if it was really easy, everyone would be doing it. It'd be like making boxed cake--yummy? yes, making it a lot of fun and with a real risk of disaster? no ( = boring).

 

[VTX1300]

IMHO, the three things that made the biggest improvement in my beers are #1temp control of fermentation, #2 water, my tap water is just nasty so I use all distilled and build it up using EZ water Calculator. And #3 yeast. Using enough healthy yeast is important. I use liquid yeast and build starters for everything. Good luck, you will make great

 

[Radboud]

Exactly this. Hygiene, fermentation temp, water and yeast management. If you use good water, make starters and control the fermentation temp reasonably well your beer will be ok, that is to say without the 'homebrew tang'.

 

[JohnSand]

It took me a year and 20 batches before I produced beer that I considered professional craft quality. Some get there faster. Five years in I still dump a batch occasionally, though it's rare.
Like anything else you learn, study and practice will bring improvement. The suggestions posted are all good ones. I will add that it helps to brew established recipes. Don't get too creative until you have a reliable process. I used Brewing Classic Styles extensively, and the most popular recipes here on HBT before creating any good ones of my own.
You'll get there, keep us posted.

 

[BeardedBrews]

I will add that sometimes you have to be careful or selective with the advice that you use (including this advice!). If you tell a room full of brewers "my beer tastes boring and a bit off" you will get 1000 ways to fix the problem. Don't try every suggestion at once, pick one or two and see if things get better or worse.


I forgot to mention earlier, now that the rest of my process is stable I found that I can often tell the difference between fresh ingredients and old ones. Watch out for loose clear plastic bags of hops in a refrigerator at the home brew shop, same for drums of malt extract or conveniently sealed bags of grain. It's worth driving a bit further or ordering online in advance to make sure you've got fresh ingredients.

 

[brewcat]

Just improve one variable at a time and trust your own tastebuds. I've always shared my beer from the beginning without caveats.

 

[FelixGER]

Exactly this. Hygiene, fermentation temp, water and yeast management.

This and preventing post fermentation oxidation.

My beers were "off", too at the beginning, but after I got fermentation temp under control and switched to purging Kegs with CO2 and doing closed transfers, everything is fine.

One more thing is freshness of ingredients! I got hops delivered from online retailers that had almost no scent anymore so I could only throw them in the trash.

Edit: Concerning hygiene: It´s best to make sure everything that get´s into contact with cold wort can be disassembled completely. For example one of those:

http://www.bargainfittings.com/image/cache/data/3piece-500x500.jpg

 

[Radboud]

This and preventing post fermentation oxidation.

Genau. Hard to achieve for beginner/intermediate brewers who don't keg but bottle but I see OP does keg. I recently started fermenting in a sodakeg and keep the circuit closed after pitching the yeast, I see some improvement in quality. I never had the cardboard taste but did have acetaldehyde issues a few times due to suspected oxidation.

 

[mongoose33]

I hit the first beer I would have considered "great" at my 6th batch (3rd all-grain). How much was luck? Probably a lot. I bumbled around over the next, oh, 10 or so batches until another "hit." Then consistency started to improve more and more, and the quality of what I produced improved as well.

You already have the most important thing necessary to improve: the desire to do it. So let me tell you the process I followed. BTW, I'm producing dark lager now that is one of the best beers I've ever tasted; it has had people just gushing over its flavor. When I walk into a bar, I wish they had it on tap, because IMO nothing they have beats it.

If you don't brew relatively frequently, it's hard to get a rhythm, a feel for the process. In the absence of that, you must take good notes on what you did, for everything from water composition to mash temp to mash pH (if you can measure it) to how the grain was crushed to the hops used, to the hop schedule and amounts, the alpha acids of the hops used, whether you used a Whirlfloc tablet, a Campden tablet.....you get the point. Then you include kegging information, the fermentation temps and schedule....sounds more daunting than it is, but it will help you organize your brew day and your thinking.

Over time, my notes have changed a bit as there are some procedures that I just do every time and I don't write them down any more (I always stir at 15- and 30 minutes, e.g.), but the rest I do. The key here is it allows me to go back and look at previous batches, get a sense of how temps affected the mash, how the water amendments affected the pH....trust me, just having a lot of data will help you grok the process much better. FYI, I've attached a page from my brewing notebook showing the kind of thing I record.

