New Styles, homemade recipes. How to tell if it is true to style?

[Troxs]

I'm sitting at a local watering hole and sipping multiple brews before venturing to my next recipe, but I have a couple of concerns - how do I determine what style to brew when I have a flavor I want, and how to create a recipe that will truly be an example to the style I'd like.

I just finished quaffing a Cream Ale (Kingfish Ale, Chafunkta) and realize that I enjoy the style as a summer brew, being as I never had a cream, but I'm not sure I'd like it for my next.

So... I switched to an ESB (Jack the Sipper, Southern Prohibition) and I prefer this flavor a bit more, however I don't think it is quite what I imagine my next brew to taste like, but it is closer.

What I'm looking for is a hoppy (American hop character) brew with a beautiful copper color, great clarity, lighter - maybe medium-light - body, and a great mix of malt/hop complexity. Ideally I'm looking for a brew with a prominent hop character, but I would love to have a malt profile consisting of higher caramel malts, perhaps a little honey, malt and/or the sugar, and a touch of bready/biscuit. The idea of an ESB, or Strong Bitter sounds like what I would be looking for, but as I drink this variation I'm not 100% sure as I'm not sure how I feel about the malty bitterness I'm getting from either brown malt, maybe a touch of roasted barley, or whatever the malt bitterness is in this brew.

So my question I guess stands to say what is you process when designing and creating a new beer? Do you develop a flavor, then fit it to a style, or do you find a style and develop a flavor within the style. If you develop the flavor profile first, how do you determine which style category to place it in?

 

[dmtaylor]

I do it both ways. I have numerous recipes where I just came up with a list of ingredients and then figured out the style afterwards. Other times I select a style and then choose ingredients to fit the style.

Homebrewing software can help immensely with doing this -- try BeerSmith, or my own favorite is StrangeBrew. There are literally dozens of different softwares available to choose from.

You might also want to get a book such as Brewing Classic Styles, Designing Great Beers, and review the BJCP Guidelines which also provide a lot of good information on ingredients for different styles, those are here:

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

Cheers!

 

[Troxs]

Thanks. I use a mix of BeerSmith, and Brewer's Friend. I have the BJCP styles on my phone which I look at from time to time, but I always tend to have a hard time placing the style down with the ingredients I'm thinking.

For instance the recipe I'm contemplating would be something like:

Marris Otter
Crystal 20L/60L (5-7%)
Aromatic (2-5%)
Maybe a touch of chocolate for color (1% at most but likely less)
Drop some local honey in primary (1lb, maybe 2lbs depending on the ABV)

The. I'd hop with a few american style hops, mostly late addition, no dry hop to rid the malt mix. I don't want it to be hop forward like an American IPA, but I'd like to know it's there. I want the balance between a complex hop aroma and flavor mix well with the malt sweeter toffee/caramel malt profile.

Is that an ESB, or would that really buy too sweet for the ESB style, maybe it is a smoother, lighter hop version of an IPA (Red IPA... maybe?). At the end of the day I'll likely brew it, and not worry about the style specifically, but it's nice to classify it in the event that I ever decide to enter some comps.

 

[McKnuckle]

In my view, elements that define a brewing tradition, which supersedes style, are, in order - 1) Yeast; 2) Hops; 3) Grain. For example, if you are using a Belgian or English yeast, you're cementing a great deal of your beer's character as being from one of those traditions.

Once you're within a tradition - Belgian, English, German, American are the big ones - then it comes down to elements of the actual recipe and process. Gravity, color, bitterness, and all types of ingredients now take center stage in defining the style.

Your recipe idea above uses Marris Otter, a UK base malt, but you are planning to use American hops. The hops will stand out more, tipping the scale towards an American style. However, your choice of yeast will ultimately seal the deal with regard to it being more American or English. At that point, color and gravity will guide you to fitting it within a style in either of those traditions.

This is hardly a strict science; these are just some ramblings that might help you think about it.

 

[TheMadKing]

I'm sitting at a local watering hole and sipping multiple brews before venturing to my next recipe, but I have a couple of concerns - how do I determine what style to brew when I have a flavor I want, and how to create a recipe that will truly be an example to the style I'd like.

I just finished quaffing a Cream Ale (Kingfish Ale, Chafunkta) and realize that I enjoy the style as a summer brew, being as I never had a cream, but I'm not sure I'd like it for my next.

So... I switched to an ESB (Jack the Sipper, Southern Prohibition) and I prefer this flavor a bit more, however I don't think it is quite what I imagine my next brew to taste like, but it is closer.

What I'm looking for is a hoppy (American hop character) brew with a beautiful copper color, great clarity, lighter - maybe medium-light - body, and a great mix of malt/hop complexity. Ideally I'm looking for a brew with a prominent hop character, but I would love to have a malt profile consisting of higher caramel malts, perhaps a little honey, malt and/or the sugar, and a touch of bready/biscuit. The idea of an ESB, or Strong Bitter sounds like what I would be looking for, but as I drink this variation I'm not 100% sure as I'm not sure how I feel about the malty bitterness I'm getting from either brown malt, maybe a touch of roasted barley, or whatever the malt bitterness is in this brew.

So my question I guess stands to say what is you process when designing and creating a new beer? Do you develop a flavor, then fit it to a style, or do you find a style and develop a flavor within the style. If you develop the flavor profile first, how do you determine which style category to place it in?

Find a beer that tastes similar to what you want, find a clone, tweak it from there to accentuate the parts you like.

You are describing a hoppy american amber ale to me, so I'd buy a few american ambers that are known to be on the hoppy side and see if you like them.

other styles you might try, altbier, Red IPA, Red ale, American Strong Ale

 

[dmtaylor]

If the hops are mild enough, it *could* be an ESB or amber ale, but it sounds to me even more like a good old APA. American hops will overpower any other character to where you have no choice but to keep it as an American style like APA. Or maybe an American blonde ale. And if the honey character becomes very obvious, you could even call it a braggot if you want. Braggot is an extremely broad style with millions of different interpretations.

 

[JKaranka]

Strong bitters are fairly simple. You could make one from pretty much entirely pale malt and a hint of colour from patent or something. Bit of crystal malt or amber malt is fine. Same with sugars and simple adjuncts. As soon as you start adding layers of malt and honey, it's going to start to stray. You can, I think, brew a strong bitter with American yeasts (US05 is such a close descendent of a British yeast that there's not much difference, same with Pacman, Conan, and many others), and bitters do often use foreign hops: American (Cluster, Cascade, Willamette), Slovenian (Celeia / Styrians), German (Spalt, Perle). It's mainly about using them in moderation and going for the more floral / herbal ones.