Question about base malts

[Eskimo Spy]

I'm about to make a bulk order of 2-row, but I wanted to make sure I understand these base malts first.

Most of what I brew at the moment are ales, and they fall into these categories:

American Pale Wheat Ale
American IPA Ale
American Amber Ale
English Pale Ale

So, I started looking at what was common between them. They all seem to call for 2-row pale malt, some American, some British.

I assume when a recipe calls for pilsner, maris otter, pale, etc, these are all types of two-row, just with different flavor characteristics and kilned differently? Am I understanding this correctly? If not, how do you differentiate between all the different varieties? Is it just based on taste characteristics and conversion rates?

I'm thinking that I should order 50# of Klages 2 row Malted Barley and 50# of English maris otter, that way I can make my English ales using MO and my American ales using Klages.

 

[enderwig]

Getting sacks of US 2-row and maris otter will take care of nearly all of your base malt needs. You may need to buy a few pounds of pils if you decide to make a recipe that calls for it.
As a general rule of thumb, use US 2-row for american beers, maris otter for british beers, and pils for belgian and german beers. Of coarse there are exceptions, but it usually works pretty well that way.

 

[Eskimo Spy]

Thanks for the info and confirmation!