****************

I am a believer in Continuous Quality Improvement. What I try to do is every time I brew, I try to do something better. I try to use best practices and match them as well as I can. Your infrequent brewing makes this a bit harder, but good notes will help overcome that. I try to do something better, every single time I brew.

Over time, that adds up to much better beer.

****************

I just did batch #46 on December 3rd. It tasted great as wort, the fermentation took off like a rocket, I'm ready to cold-crash it and force-carb it and see what I've got. I expect--not hope, but expect--it's going to be great. I don't mean that to sound arrogant, but the process has gotten better and better, and I can reproduce recipes (the dark lager, e.g.). That was the point where I knew I was starting to get the process down--when I could repeat.

****************

You already know much of what you need to do. Controlling ferm temp will help a great deal. Once you have that in place, if I were you, I'd focus on yeast. Rehydrating dry yeast if you're not already doing that, making a starter from liquid yeast if not. Oxygenating the wort before you pitch will also help (I have the O2 tank regulator and aeration stone to help me do that). Put that starter on a stir plate. Stuff like that.

I know this kind of thing costs money--and you want it all now. At least, I did. Everything I want or need goes on Christmas lists or birthday lists. But for my money, controlling ferm temp, which you now will be able to do, will help you make a leap forward. Then focus on that yeast!

Good luck, you're way ahead of where you actually think you are.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Back when I was a young cook fresh out of culinary school on my first job I forgot an item on the Chefs signature dish. Chef barked at me pretty loud and said something that’s stuck with me to this day. He said “consistency will make or break you in this business”

I’ve applied that philosophy to many aspects of my life with good results.

It’s extremely applicable to brewing and I try to be consistent with the following parts of the process.

Grain crush.
Yeast pitch rate and health.
Equipment losses.
Time and Temp control from start to finish.
Sanitation and cleanliness.
Reducing potential for oxidation across the board.
Understanding ingredient contributions to flavor or body

My feeling is once you can produce a consistent beer repeatedly your on your way to making great beer. How long that takes is up to you.

Once you have repeatability then you can tweak recipes to find the subtle differences that take a beer from good to great.

 

[InTheBasement]

I am a fan of keeping it simple. I see many recipes with many ingredients and people who use many tools and processes. I keep it VERY simple. Minimal grains in my mash. I use dry yeast. When I mash I do single infusion. My chill after boil is simply a big trash can full of ice and water that I plunge my kettle into. I sample my beers to many of my coworkers and friends and I get a consistent message of "you really should quit this software engineering career and be a brewer". So I think my beers are at least really good. I have been brewing for three years and this feedback has been coming for over a year now. So I am rather comfortable that my methods are good, and that the beer I create is good. Keep it simple and straight forward. And as has been said before, temperature control during fermentation, and meticulous sanitation.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I did a ton of reading before my first batch. I posted a thread asking what makes the difference between "good" and "Wow".

The number one answer was fermentation control. Other heavy hitters were sanitation (goes without saying), pitching healthy yeast in the right amount, and water.

Given that, I read up on those. My first batch, a NEIPA, I started with RO water and built the profile I wanted. I had read a ton about what I wanted, and a friend helped me with the calcs. My friend did a starter for me and I bought an inkbird and used my kegerator as a ferm chamber.

The first batch was outstanding and every batch since has been one I'm proud to serve. My hard core craft beer friends love 'em, I scored a 41 and got best in show the only time I entered one into a competition.

I think if you have good recipes, create a complete checklist, follow it, and pay attention to details (especially the ones I mentioned above) you'll brew a beer that will impress people.

It isn't that hard, but you have to be willing to take the time to learn. The hardest part was the water chem, but I bought bru'n water and spent a bunch of time tinkering with it, reading about water chem (some seriously boring crap IMO) and feel pretty confident with IPAs. I'm still learning about stouts and porters, but I'm brewing a huge imperial stout in January. I've already started planning it to make sure it's worth the investment in ingredients and time.

Good luck and don't give up. Great beer is just another brew day away....

 

[V-Fib]

The term great is a hard one due to everyone's unique taste. If I try to make a beer my wife loves its going to be a blonde ale with out much to it. If I want to make great beer for my father its going to be a malty semi-sweet brown ale. My mom and sister love fruity wheat beers. If I served any of them an IPA they would all say its crap when it could be the best I've ever brewed. So I am to please myself and try to keep a few styles on tap/bottled.

