Looking for that WOW factor - am I falling out of love with beer?

[obscure]

That reminded me of the bar scene in 'Ice Cold In Alex'.

Just had to look that up thankfully didn’t end with me being a prisoner of war.

 

[Arcs]

You know I rarely get a beer that truly makes me go wow, it has to be the right beer, the right venue and the right time. For example a few years back I was in Seville it was noon, about 40 degrees, and I had being walking in the hot sun for a few hours. The cafe was air conditioned and the beer was a random generic larger, it was mana from heaven, sitting their drinking my beer and just watching the world go by.

Likewise a pint of beer in Saint David’s in Wales, I cannot remember the name of the beer but it had a lovely floral taste, or 12% Barley Wine I had in a pub in Oxford. Don't get me wrong I have plenty of nice beers but I think sometimes you have to accept that it’s always going to be few and far between that you get something that you get something truly makes you go wow.

I also would say @terrym has a point about taking a break, although even if not from beer maybe try other styles, order from a few breweries at random.

True or perhaps my local wethy was spoiling me and the combination of brewing my own makes normal beers seem rather er er weak :C

 

[BradleyW]

When I did a look back over 2019 I realised that most of my beers had been kinda meh, 1 got dumped, 1 had very stressed yeast and only 1 brew was actually "brew again" good. So I changed things up in 2020, went for more traditional styles and used less kveik and it's been a much better year brewing wise.

AG should certainly improve things, but then I did 3 kits then went AG so I don't really have experience with extract.

Interesting you went down the less kveik route. I had a fairly poor year, still a newbie mind, but have started using kveik and pretty pleased so far!

 

[terrym]

Just had to look that up thankfully didn’t end with me being a prisoner of war.

You may have found this then

 

[obscure]

You may have found this then

It’s rare but yes in the right circumstances a ice cold larger can be a beer with a wow factor,

 

[Clint]

You will get there...like I said...my AIPA..it happened by accident as I thought I had a certain amount of hops in various varieties..it's that good I'm brewing it again tomorrow.
My Tribute clone has been WIP...I think I've cracked it...I've got a couple of tweaks to make..but,to me,it's a stand out beer,dead simple but therefore harder to get it right.

 

[Zephyr259]

Interesting you went down the less kveik route. I had a fairly poor year, still a newbie mind, but have started using kveik and pretty pleased so far!

I was mostly using farmhouse strains of Voss and Saure, mostly the Voss, both produced good beer, but my Voss have a very earthy flavour, good in a dark beer but it was getting tiresome. The Saure made a kinda funky Scottish 80/- but I suspected it was due to the high propertion of crystal malts, and having brewed a similar beer I think it was the malt not the yeast, Saure fermented a Jet Black Heart Clone very cleanly.

However, I found that my kveik beers were never as crisp and refreshing as other beers, they seemed to leave a fair bit of body and almost chewy malt behind. So this year has been a couple of hoppy beers, couple of lagers and some belgians ales and all's been very good. Well, 2 of my beers, a 1880s bitter and half a batch of pils fermented with scottish ale yeast to compare with munich lager strain, got contaminated with the belgian strain, turns out a beer made with lager malt and styrian goldings in the style of a czech premium lager is very nice fermented with a belgian yeast.

I'm temped to try some of the commercial kviek isolates and see if they give me different results.

 

[Arcs]

daaayyum, well, watching the match rn and this cooper's porter has as the old faithful does, reinvigorated my love of beer. I wish all porters were like this xD

 

[Richard_H]

With regards to the commercial stuff, I don't think I could ever fall out of love with 'beer' but I can go of a certain category for a while. I love a cold decent cider in the summer chances are my next one wont be until summer 2021, a good lager or pilsner is also lovely in the summer as is a darker ale in the colder months but none would be my go to beer throughout the year. To stop me getting bored I keep my choices as varied as possible, pale ale, dark ale, strong ale, ESB, stout, weiss bier, weizenbock, bareley wine, NEIPA, DIPA, anything Belgian and probably more if I really thought about and to be honest they are all enjoyed.

Most supermarkets do have a very good range in fairness but the odd trip to Waitrose will always produce something no other supermarket sells and a good local microbrewery is always a good option.

