Your top three beer styles?

[mattd2]

So I am wanting to start trying to really nail some recipes and get repeatable with them. It got me thinking what everyones top three styles to drink/brew would be. My thoughts are I would like to re-brew 3 beers with a 4th random thrown in there to break up the monotony (with this I would expect that each beer would be brewed at least 3+ times a year).

My top three (with thinking about still having something freinds/family that arn't as open to beer with flavour) are:

A Blonde ale - Not too aggresive a style but looking to perfect that well ballanced beer.

A hoppy US/NZ Pale ale - On the high end of the scale (crossing into the low end of IPA stats-wise)

A Porter of some kind - Possibly spiced/smoked/oaked or something to give it a bit of a edge.

I feel like that is a reasonably rounded line-up given the limit of 3 (any more and it would take to long to get back to the begining of the list)

 

So what would you guys do?

[Tilt]

So many styles, so little time.   I like the idea of perfecting a "house set" and I admire your discipline if you can do it Matt.

....but then I get distracted by tasty looking recipes, random thoughts and ideas from blogs/books etc, opportunistic access to different ingredients, upcoming competition and boredom with too much of one style.   So in the end I brew pretty much to whim.  I figure the cumulative experience one day will amount to some level of skill :)

[mattd2]

Yeah I though 1 in 4 random beers would give me enough break. I almost feel the oposite with so many different styles to try and brew, information overload and I can't decide what to do and end up just half-arsidly throwing something together that resembles an attempt at XYZ style.

Cheers.

[Crusader-Rob]

Definitely an interesting subject, like Tilt I like the idea too.

If you look at it from commercial brewery prospective, i.e if you went pro, what would your flagship brew be? I had this questioned asked to me a wee while ago. not that I'll ever go pro. But it definitely makes you think what you would do if you were a commercial craft brewery.

they're all individual and different, Epic has Pale Ale, Yeastie has PKB, and emersons pilsner three different breweries, 3 totally different styles for the top flagship beer.

If you nail your favourite style theres one down. :) 

then like you say having some beers for friends and family that enjoy it too. blonde ale for easy drinkers, dark ones for your dad, lol.

If it was me, I'd go for seasonal beer, dark in winter, light and refreshing in summer, and something belgian for me, either that or an IPA. Probably both.

[Grant R Baker]

yeah that is hard...

• Scotch Ale for all year round.
• Special Bitter for every day.
• Whiskey Porter to see of the cold nights.

probably a Saison in between... but there are many beers styles etc I haven't tried brewing yet... so this list won't last.

[jt]

I do something like that Matt

I brew a balanced pale - maybe you could call it a blonde or a flavoursome draught, followed by a bitter darkie

Then a hoppy pale followed by another darkie

No particular style, just a slow progression of the flavours I like at the time. And there's enough time between brews to figure out if you want to change anything

[mattd2]

I guess that is a point, that the "base" recipe might stay the same I would be looking to tweak it each time round. Probably after a few iterations the base recipe will likely be completely different!
I want to also get more consistancy with when I brew, at the moment with all the choices and indecision it keeps getting pushed to "next week", which always end up with me running out of beer!

[Paul Finney]

I'm defo a bitter man (in the sense of beer anyways!) So i would have an ordinary Bitter/bitter for a sessionable drink, certainly a saison of some sort (most likely an NZ hoppy one) and then just a good solid Hoppy Pale ale.

But at the moment there is only one recipe i have gone back and rebrewed. I only brew about once a month so getting a chance to rebrew is not that easy. The one i have rebrewed is getting closer to a beer that i would like to have as my sessionable drink akin to a booky (high aspirations there!) Once that recipe is down, i think i will try to nail the saison next.

But, that is the joy of homebrewing for me. It can take a moments thought, a bit of research and you can launch into brewing a new beer within 3-4 days

[Chad Keven]

I'm keen on a Kolsch for that summer quencher, everyone who has one loves it too, they appeal to both ale and lager drinkers. a kiwi pale ale for good measure and stout or porter for a malt forward beer 3 classics!

[mattd2]

Yes a Kolsch would be another one, probably in place of the blonde in my list. Never brewed one though, would be a first with liquid yeast for me (unless you can correct me with a Kolsch dry strain?)

[Chad Keven]

Brew it! dont know about yeast, not all strains can be dried, wy2565 is great to brew with it has sweet kind of esters to it really delicate. its an underated style, nice and light, and can still be moderately hopped with good results ive re brewed this more than any others. I used 95% pils with 5%munich, spalt to 25ibu and Motueka late and small dry hop, my simplest brew and one of my best, even my Mrs likes it! which is unusual for HB.

[Dave W]

I guess if I had to constrain myself to just 3 styles I'd have to go for (in no particular order);

A southern German Weiss

APA

Porter

[Scarrfie]

I will indulge you Matt. Since I brewed a brown ale simply by chance I can't help myself, 1:4 brews have been this style although it will take a few more yet before I reach perfection. I do like a stout and to round that out do a pilsner in the winter since I am an ambient brewer. But for the wildcard no style dominates and probably won't. To date I have played with raw wheat based beers, a dunkel and dunkelweizen, an altbier, couple of IPA's and pale ales, and that list is far from complete. I intend to revisit some of those styles once I get 1,2&3 downpat.