Once you have some homebrew stocked have a craft beer party where everyone brings a six pack. That way if someone doesn't like what you have they have a back up and plenty other beers to try.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I made my first "great" beer probably 4 batches in, around batch 15 when they were consistently good across the board (or at least acceptable), and around 20 or 30 when I dialed things in such that I could predict exactly what I'd get out based on what I put in, and my brewing became purely repeatable. A few hundred batches later, I'll still have the occasional thing go wrong (equipment failure, bad batch of ingredients, or sometimes doing something off the wall that just doesn't work, etc), so I don't think you'll ever be truly 100% winner.

As far as kegging, be aware of the PSI limits of PRVs on keg lids. Some will pop at 30psi (I have a couple of em), limiting effective force carbonation. Even then, 29 psi, shake for a few minutes, rest for a while, shake again, rest, repeat, you can carb in hours.

Or a carb stone lid, spunding valve, or quick carb (either Blichmann or DIY). Spunding is AWESOME but either requires a unitank conical or using a modded keg as a fermenter (ie something that'll handle pressure).

 

[Redpappy]

I’m a newbie.first batch was Mr. Beer ( drank it) 2nd batch Mr. Beer ( still in bottles) 3rd batch 5 gallon extract ( in bottles) 4th batch ( fermiting) so take this for what it is worth. For me, I think I will never really have a Great beer, but I will have good beer. I will say it is good beer because I made it, I will get better in time, but it will always be good beer ( unless I really mess up and have to dump it,and from what I have learned so far it will happen). I will be proud of it because I have made it and will always be willing to share it with others. Unless the others brew, in my opinion, if they don’t like it, it’s their fault and their lost. Because of the work that goes into brewing your own beer. Take pride in what you make, if you enjoy it then it should be classed as good beer and shared.

 

[InTheBasement]

The term great is a hard one due to everyone's unique taste. If I try to make a beer my wife loves its going to be a blonde ale with out much to it. If I want to make great beer for my father its going to be a malty semi-sweet brown ale. My mom and sister love fruity wheat beers. If I served any of them an IPA they would all say its crap when it could be the best I've ever brewed. So I am to please myself and try to keep a few styles on tap/bottled.

Once you have some homebrew stocked have a craft beer party where everyone brings a six pack. That way if someone doesn't like what you have they have a back up and plenty other beers to try.

This is so true. As much as she hates it, I make my wife taste every beer I make. Without fail, she hates them all. She is not a beer lover. Her favorite beer is Miller Lite. But she knows how to rate my beers in that she will compare it to other commercial beers that I have also asked her to taste. She will say of my beer, "It tastes just as horrible as that Stone Russian Imperial Stout you made me try last week". So what is good; what is great? It's all about perspective.

 

[BrewZer]

With me, I've found that the bigger the beer, the more likeable it is. There's more room for spices, specialty grains, weird hop combinations... and if it doesn't taste so good, after the first glass, nobody cares.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

How long does/did it take for me/you to brew GOOD beer you can be proud of? I like my beer because I made it but I think I've got a little bit of that 'ugly baby syndrome' you know? I want to brew something I can show off and share without saying 'I'm still new so I understand if you don't like it'. That being said, I am still very new with only 5 or 6 batches under my belt (3 AG) so I fully understand there is a rather large learning curve, but just HOW big it is remains a mystery to me.

For Christmas I am getting everything I need for a keezer/chamber so I will finally have control over my ferm temps which I know will make a big difference. But how long is/was the road ahead of me/you? I won't be intimidated, at this point I'm more or less looking for some advise, encouragement or words of wisdom! Thanks again for the help, kind words and the time you took to help a novice!

Well there's no easy way to base it on time. After all, I started brewing in 2006 when there wasn't anywhere near as many knowledgeable brewers around, and some of the guys here started brewing pre-internet when they most likely were learning everything from Charlie Papazian's book. It took me several years to find HBT -- I started in the homebrew forum at Beeradvocate, and that place doesn't hold a candle to the forum here.

But the good news is that you're at the right place at the right time.

