What are your contrarian/"unpopular" beer opinions?

[Scturo]

Not sure how Unpopular Opinion: Bottle conditioning is bad for beer. Since moving to kegging I've seen a huge improvement in my beers. I always wondered why all my beers would taste and look good going into the bottle, and taste and look different in the glass. It may be my process was flawed, but I was just following the instructions that I found in books and online.

Eventually I started trying to brew NEIPAs, and the the changes after bottle conditioning became even more obvious. I received advice in the NEIPA thread and was told that kegging would be the answer.

After kegging my next four batches I am more convinced than ever that bottle conditioning is bad for beers, some more than others.

 

[Trail]

Pumpkin beer is disgusting.

The worst.

 

[Mainer]

Not sure how Unpopular Opinion: Bottle conditioning is bad for beer. Since moving to kegging I've seen a huge improvement in my beers. I always wondered why all my beers would taste and look good going into the bottle, and taste and look different in the glass. It may be my process was flawed, but I was just following the instructions that I found in books and online.

Eventually I started trying to brew NEIPAs, and the the changes after bottle conditioning became even more obvious. I received advice in the NEIPA thread and was told that kegging would be the answer.

After kegging my next four batches I am more convinced than ever that bottle conditioning is bad for beers, some more than others.

Depends what you're making. Lagers, porters, high abv, sours... I've had really good luck bottling those. IPAs... I've only done a couple, and they're far less good out of the bottle.

 

[schematix]

Not sure how Unpopular Opinion: Bottle conditioning is bad for beer.

I am more convinced than ever that bottle conditioning is bad for beers, some more than others.

Bottle conditioning itself is one of the best ways to package beer because the active yeast naturally reduce the oxygen. However, this process executed on a homebrew level is an oxygen inducing disaster.... bottling buckets, racking canes, unpurged bottles. It's no good.

On the commercial level bottles are vacuum purged multiple times, beer and actively fermenting yeast are filled from the bottom up, a thin stream of hot deoxygenated water is shot into the bottle, causing it to foam, and then a cap is placed onto the foam. This all happens within a few seconds.

Kegging alone reduces the atmospheric exposure time significantly, even better if its from a carboy with a cap and CO2 is used to push. Keg priming is also a fantastic technique. I've 100% converted all my styles to natural carbonation in the keg and i will never go back to force carbing.

 

[Trail]

After kegging my next four batches I am more convinced than ever that bottle conditioning is bad for beers, some more than others.

True for IPAs, probably. I find bottle conditioning to be markedly preferable for many of English beers... small bitters, porters, and so on.

 

[Scturo]

Bottle conditioning itself is one of the best ways to package beer because the active yeast naturally reduce the oxygen. However, this process executed on a homebrew level is an oxygen inducing disaster.... bottling buckets, racking canes, unpurged bottles. It's no good.

On the commercial level bottles are vacuum purged multiple times, beer and actively fermenting yeast are filled from the bottom up, a thin stream of hot deoxygenated water is shot into the bottle, causing it to foam, and then a cap is placed onto the foam. This all happens within a few seconds.

Kegging alone reduces the atmospheric exposure time significantly, even better if its from a carboy with a cap and CO2 is used to push. Keg priming is also a fantastic technique. I've 100% converted all my styles to natural carbonation in the keg and i will never go back to force carbing.

This definitely makes sense. I might try it with my current batch.

 

[ProblemChild]

Sorachi Ace should NEVER be used as the primary hop in anything over 15 IBU. It works as an accent, but completely sucks as a solo hop in an IPA.

 

[jmark]

Sorachi Ace should NEVER be used as the primary hop in anything over 15 IBU. It works as an accent, but completely sucks as a solo hop in an IPA.

Didn't work for me as an accent either... bought a pound of the stuff and about 14 oz of it is just going to sit there now... smells and tastes completely of dill... no lemon accent at all

 

[bleme]

Sorachi Ace should NEVER be used as the primary hop in anything over 15 IBU. It works as an accent, but completely sucks as a solo hop in an IPA.

I saw it used in a Gose at a beerfest. Everyone who tried it said it taste like dill pickle juice.

 

[triethylborane]

cheese flavored beer?

 

[ProblemChild]

cheese flavored beer?

Like oyster jelly

 

[bleme]

cheese flavored beer?

I did try both cheese beers. You had to really stretch to imagine any Gouda in the Porter but the Blue Cheese IPA was surprisingly good. It was a bit of an epiphany to realize that I've tasted that Blue Cheese musk in IPA's before and just never connected the dots.

