Over the last few years, home brewing has become increasingly popular. If you’re a real beer connoisseur, you’ll likely get a kick out of mixing up your very own tasty beverages. With so many different types of beers to try, choosing a style to brew can be a little confusing. The best advice for a brewing newbie is to keep it simple. Start yourself off with these top four home brewing styles for beginners.
1 . American Wheat Ale
American wheat ale is an American version of the German Hefeweizen, sometimes referred to as Bavarian Hefeweizen. A home brewing kit for American wheat ale typically consists of ale yeast and wheat malt extract. For brewing beginners, this one is a real win! The ale has notes of clove, citrus, and a little banana; it’s cloudy and has a light or medium body. Usually, the grain bill is somewhere between fifty percent and seventy percent. You’ll notice that the German-style ale has a more subtle hoppy taste, this American style has a more distinct hop profile.
2. American Pale Ale
An American pale ale kit will usually include crystal malt, light malt, hops, and ale yeast. When brewing this ale, you’ll use pronounced hops at higher quantities; this means if you make a mistake somewhere in the process, it won’t be as noticeable! For this reason, an American pale ale is a great style for the novice brewer. When brewing this style, it’s the standard to add hops at intervals, multiple times.
3. Ruby Ale
Ruby Ale has spicy and rich fruit flavours, achieving the perfect combination between bitterness and sweetness. A ruby ale kit might typically contain crystal malt, English ale yeast, Bobek hops, and Maris otter malt. As with any ale, you’ll need some good home brewing equipment. Such equipment should typically include a gas stove to boil the wort, a kettle, and a chiller to cool down the wort. You’ll also need a thermometer, a hydrometer, and a mixing spoon when brewing your own beer.
4. Porter
Porters are one of the simplest beers to brew, and one of the reasons is that these beers vary in style. You can choose to brew a contemporary porter or a traditional 18th-century version. Traditional 18th-century porters are often referred to as ‘Imperial Stouts’. These beers are made by stirring grains, slowly, with a quarter of hot water.
You need to use a quart of water for each pound of your grain, and then steep your grains using the oven. After this process is finished, you can put the grains into a strainer and keep the runoff as wort for boiling. When you are brewing a porter beer, it’s important to use a high quality fermenting yeast. To achieve the right taste, ensure that fermentation temperatures do not exceed 70 °F.
These are just a few of the best tasty beer styles for beginners to try. When you’re done with these, have a go at Dunkelweizen or Dubbel. When you are making your own beers at home, it’s important to have a healthy attitude towards alcohol and drink responsibly.
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