Thread: Gary Foster's Beers

Hey I'm still here! I am, at the moment, enjoying a JunkYard Dog from old Gary. Fantastic beer. Strong flavor, a good strong hoppy note, and smooth as can be. If anyone is familiar with "Fat Tire" ale from the New Belgium Brewing Company in Ft. Collins, CO, this is very similar style to my tongue, only better. No preservatives, no harsh. Only a good full smooth ale flavor. That's it, I'm dropping some coin on some homebrew equipment. Been contemplating it for awhile, and with a little tutelage from Gary and a taste of his brew, I'm over the edge now. Colleen, I'll try to generalize and answer your question....correct me if I'm wrong guys.... Ales and Stouts are both top-fermented, near room temperature fermented beers. Ales are reddish to brown in color, stouts are black-ish. The darker, the heavier, generally. Lagers are bottom-fermented in cooler temperatures for longer, and are what most people in the US generally consider beer. Amber color, lighter, Budweiser kind of stuff . The only time a lager is good to me is when I just mowed the lawn in 100 degree heat. Just wish I had 4 or 5 more of these JY Dogs to go with the baby back ribs later today :-( ..... Very impressive Gary.

Jeff

Originally Posted by churley

Beer lesson 101....

Would you please explain the difference between Ale...Stout...Lager....

This ole Gal...is thinking about buying some beer

Colleen

Ok, there's basically two different "families" of beer, ales and lagers. The difference between them is the strains of yeast used. Ale yeast (saccharomyces cerevisiae) is a "top fermenting" yeast which ferments at relatively warm temps (around 70 deg F) and lager yeast (saccharomyces carlsbergensis) is a "bottom fermenting" yeast which ferments cool, generally 50 F and below. Through a lot of cross breeding and such, ale yeasts and lager yeasts generally exhibit a lot of the same characteristics, with the sole exception that lager yeast will eat raffinose (a short chain sugar) and ale yeast can't.

The end result is that ales generally have a more pronounced flavor profile, the yeast kicks off a lot of esters which give a lot of character to the beer, notes of apple, apricot, black currant, etc while lager yeast is much smoother and kicks out very minimal to no esters. Lager yeast can leave a "sulfury" note though if you don't treat it right.

Pilsners and American macrobrews (budweiser, miller, etc) are all lagers. They have a very smooth light crisp taste without a lot of bold flavors. A lot of microbreweries are making ales now instead, because they have a bolder flavor profile (New Belgium Fat Tire, Shipyard Ale, Red Tail Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, etc).

A stout is in the ale family and uses ale yeast. It's made with roasted barley, pale malt and flaked barley and has a roasty dry flavor. Any dry stout that has anything other than those three ingredients (minus hops, yeast etc) isn't a true "dry stout" anymore in my opinion. If you start adding crystal malts, chocolate malts, etc they become sweet stouts or other styles.

Guinness is the quintessential dry stout (although there are sweet stouts, oatmeal stouts, russian imperial stouts, etc that are completely different). Most people think Guinness and dry stouts are strong but actually they are a much lower specific gravity (that's why the float on top of ale in a black and tan) which means they have less initial malt sugars and end up being pretty low in alcohol (around 3-4% is common). Stouts are the canonical "session" beer, meaning you can drink a lot of them without getting hammered or full up.

There's absolutely nothing better than a pint of dry stout on a blustery rainy day, lemme tell you.

Porters are the "little brother" of stouts and came first. People think porters came after stouts but actually in the 1800's porters were *the* beer everyone in England drank (well porters and browns) and stouts came after people started making porters a bit dryer and roastier. Big difference between a porter and a stout is that porters SHOULD have (in my opinion) NO roasted barley and stouts require it. Porters will generally also have brown malt, crystal malt and chocolate malt and sometimes black patent (although I despise black patent and avoid it like the plague).

-- Gary F.

Originally Posted by threeputt

Hey I'm still here! I am, at the moment, enjoying a JunkYard Dog from old Gary. Fantastic beer. Strong flavor, a good strong hoppy note, and smooth as can be. If anyone is familiar with "Fat Tire" ale from the New Belgium Brewing Company in Ft. Collins, CO, this is very similar style to my tongue, only better. No preservatives, no harsh. Only a good full smooth ale flavor. That's it, I'm dropping some coin on some homebrew equipment. Been contemplating it for awhile, and with a little tutelage from Gary and a taste of his brew, I'm over the edge now. Colleen, I'll try to generalize and answer your question....correct me if I'm wrong guys.... Ales and Stouts are both top-fermented, near room temperature fermented beers. Ales are reddish to brown in color, stouts are black-ish. The darker, the heavier, generally. Lagers are bottom-fermented in cooler temperatures for longer, and are what most people in the US generally consider beer. Amber color, lighter, Budweiser kind of stuff . The only time a lager is good to me is when I just mowed the lawn in 100 degree heat. Just wish I had 4 or 5 more of these JY Dogs to go with the baby back ribs later today :-( ..... Very impressive Gary.

