Home Brew Better Than The Real Thing?
Anyone who brews their own home brew beer is sure to be asked the question every once in a while – “Do you really drink that stuff? It can’t be anything like as good as the real stuff, can it?”. This is a hard one to answer, as it is a matter of personal taste. Early on in your home brewing experiments you may be forced to admit that your efforts fall somewhat short of what you would like them to be. But the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of people who brew, and drink, their own home brew beer because they like the taste and enjoy the process.
Whether the beer is better than commercial branded beer is a subjective matter. Some people will definitely prefer home brewed beer while others will swear that if it isn’t a global name it isn’t worth drinking. But for people who like to have a modicum of control and a bit of a change once in a while, home brewing has an obvious advantage. If you buy a crate of any commercial beer then the first can or bottle of it will taste the same as the 24th. And the next crate you buy will taste the same again.
When you brew your own, you can make changes with every new batch you brew. You just need to buy the ingredients – which can be less than a dollar if you are just looking to add a fruity flavor to the beer – and make the necessary changes to the brewing process. The more you home brew, the better you will get, and as long as you like the taste, nothing else really matters.
Home Brewers Throwback To Prohibition?
During the 1920s and some of the 1930s, the making and sale of alcoholic beverages was banned in the United States. It seems astonishing to think it now, but the law was in place for close to 13 years, and although it reduced the amount of public drunkenness it had the side-effect of increasing the amount of organized crime as alcoholic beverages continued to be made and sold on the black market through “speakeasy” bars and similar watering holes. Although the law has long since been repealed, there are those who consider home brewers to be the product of that time.
It is unquestionable that brewing your own beer brings with it a certain amount of freedom, and with that freedom comes responsibility. When the era of prohibition was in full swing, much of the black market alcohol available was made using less rigorous safety standards, and on occasion was so contaminated that it caused serious health problems and even death. Although this is rarely the case now, it is sensible to make sure that you follow safety standards in making your beer.
The practice of good safety standards is something that becomes second nature before too long. Apart from anything, if you have got the beer wrong it will taste wrong. At least in this case you can go out and buy regular beer that has passed stringent testing, whereas in the days of prohibition anyone who wanted to carry on drinking took their life in their own hands.
Home Brewing Process For Quality Taste
Home brewing brew masters anticipate the tasting more than any other part of the home brewing process. You will not get a real idea for how good your beer is at any point before it touches your palate. Even at the time of bottling, you will not know if the brew is a good quality for home brewing.
You will put your beer into bottles still not being sure that it is quite right – and this can make home brewers extremely anxious. Plus, the home brewing process needs even more time. The beer must be given time for the carbonation part of the home brewing process.
To clarify, the time that you are advised to leave your brew before drinking it is the “ready to drink” time. Now, there is a world of difference between “ready to drink” and “worth drinking”. Many beers benefit from being left a little (or a lot) longer in the bottle before you drink them, during which time they get to settle, to broaden in terms of taste, and to do any number of other things that will turn them into a quality tasting beer.
The reason for this includes numerous small influences that can affect many things to do with the beer. You cannot expect a perfect beer after the minimum “ready to drink” time, just as people who make their own wine will not expect it to mature to its highest quality within weeks. Some of the best wines around have been in the bottle for years. You must remember, that is not just for wines. Time should be given for a complete home brewing process.
Home Brewery Mistakes
Home brewery brewing mistakes or accidents can lead to a different and unique taste in a homebrew. Often, brewing mistakes lead to new and exciting tastes in beer. Admittedly, more accidents go wrong than right, but it is worth noting that the process can work in your favor even when mistakes are made in a home brewery.
Remember this interesting science fact; Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by accident, and that Isaac Newton discovered gravity as a result of an apple falling from a tree and hitting him.
This kind of home brewery mistake can lead to the most unexpected results. If you add too much of something, too little of something else, add something at the wrong time or leave too much or too little time for something to happen, all of this can change the taste of the finished homebrew in a big way. As a result, you can end up with something that you and your friends consider as a nice tasting addition to the homebrew repertoire. Because of discoveries like this, it is a good idea to keep a notebook detailing what you do during the brewing process.