It's probably not contrarian but I'll never understand hibiscus in beer. I've tried 2 of them and that is 2 too many.

 

[CasB]

Using Irish moss and gelatin is stupid. Just wait for a couple days more and the beer will be clear.
What's the rush anyway? Beer tastes better after a few weeks anyway.

Kegging is 'cheating'. Get carbonation from priming sugar (or whatever method) seems more logical to me. You can't have more CO2 than there is readily available by creating fermentables.

Breweries should brew what _they_ like, not what's in fashion. I'd rather brew a quad that a few people like than a IPA that everybody thinks is 'drinkable'.

As a brewery, don't brew beer with all sorts of strange ingredients like shown above. Just make 3 or 4 excellent 'simple' beers (blond, ipa, tripel, amber, whatever) and just a couple with weird ingredients. Cheese in beer? No thank you...

 

[archthered]

You can't do better than Red Dog when it comes to cheap mass produced fizzy yellow water

It's easy to make an IPA

Hop Juice is cheating

 

[Bilsch]

I saw it used in a Gose at a beerfest. Everyone who tried it said it taste like dill pickle juice.

Oh my... if those were my choices, I'd have the water.
Just sayin.

 

[Bilsch]

cheese flavored beer?

I'm from Wisconsin and that even makes me shudder.

BTW.. I like your name. Triethylborane is fun to play with and makes a really beautiful emerald flame mixed with a bit of CH2Cl2.

 

[ericbw]

Depends what you're making. Lagers, porters, high abv, sours... I've had really good luck bottling those. IPAs... I've only done a couple, and they're far less good out of the bottle.

Because IPAs are... less good.

 

[triethylborane]

I'm from Wisconsin and that even makes me shudder.

BTY.. I like your name. Triethylborane is fun to play with and makes a really beautiful emerald flame mixed with a bit of CH2Cl2.

Thanks, cool you know what it is. Ive never had the chance to really do much with it, but it has some interesting properties.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

We should be making Imperial Stouts and Barleywines.

Well, yes, but you say that as though there's anyone who shouldn't.

I guess it's the same reason New England eats so much more ice cream per capita than the rest of the country. When your summers are this short, you have to do whatever you can to stretch them out.

And high ABV beers are the way to make a short time seem *longer*?

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

i did try both cheese beers. You had to really stretch to imagine any gouda in the porter but the blue cheese ipa was surprisingly good. It was a bit of an epiphany to realize that i've tasted that blue cheese musk in ipa's before and just never connected the dots..

OMFG LINK????

[EDIT]....DErP[/EDIT]

 

[cmac62]

That would sure beat the aroma most of them currently have - either patchouli or unbathed. Or some combination of the two.

Hey, I like patchouli, and ambergris and sandalwood. I was thinking about brewing a Christmas beer with frankincense and mur as the bittering and flavor.

 

[Bigfly]

cheese flavored beer?

Doesn't sound Gouda to me. But pickle hops might be the ticket in a Gose.

 

[jekeane]

On HBT forums "don't worry it will be just fine" Is often just nice shorthand for "you made something passable as beer".

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Hey, I like patchouli, and ambergris and sandalwood. I was thinking about brewing a Christmas beer with frankincense and mur as the bittering and flavor.

You'd like a beer that tastes like tree sap?

 

[GrogNerd]

On HBT forums "don't worry it will be just fine" Is often just nice shorthand for "you made something passable as beer".

I want to answer every "critique my recipe/I made my first recipe, whaddya think?" post with "it will make beer"

 

[ProblemChild]

On HBT forums "don't worry it will be just fine" Is often just nice shorthand for "you made something passable as beer".

Or - "You should still be able to get drunk off it......"

 

[catdaddy66]

I want to answer every "critique my recipe/I made my first recipe, whaddya think?" post with "it will make beer"

Me too! Lol

The smart a$$ in me always wants to answer the threads that are questions (ie, Does this look right? Did I mess up? Should I dump this batch? Etc...) with a simple affirmation (and btw it's no, yes and yes).

I struggle not to be that guy...

 

[CGVT]

I want to answer every "critique my recipe/I made my first recipe, whaddya think?" post with "it will make beer"

If I see it before anyone posts in a thread that starts out with "What would you call..."

I answer with a name. Bob, Fred, whatever comes to mind.

I don't care if anybody else thinks it's funny or not, but I get a kick out of it

 

[GrogNerd]

Bob is a great name

All the best people, and beers are named Bob

 

[JonM]

Recently at a church function, a friend of my 12 year old niece asked me:

"Is your name Bob?"
"Nope, it's Jon."
"You look like a Bob."