What do you brew?

[johnsonbrew]

I have been thinking long and hard about this for the past few weeks. I am new to brewing and have completed one brew, a basic pale ale that came with the brewing kit I bought from my LHBS, and have an African Amber in the secondary fermentaion stage.
The first brew was just to get my feet wet, it turned out to be a great first beer, as a matter of fact, some friends came over to sample and we ended up finishing the entire keg.

I am brewing the Afrcian Amber for Super Bowl. Both my brothers are big fans of Mac and Jacks so I figured I would try that. After racking to the secondary I am excited about this beer, should be good.

My questions are:

1. When you brew beer, are you brewing for you or for your buddies? I ask this because I have a much different appreciation for beer than most of my friends. Most of them prefer light beers and are not fans of anything that would have any kind of hop flavor to it. My motto is "the hoppier the better".
If I brew my favorite types of beers, they will be around for a very long time and I don't really like the idea of drinking 5 gallons of beer on my own.

2. I have done extract and specialty grains so far. What is the difference between extract + specialty grains and partial mashes? To brew partial mashes do you need anything other than a basic homebrew kit?

3. Other than a basic pale ale recipe, what kinds of beers do you find the average beer drinker likes. I dont mind brewing the pale ale if that is what everyone likes to drink, but I want to try different beers, flavors, hop additions even if they are light. Maybe I can slowly introduce the wonderful world of hops to them instead of forcing them to drink higher IBU beers.

Any considerations would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[braceful]

1. I brew for myself, being the only beer drinker in the house I sometimes brew 3gal batches instead of full 5.5gal batches.
2. The difference with partial mash is that your "steep" contains some base malt capable of converting starches to sugars AND you need to pay more attention to water volumes (usually 1-1.5 qts/lb of grain) and temperatures (148-158f) AND your "steep" lasts 60 min. A simple partial mash is really not that different nor harder than extract w steeping grains. The sticky at the top of this forum has a great explanation.
3. American ambers, hefeweizens, and some Belgians I've found to be very approachable and I still like them enough to drink a whole batch. YMMV

 

[Piratwolf]

I brew mostly for myself & SWMBO, but also have friends with the same tastes so I don't have quite the same troubles.

But what I'd really suggest is brewing small test batches of 2-3 gallons. You could do 5 gal of pale ale, then split it into two fermenters and use different dry hops and different yeasts. It's a great way to learn new stuff, plus you get two beers for the price of one!

 

[unionrdr]

I've learned that my wife likes pretty much everything I've brewed so far,so I brew what I like. She's not partial to stouts,though. But pretty much everything else is fair game. And since I've educated my older son on craft brews,he's starting to appreciate ours. All my old friends are scattered to the four winds,as are my siblings. So no input there.
But you could brew some light pale ales,kolsh,& the like for your friends. Def more approuchable.

 

[beergolf]

I definitely brew what I like. If others like it ..great. But most of my friends enjoy good beer and food so they like what I brew.

I do a lot of drinkable IPA/ APA's , Ambers and Stouts for everyday beer....

But my passion is Belgians and Saions. So I have dedicated a fermenter for these since they require longer fermentation times. I always have one fermenting. I have a good stash of them aging in my basement. I had a BDSA last night that has been aging for nine months and it was awesome. YUM.

 

[ReDim]

I brew what I ever I feel like based on my tastes and what-ever don't come-out just right I let my friends sample, (unless they have stuff of their own to trade), I have planty of friends, so brewing while keeping a crowd in mind would be to expensive and UN-interesting.

umm... I have done all mash, all grain and adding extract to a full mash to boost the gravity (easier then boiling out). I have thought up to this point that a Partial Mash is what is meant by Extract and a Specialty grain. A good thermometer is my favorite special tool

I look at beers I like to drink and then I look for clone recipes and then adjust em to my taste or I go though recipes and look for something i would like to brew. I almost ordered supplies for one recipe I wanted to try just now but a crucial hop was out of stock and thus I am coping with disappointment by drinking home-brew

I like flavor in a beer, but there is very few beers that I like that are bitter. Also to me there is a trade off in sipping tasty beer and a super-bawl or a beach party beer. Something that tastes really good for a taste-test v light tasting beer that people drink in large amounts....

Some of my friends requested a "pretzel beer" where food is already floating in the beer so that you don't have to bother preparing, serving and eating food and thus only focus on the drinking. But I will let you know how that turn-outs

 

[wailingguitar]

Helles and Marzen are very serious beers that are approachable for the uninitiated

 

[ReDim]

1. I brew for myself, being the only beer drinker in the house I sometimes brew 3gal batches instead of full 5.5gal batches.
2. The difference with partial mash is that your "steep" contains some base malt capable of converting starches to sugars AND you need to pay more attention to water volumes (usually 1-1.5 qts/lb of grain) and temperatures (148-158f) AND your "steep" lasts 60 min. A simple partial mash is really not that different nor harder than extract w steeping grains. The sticky at the top of this forum has a great explanation.
3. American ambers, hefeweizens, and some Belgians I've found to be very approachable and I still like them enough to drink a whole batch. YMMV

---- Dangerous Curves Belgian Blonde ---

Any chance for the recipe of that Blondy ?

 

[Daybis]

1.) I brew for my self. I'm fortunate enough where almost all of my close friends are brewers or craft beer drinkers, so they usually have any issues with my hoppy beers.

2.) I would check out the stickies in the all-grain section of the forum.

3.) I've had good luck with general beer drinkers with brown ales, blond ales, or cream ales.

 

[Golddiggie]

I brew what I want to drink. If someone else likes it too, then good for them. If not, then F them and more for me. :rockin:

I'm currently focusing on styles from the British Isles. That means ales and porters (haven't done any stouts yet, and not setup for lagers). I'm using UK malts, UK hops and even UK yeast strains.

I only did 3 extract with specialty grain batches, one partial mash, then jumped into all grain brewing. My partial mash is what most people would have called all grain with some DME to boost the OG (3# DME, over 11# grain).

While I do take pleasure when someone else also likes what I've brewed, I'm not about to let their likes dictate what, and when, I brew.

 

[johnsonbrew]

Since I am still new to this and I am not entirely sure how to adjust recipies, and I have not looked specifically for smaller batches, are there places where I can easily find some smaller batch recipes? I would really like to experiment but I dont have a lot of extra money to be going too crazy and messing up or brewing something that is undrinkable (is that even possible?)

 

[Golddiggie]

Since I am still new to this and I am not entirely sure how to adjust recipies, and I have not looked specifically for smaller batches, are there places where I can easily find some smaller batch recipes? I would really like to experiment but I dont have a lot of extra money to be going too crazy and messing up or brewing something that is undrinkable (is that even possible?)

If you're doing extract with specialty grains, you can pretty much reduce the malt extract, specialty grains, and hop amounts in half and get a 2.5-3 gallon batch. If you're going that small, do yourself a favor and get a 5 gallon pot/kettle and do full batch boils. Use the Mr. Malty site to figure out your yeast amount and go for it. Most likely, you'll be fine for most of your half batches with a full package of yeast.