Basic beer ingredient most likely to make or break your beer?

I've gotten away with purchasing 6 gallons for an extract brew quite a few times.

 

Good breweries will manage the minerals, etc. in the water with additives, but this process is only to neutralize bad things so that the beer won't taste bad. So water really doesn't make a beer good.

Many posts above say it is the yeast that is the important flavor factor, but I'll say it can also be the hops. It really depends on the style of beer to be able to say what ingredient is the dominant contributor to the flavor. A Hefe depends on the unique yeast flavor that characterizes that style, just like all Belgian beers have a unique twang to then from the Belgian yeast that is used.

But an IPA or Pale Ale is hop-forward (the dominant taste), thus this style depends heavily on the hop(s) flavor. And the choice of the hop varieties is critical to that process. Many of us have a couple of favorite hop varieties that really make an IPA or Pale Ale stand out above the rest of the Pales/IPAs. If a hop variety is used that we don't care for, then that IPA is not going to be placed on a person's 'favorites' list.

So, to me, it's the hops as well as the yeast, and the water is only a neutral item as long as it has been managed by the brewer to reduce any potential off-flavors.

One can also make a case for the grain as being the dominant contributor to the flavor profile, and different grains do add something to specific beer styles, but in my opinion it's not the dominant flavor to be able to win this argument.

 

For me it would be the hops that break the beer.
I avoid the hopppy beers like the plague. Sorry but bitter is just not for me.
When I find a hoppy beer in a style I would normally enjoy it most definitely ruins it for me.

 

bourbon

 

Hops can make or break the beer for me. Hops and a combination of time and storage conditions... nothing like getting a poorly handled hoppy beer. It seems that one of my favorite IPAs, Firestone Union Jack, always arrives this way in bottle form by the time it gets to MD.

 

Long time lurker, first time poster here
I'm a new homebrewer and have always used tap water. I agree that water makes or breaks a beer (One reason why Michigan beers are sooooooo good IMO), and chlorine seems like it would mess up the flavor.
However, when you boil your wort, aren't you volatilizing the chlorine and boiling it out? Unless it affects your mash, I don't see it affecting flavor. I've also heard that if you let water sit overnight, most of the chlorine will leave the water. What do people think?

 

Yes because fluctuations in temperatures during fermentation will produce esters from yeast . . . yes?

 

A crappy American wheat.

 

Yep. Even the cleanest ale yeast will throw out banana esters if you let it ride into the mid-upper 70s. With English ale yeast I always tend to ferment at the low 60s area to keep it from getting too fruity. Even with Belgian strains I have my first half of primary in the mid-upper 60s and then let it ride to mid 70s for a nice balanced ester profile. I do the same thing with saisons but I force it to ferment at 85 until it finishes.

 

Excellent post. Good points all and not related to the topic but the drinking water from the reservoir is outstanding in RI. Why bring it up? Does a beer from Oskar Blue brewed in N Carolina differ from one brewed in Colorado? Same ingredients, different h2o. Had a few Mama's LYP's (great session quaff) and not sure I'd be able to tell. Eddie rules! Buddy C-too old.

 

Malz ist die Seele des Bieres. (Malt is the soul of beer.)

 

Hops done the right way are what can take a beer from being ok to great for me.

 

Water hardness is not bad. Alkalinity is bad. There are flavor ions that brewers add, usually via gypsum ot Calcium Chloride.

 

Yes, to it takes all four ingredients, of which there are many to choose from, working within the brewers skill level, to make beer. We get to choose what we each like.

 

Just had a taste of my single-hop citra pale ale after 14 days in primary. The nice citrusy hop character is evident in both taste and nose (we added an oz at flame out), but I'm also getting an interesting grassy/hay taste, I'm thinking that's the yeast (we used wyeast 1332-northwest ale, which I found out later is a british strain coopted by Hale's in Seattle). Anyways, cold crash tonight and dry hop for ~6 days staring tomorrow (more citra, baby!) and I think we are on to something!

Anyone thoughts about my earlier water/ chlorine question?

 

Reverse Osmosis water, and then treat the water with the appropriate salts/acids to tailor it to the style of beer.

 

I'm going to be the odd one out and say time (utilized during each brewing phase) makes all the difference to me.

 

They include salt packs in many extract kits. I can imagine that yeasts have many metalloproteins and various cofactors that aren't part of the wort. Gotta have the proteome fully functional for the yeast to grow properly.

 

water, hops, yeast, malt all have equivalent impact. bad grain bill ruins IPAs, and makes pilsners or big beers not even worth bothering with. bad hops ruins pale ales. bad yeast ruins everything. bad water ruins everything.

 

I brew with city water. I use campden tabs to dechlorinate. Brews always taste great to me and others. 1 tab treats 10 gallons. A pack of 50 was like $3.00.