I enjoy reading things on hbt such as: I'm new to all grain brewing. For my 1st all grain brew I decided to make a delicious, mouthwatering, maple syrup, molassas, lager. The guy at the LHBS sold me marris otter malt and 34/70 yeast, I am thinking that a conversion temp of 158F for 90 minutes will be good for the yeast. How's it look?
Then, another brewer replies: Sounds like a great recipe for a lager, but if I were to make it, I'd use two or three quarts of maple syrup and some so5 or Notty. I read somewhere that it takes a lot of maple syrup to crank up the alcohol. I prefer Notty because it really went to town on my honey, vanilla and camomile porter. The air lock and plug blew out and brown foam and beer got all over the dirty laundry in our closet. My SWMBO was not happy about the brown stains on her underwear. I would lengthen the conversion time to 2 hours. It's better to be sure that the minerals and enzymes have enough time to turn the big starch chains into fermentable sugar.
The new brewer replies back: Thanks for the great ideas. I was actually thinking about adding some honey! I wasn't sure if 90 minutes would be long enough, I'll stretch it out to 2 hours. I better grab some Notty next time I'm at the LHBS.
I don't find anything wrong with creating whatever is desired. When first getting started in homebrewing, I brewed with a lot of different ingredients. I had a lot of fun using them. However, the beer was generally, pukey. It was a learning curve, based on my tastebuds and olfactory system.
Considering styles like lager and pils, the beer was brewed using the tri-decoction method. IMO, to call beer Classic Styles, they should be brewed using the method and ingredients that made them Classic Styles. When a homebrewer uses the English method and modern malt to brew a German lager, can the product be called a Classic Lager? Is a Classic Porter one that is produced by the process that was supposedly used to make the beer when it came into existance? Porter was made up of three different beers mixed together by the bartender. Then, later on, mixing took place at the brewery. How could it be possible for a brewer to create Porter by running off a single batch, when three diffferent beers mixed together made Porter?
When I started out homebrewing, Ballantine IPA was used as the sounding board for homebrewing IPA. The beer disappeared in the mid 80s. Our perception of and preference for flavors, change with the options available and time.