For homebrew the answer is much more simple to me, since moving to all grain my beer is far superior and now have the ability to brew just about any beer style and the chances are a beer you love will have an all grain recipe with a quick Google. That in itself is a game changer.

 

[Duxuk]

I brewed extract for years, just adding steeped crystal for a bit of colour/flavour. I moved on to AG and years later broke 2 vertebrae (not brewing!) I couldn't manage AG whilst I healed so did a couple of extracts and they were really nice. I'd changed the hopping a bit and put the improvement into my AG to get it as good as the extracts. AG can be better but I've heard that competitions have been won with extract brew, it comes down more to the way you brew them.
I've certainly had the problem of hop tolerance. Going away on holiday for a week is long enough for me to have gone "cold turkey" by drinking commercial beers. I get back home and mmmmmmmm!.

 

[obscure]

Edit This was not supposed to be in this thread

 

[Arcs]

So, ok, how much am I gonna have to shell out for my very first AG brew :C

 

[obscure]

So, ok, how much am I gonna have to shell out for my very first AG brew :C

I strongly suggest having a look at the below thread

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/have-a-go-at-simple-ag.51779/
Truth is you can make decent all grain beer, with a big pot, a couple of towels, a bag, your hob plus some grain and water,

 

[terrym]

So, ok, how much am I gonna have to shell out for my very first AG brew :C

AG covers an awful lot of ground from 5 litre stove top BIAB to shiny all in ones costing £100s or even more. You really need to decide how much you want to brew at a time and what your budget is. Less volume usually means less kit.

 

[Arcs]

But I wants to brews 5 gallons :C I have seen 5 gal pots for £25, but it's the ingredients i was more worried about :s

 

[David_M]

25kg bag of crushed grain starts at £13.50 (see the forum group buy from Staffordshire Brewery), that should do for 5 brews, unless you want to go for a high gravity. A bit of extra gravity can be gained using sugar or something else with sugar in it. I have on occasion used maple syrup. The forum group buy has smaller quantities of different malts to allow you to aim for a darker style if that's your preference. Crossmyloof have a good selection of hops and yeast. Go baby first to cut down on equipment, buy yourself a cheap digital thermometer to keep a watch on mash temperature. But you will spend and spend as you progress.

 

[David_M]

25kg bag of crushed grain starts at £13.50 (see the forum group buy from Staffordshire Brewery), that should do for 5 brews, unless you want to go for a high gravity. A bit of extra gravity can be gained using sugar or something else with sugar in it. I have on occasion used maple syrup. The forum group buy has smaller quantities of different malts to allow you to aim for a darker style if that's your preference. Crossmyloof have a good selection of hops and yeast. Go baby first to cut down on equipment, buy yourself a cheap digital thermometer to keep a watch on mash temperature. But you will spend and spend as you progress.

Biab corrected as baby, hahaha.

 

[Arcs]

i've seen how biab is done it roxx xD

 

[JockyBrewer]

But I wants to brews 5 gallons :C I have seen 5 gal pots for £25, but it's the ingredients i was more worried about :s

For BIAB you’ll need a pot bigger than 5 gallons, as it needs to contain all the grain too, and then you boil off a bit and finally leave some behind in the boiler.

BIAB is a great place to start though.

 

[Duxuk]

I use a 32l pot for a stove top (well AGA top, actually. It's like Delia Smith's kitchen here.) modified BIAB. I start with 23l of water. The pot is 32cm high so each centimeter is one litre! I mash the grain, drain and get it back on the stove. I open the bag, which is actually just a piece of nylon net curtain, and add 6 litres of extra water as a batch sparge. I then drain this (it's in an FV for convenience), add it to the rest and have plenty of room left to boil. I boil lid on so there's not a massive amount of evaporation and damp. If I boiled lid off I might need to adjust my volumes and top up during the boil, but I don't!
I end up with 23 litres or sometimes 24 if I make a lower gravity beer. I reckon you could start from scratch for around £100 but if you have FV, hydrometer, thermometer etc. you only need to buy the pot and, for my method, 2 squares of net curtain. Or use the wife's from the living room and wash them before she gets home