So here's my advice:

1. Don't focus so much on bling equipment for your brew process. There are SO many things you can screw up on brewday, and if you have good yeast management, fermentation temp control, and avoid pitfalls like oxidation, your beer will be fine. Forget a hop addition? Your beer will be fine. Screw up your mash temp (within reason)? Your beer will be fine. Accidentally get the wrong color crystal malt? Your beer will be fine. It might not be what you planned, but it will still be good beer if you manage your yeast and fermentation.
2. So, that said, what's good post-brew-day management? Pitch enough healthy viable yeast. For dry yeast, if necessary pitch 2 packs in 5 gal instead of 1. For liquid, make a starter! You don't need fancy equipment. You don't need a stir plate. These things can help but they're not necessary. Cool your wort to a few degrees below your target fermentation temperature, pitch your healthy yeast, and then use the fermentation temp control to keep everything in range. These two steps [healthy yeast, fermentation temp control] are a TREMENDOUSLY important part of making great beer.
3. Focus as mongoose said on continuous quality improvement. Spend time with other brewers; research here and other places online. Work on trying to understand and emulate those things we all consider to be "best practices" when it relates to brewing. Focus on consistency. Do things as close to possible the same way every time, and that will allow you to tweak one thing at a time and learn the value of specific variables. "Best practices" are called that for a reason. Learn them and use them, and later on when you have more experience you can help to determine whether there are some practices that you can skip or not.
4. Since you're brewing AG, figure out water. I brewed for almost 9 years before addressing water (I use RO + minerals) and I noticed an *immediate* improvement. But some people have good water already [I didn't] and they might not see an improvement. If you have any concern, though, try two batches with the same recipe [preferably a lighter beer like a blonde ale that won't cover the difference]. One with tap water and one with store-bought distilled water with minerals added. See if you detect a difference.

The road to great beer--and I mean great beer, beer that is commercial-quality with at least the median or above craft brewers--is as long or as short as you make it. All the information you need is right at your fingertips. It's just a matter of practice.

 

[mongoose33]

I’m a newbie.first batch was Mr. Beer ( drank it) 2nd batch Mr. Beer ( still in bottles) 3rd batch 5 gallon extract ( in bottles) 4th batch ( fermiting) so take this for what it is worth. For me, I think I will never really have a Great beer, but I will have good beer. I will say it is good beer because I made it, I will get better in time, but it will always be good beer ( unless I really mess up and have to dump it,and from what I have learned so far it will happen). I will be proud of it because I have made it and will always be willing to share it with others. Unless the others brew, in my opinion, if they don’t like it, it’s their fault and their lost. Because of the work that goes into brewing your own beer. Take pride in what you make, if you enjoy it then it should be classed as good beer and shared.

Let me make a suggestion/observation, if you will.

One of the leaps forward in my brewing was the realization that people like what they like, and nobody is wrong for liking what they do. I don't care for Mosaic hops, for instance. Ran across a SMASH beer in a local small brewery and was all excited about it until I had a taster: ICK! It's made with Mosaic. But others like it, so that's fine.

If you brewed a beer with Mosaic hops and I didn't like it--which I wouldn't--that wouldn't be my fault. It wouldn't be your fault either. It's just that I don't care for it.

Same with certain styles. I don't care for Belgian beers, there's something about the flavor that turns me off. I had one of Morrey's Belgians and it was, I thought, a terrific beer. Excellent flavor, no off flavors I could detect, properly carbonated--and I don't like it. If I were judging it, I'd have given it high marks, but that's because I believe I can distinguish between whether a beer hits a style, and whether I like it. The two are not synonymous.

So, if someone doesn't like your beer, there are at least two reasons why that might be the case: one is that it actually is bad, has off-flavors, oxidation, poor balance of ingredients, whatever. The other is that it may actually be a good representation of the style, but they don't care for it.

I submit that in neither case is that the drinker's fault.

*************

Brought some of my homebrew to a block party we had last summer. Some of it was my Darth Lager, some was my Funky Rye.

One neighbor turned up his nose at the Funky Rye, but he just adored the Darth Lager. Another neighbor was in love with Funky Rye, didn't care for the others I had.

I took both as compliments, and as confirmation that not everybody is going to like every beer I brew.

