Thread: Good beer / ale

Blue Moon Honey Wheat beer ... only available for only a few weeks a year in the begining of May. Just try a cold one on a hot day ;>)

Guinness is a stout, not a beer/ale as the thread goes.

Fav beer is prob SOL/Corona

Fav Ale is prob Newcastle Brown ale.

Fav Stout (although not sure thread is asking for it) is of course Guinness. The proper stuff from Ireland, not the cack you get anywhere else. And I mean Southern Ireland, even Northern Ireland doesn't live up to the stuff from the South. Sheer bliss.

Well, a stout is a type of ale, since it's fermented with a top cropping yeast. There are two types of beers- Ales and Lagers. All styles fall in these two categories, and this is determined by what yeast is used.

Try telling that to guys who live in Ireland ;-)

Well, it's like trying to tell people that 'draught' means 'on tap' and is not actually a beer style...

I'm a beer noob, but I sure know a good Guinness.

Heliguy is a lucky sod, he has access to the most gorgeous pints in the world!!!

Favorite beer by far is Duchesse de bourgogne. Since there is sone folk on here from Belgium what would a close beer be to the duchesse? I would like to expand my horizons a little with this specific type of brew. Once I had it I would prefer to drink it over anything I have ever tried. And of course Blue Moon is the second choice.

Any homebrewwers on here? I just made my first batch of wheat which turned out fairly weak but I'm looking for more recipes with a strong wheat flavor and higher ABV around 8-12%

Mike

What was your recipe? Do you AG or partial?

TBH it would be difficult to make a wheat beer that strong and make it taste good. First you would need a really hardy yeast to tolerate the high %, but those sorts of yeasts wouldn't be appropriate for a wheat beer- I love Wyeast American ale for my wheat beers interestingly enough, as it brings out a lot of the straw-like characteristics. Plus, you will (assuming you're AG) need a HEAP of grain, as it's best to go 50/50 with Pilsener malt and wheat malt, though wheat malt doesn't ahve as much sugars as other base malts.

Just make a 6% one, and drink twice as much!

OK, I checked my Beer Periodic table, and this is the specs it comes up with-

OG: 1035-1055
FG: 1008-1012
Alc %: 4.5-5.5%
IBU: 5-20
SRM: 2-8

While you can go outside these specs (I frequently go outside specs), going too far outside will make the beer unpalateable. The thing that makes wheat beers nice is that they are an easy drinking beer. Upping the % will make it too much like a barley wine.

Here are the BJCP specs-

Colour: Usually pale yellow to gold. Clarity may range.
Malt note: Low to moderate grainy wheat or rye character.
Hop note: Hope aroma low to moderate. Spicy or citrusy.
Yeast note: No cloveyness or banana aroma.
Examples: Bell's Oberon, Anchor Summer Beer, Pyramid Hefe-Weizen, Redhook Sunrye

If you try to up the ingredients to up the alcohol, you will ruin at least the malt and yeast flavours that are outlined there. It will no longer be a wheat beer, just a barley wine with heaps of wheat characters and monster amounts of head retention/thickness.

I seriously wouldn't recommend it.