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff, that JY Dog is one of my favorite recipes that I came up with. Not a bade description of the differences, except that color has no bearing on whether it's an ale or a stout (dopplebocks, for example, are dark mahogany and are a lager and summer bitters are light golden and are an ale) and stouts are actually lighter than most beers (although people tend to think they are heavier because of the color and the roasty flavor).



-- Gary F.

I was wondering why I can put away so friggin many pints of vitamin-G (Guinness) without getting overly stuffed. Many of my lager drinking friends think a stout should be eaten rather than drank, this brings some light to the misconception..

Jeff

Originally Posted by gfoster

... Stouts are the canonical "session" beer, meaning you can drink a lot of them without getting hammered or full up.

Speak for yourself. Sure it's harder, but I've had a number of ill remembered piss-ups on Guinness.

I have a friend who hates all beers excepting guinness (yes he's of Irish descent) and has an overactive liver. As a result he rarely if ever experiences full intoxication. After he got me a job a few years back I took him out for drinks and tried to get him drunk and he insisted I keep up with him drinking Guinness all night. He was fresh as a daisy hours later while I was staggering.

X

I don't drink alot of beer myself. More of a social drinker. I started out with Budlight like most but got to where I didn't like it. Thought it was "Watery" tasting. Tried a Samuel Adams Boston Lager saturday but I thought it was way to bitter or something about it.

I am now enjoying some Michalobe Ultra. I tried some Heineken a week ago or so and ejoyed it. I am usually willing to try different beers just to see what they taste like.

Oh and is it just me or is Natural Light just Horrible. Corona for me comes in second lol. Again this is coming from a guy that will get buzzed on 2 beers and drunk on around 4


Just curious while the Beer guys are here, this question has always made me wonder but why would a Smirnoff Ice with a 7% +/- alchol not cause me to get drunk as fast as a bud light at what 3%?? I can drink 3 or 4 Smirnoffs and still feel fine.

Colleen, I have always hated beer! It was a guy thing to me and it seemed they all were on an agenda to swill 6 or 12 or !!! :-0 But I have always been a wino.

I signed up for a wine making class and went with a friend who then insisted I go to a beer making class as compensation...

I stopped wanting to make wine after that. I stopped wanting to drink wine after that. I have gained a lot of weight since then also....

Home brew is not beer like anything else. Untill you have had one, you have not had beer. It is like comparing chef boyardee to homemade italian cooking..! (except it will knock your for a tizzy ;-0 ) Homebrew also has a buzz all of it's own. Drink one and you can end up with a huge grin on your face. I have never figured that on out, but why drink wine when I can grin like a monkey and enjoy the taste even more. Having said that, I prefer wine with food. Homebrew is too heavy to let anything else get it the way!!

Having said that, I am waiting on a 6 pack from Gary and I can not wait untill I get it!!

Mama Bear

Hey Mama Bear...

Good ! I'm happy to know I'm not the only gal...that doesn't like beer. ALTHOUGH....I feel a sudden urge to find a good "Home-Brew" LOL. Gary I hope your making lots of Beer...

I have always liked Home-Made Wines...over store bought, with a preference to sweet. Not as sweet as a desert wine...but I don't care for the Dry wines.

I have never made wine or beer...but it sounds like a lot of Fun! The closest I get is the "hooch" on top of my sourdough bread starters...LOL

Colleen

Colleen, PM me with your adress!

Bear Hugs!

Sue

I'll send you one or two bottles too, Colleen. I've got a couple of packages here waiting to go out and I apologize for those of you who are waiting patiently. I'm in the middle of packing and moving (I'm moving in with the fiancee before the wedding, scandalous I tell you, simply scandalous) and I've got stuff half packed, half torn up, some of it here, some of it 90 miles away at her house and I'm constantly wondering where in the heck something I need is only to find out it's in the *OTHER* house no matter which house I'm in at the moment.

I promise I'll get your stuff out to you all and I hope you'll bear with me

-- Gary F.