 

[Morrey]

There are many factors involved in making commercial quality beer. Some of these factors make huge impacts, others not so much, but even the small stuff adds up in the end.

I read the book "How to Brew" by Palmer which I consider one of the books on the must read freshman list. There are several other books that may be equally beneficial to a new brewer, but this is the one I chose. I tried my best to understand the vocabulary and digest all of this information, but as a noob, most of this went over my head. I started brewing and made sub-par beers as is often the case, but kept moving forward. THEN, with some brewing experience under my belt, I pulled out How to Brew by Palmer, and started from the beginning. WOW....it made much more sense this time around. Everything started coming together and my beers improved to the point I'd much rather have mine than one off the shelf at a bottle store.

Consider words of wisdom from Mongoose33 above. Lots of what "we" determine as a great beer may not be great to everyone. Hops can play a major role in what we like in a beer. I have several commercial beers I like so my first step was to look at ways to clone or copy that style. Once I had that nailed down, experimentation is always fun and keeps you out of a rut.

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

1. Pitch proper amounts of healthy yeast (use a calculator)

2. Ferment at proper temperatures

3. Create water profiles for each individual beer you make. Beer is mostly water.

4. Use kits or established recipes until you are comfortable making your own. Many noob brewers put huge amounts of crystal malt in all their beers for some reason and then wonder why it tastes bad.

 

[jlinz]

Unfortunately, you are going to be a better judge than most ordinary beer drinkers about whether or not your beer has flaws, unless they are seasoned home brewers. I've learned that I never get the kind of response I'm looking for when "I show off my beers". Most people will say, "it's good", and you'll probe a bit, but wont get much more. A home brewing friend is a different story, but you need one that can be truly honest with you. Take the observations and/or advice and brainstorm what in your process could get better. In sum, take the observations of the right people seriously and the others with a grain of salt. I think you will improve more quickly this way.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

There are many factors involved in making commercial quality beer. Some of these factors make huge impacts, others not so much, but even the small stuff adds up in the end.

I read the book "How to Brew" by Palmer which I consider one of the books on the must read freshman list. There are several other books that may be equally beneficial to a new brewer, but this is the one I chose. I tried my best to understand the vocabulary and digest all of this information, but as a noob, most of this went over my head. I started brewing and made sub-par beers as is often the case, but kept moving forward. THEN, with some brewing experience under my belt, I pulled out How to Brew by Palmer, and started from the beginning. WOW....it made much more sense this time around. Everything started coming together and my beers improved to the point I'd much rather have mine than one off the shelf at a bottle store.

Consider words of wisdom from Mongoose33 above. Lots of what "we" determine as a great beer may not be great to everyone. Hops can play a major role in what we like in a beer. I have several commercial beers I like so my first step was to look at ways to clone or copy that style. Once I had that nailed down, experimentation is always fun and keeps you out of a rut.

This is spot on. I went through a similar process. I read "The Joy of Homebrewing" back in the 90's and much went over my head. I brewed only extract back then. I stopped after only 9 months because kids came onto the scene and I hated bottling. When I got back into it about 10 months ago, I re-read "Joy" and read "How to Brew". Again, much went over my head, but I spent time here learning more. After about 4 batches, I started re-reading "How to Brew". The comprehension level skyrocketed.

I'm sure I'll read it again. There's a lot to learn and each time I read, there are parts that I don't want to think hard enough to understand. With only a dozen or so all grain batches under my belt, I'm still a noob, but I've spent a lot of time and effort learning how this all works and trying to get the bang for the buck with respect to what I'm learning and how it improves my beer. So far I love the beers I'm brewing enough that I look forward to another trip to the faucet.

 

[Redpappy]

Let me make a suggestion/observation, if you will.

One of the leaps forward in my brewing was the realization that people like what they like, and nobody is wrong for liking what they do. I don't care for Mosaic hops, for instance. Ran across a SMASH beer in a local small brewery and was all excited about it until I had a taster: ICK! It's made with Mosaic. But others like it, so that's fine.

If you brewed a beer with Mosaic hops and I didn't like it--which I wouldn't--that wouldn't be my fault. It wouldn't be your fault either. It's just that I don't care for it.