Of course, people are slow to admit to mistakes, especially when the results are such that the mistake turns out to be a winning move. So we will never know how many of the beers out there on the market were the result of clever research and sound practice, and how many resulted from one person’s slip up. And maybe that would destroy the magic of the home brewery.
Home Brewing Basics
Home brewing beer basics can make a great difference in the finished product. Be careful and take your time. Double check yourself along the way as home brewing is a long process.
Four weeks ago I bottled a new batch of beer and set it out in the garden shed. I opened one today and it doesn’t taste right. What’s up?
The chances are that it’s nothing you’ve done in the brewing process. Remember, home brewing is a temperamental process and the most likely reason for your beer not coming out right is that you moved it from somewhere warm to somewhere cold. It is probably that the yeast you used needs to be at brewing temperature – that is, in the same room where you are home brewing – in order to carbonate your beer. Leave it in the brewing room for two weeks before moving it outside next time.
This is the first batch I’ve brewed and it actually tastes OK but … it’s a little watery. What does it sound like I did wrong?
Just one thing, and it’s easily remedied. What you need to do is use blended sugars – something more attuned to the brewing process. What you have described sounds to me a lot like you have used white sugars in the home brewing process. What comes out of that normally tastes a bit like cider – as you say, it doesn’t taste horrible, it just doesn’t taste like beer.
My first brew is really cloudy, having been in the keg for three weeks. I would have expected it to be mostly, if not totally clear by now. What’s happened?
It sounds like you have, for the most part, completed the home brewing process correctly. However, to avoid experiencing the same issue again, you could try leaving it in the fermentation vessel for four or five more days next time to complete the home brewing process.
Home Brewing Information And Help
Home brewing information and help can come from almost anywhere. Never turn it down when you can get help and home brewing information.
The entire world has changed with the advent of the Internet. You can talk live to people living as far away from you as it is possible to get, you can buy items from a Mom’n'Pop store in a village in another country, and you can watch sporting events taking place in front of a few hundred people in a country you’ve never been to. Everything has been touched by the Internet, and home brewing is no exception.
The Internet has exploded in no small part due to its social aspect. We have social networking (which takes up so much of people’s time it has been dubbed “social not working”), blogs and online forums that allow people to share information, debate and request help. And for a first time brewer, there is a real advantage to having this capability. You will surely take a couple of attempts to get your home brew just right, and you may wonder what you are doing wrong – the Internet is your friend.
Many people on Internet forums devoted to home brewing will have had the exact same problems you have when you first home brew a batch of beer. They will know how they got around the problem and will be able to share this information with you. As most home brewers are non-commercial, they will not see you as a competitor in a serious sense and will be glad to help out. In the early days, this can make all the difference to your home brewing.
Making Wine Is A Good Alternative
Making wine is a popular alternative to homebrew beer.
The words “home brewing” send just about every mind off in the same direction. Beer, and probably fairly dark beer at that. But variety in home brewing isn’t just about making a drinkable lager, or amping up the darkness and producing a stout. In reality, there is a lot more you could be doing if you are prepared to diversify your portfolio (and, in some cases, invest in more equipment). It might not be advisable to try making hard liquor (the margin of error is narrower and getting it wrong could blind you) but there is more you can do.
A good change-up from beer is cider. It is, of course, an entirely different drink and some of the ingredients are completely changed. The most obvious is the central ingredient. Beer is made with hops, cider is usually made with apples. And indeed, for your first few efforts you should not make cider with anything else. Get the hang of apples and you can then look at brewing more interesting ciders – there is a fashion in a few countries right now for pear cider (otherwise known as “perry”), as well as other, sweeter flavors.
*Consider making wine in your home brewery as a change from homebrew beer.
If you fancy an even bigger change, then it is possible to make wine at home too. Indeed, this is a pretty common practice in France. Even some of the wines on sale in stores close to you were not made from grapes grown in a giant vineyard – some of them are from true family businesses in California, France and elsewhere. Obviously, the fresher the grapes the more delicate the wine will be – but if you can grow your own or find good fresh ones nearby it is worth the effort. Remember the alternative homebrew- making wine.