Same with certain styles. I don't care for Belgian beers, there's something about the flavor that turns me off. I had one of Morrey's Belgians and it was, I thought, a terrific beer. Excellent flavor, no off flavors I could detect, properly carbonated--and I don't like it. If I were judging it, I'd have given it high marks, but that's because I believe I can distinguish between whether a beer hits a style, and whether I like it. The two are not synonymous.

So, if someone doesn't like your beer, there are at least two reasons why that might be the case: one is that it actually is bad, has off-flavors, oxidation, poor balance of ingredients, whatever. The other is that it may actually be a good representation of the style, but they don't care for it.

I submit that in neither case is that the drinker's fault.

*************

Brought some of my homebrew to a block party we had last summer. Some of it was my Darth Lager, some was my Funky Rye.

One neighbor turned up his nose at the Funky Rye, but he just adored the Darth Lager. Another neighbor was in love with Funky Rye, didn't care for the others I had.

I took both as compliments, and as confirmation that not everybody is going to like every beer I brew.

I agree with you completely, at times I do have issues with my terminoligy. I was meaning more of that not every

Let me make a suggestion/observation, if you will.

One of the leaps forward in my brewing was the realization that people like what they like, and nobody is wrong for liking what they do. I don't care for Mosaic hops, for instance. Ran across a SMASH beer in a local small brewery and was all excited about it until I had a taster: ICK! It's made with Mosaic. But others like it, so that's fine.

If you brewed a beer with Mosaic hops and I didn't like it--which I wouldn't--that wouldn't be my fault. It wouldn't be your fault either. It's just that I don't care for it.

Same with certain styles. I don't care for Belgian beers, there's something about the flavor that turns me off. I had one of Morrey's Belgians and it was, I thought, a terrific beer. Excellent flavor, no off flavors I could detect, properly carbonated--and I don't like it. If I were judging it, I'd have given it high marks, but that's because I believe I can distinguish between whether a beer hits a style, and whether I like it. The two are not synonymous.

So, if someone doesn't like your beer, there are at least two reasons why that might be the case: one is that it actually is bad, has off-flavors, oxidation, poor balance of ingredients, whatever. The other is that it may actually be a good representation of the style, but they don't care for it.

I submit that in neither case is that the drinker's fault.

*************

Brought some of my homebrew to a block party we had last summer. Some of it was my Darth Lager, some was my Funky Rye.

One neighbor turned up his nose at the Funky Rye, but he just adored the Darth Lager. Another neighbor was in love with Funky Rye, didn't care for the others I had.

I took both as compliments, and as confirmation that not everybody is going to like every beer I brew.

I have to say, very well said. Sometimes my terminoligy comes out wrong, and I thank you for clearifing it up,and correcting me.

 

[JR_Brewer]

I went through the same thing after about a year of starting. I knew the basics, but wondered if I would ever get over that hump. I worked through that and now I just focus on enjoying my brew days and keeping it simple. My beer has gotten much better since.

I am a fan of keeping it simple. I see many recipes with many ingredients and people who use many tools and processes. I keep it VERY simple. Minimal grains in my mash. I use dry yeast. When I mash I do single infusion. My chill after boil is simply a big trash can full of ice and water that I plunge my kettle into. I sample my beers to many of my coworkers and friends and I get a consistent message of "you really should quit this software engineering career and be a brewer". So I think my beers are at least really good. I have been brewing for three years and this feedback has been coming for over a year now. So I am rather comfortable that my methods are good, and that the beer I create is good. Keep it simple and straight forward. And as has been said before, temperature control during fermentation, and meticulous sanitation.

Can't agree more. Keep it simple. Once you master your process you can add the complexity back in. Don't use two malts when one will do. Don't use exotic yeast when US-05 works just as well. Don't ask a question when you intend a statement.

Hope this helps and happy brewing!

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

That's the thing about brewing... It should be as simple as it needs to be--but no simpler.

 

[chris000]

first and foremost be your own judge!
as said before, beer styles and preferences play a bigger role in how the average person views your brew. from experience, friends and neighbors will take any blonde or IPA I give them (because I don't think it's worth while for me to keep in the fridge), but once I proudly shared an incredible Bav. Hefeweizen they looked at me as I wanted to poison them.
and it's not "lack of taste" since some are very capable distinguishing minor differences as long as you tell them exactly what you want feedback on.
lesson learnt: if you want good feedback; a) brew a style they like and b) one you can manage.