Your favorite three styles to brew and why

Belgian Triple, Belgian Double, and Saison. Taste and cost savings over commercial.

 

American IPA...Belgian Wit...and Sours...because I love pungent hops, I want some thing quick and good sometimes, and I like to test my patience and perseverance...sometimes

 

I don't have a favorite style. I brew with the seasons.

Summer time: American wheats, German Hefs, IPAs, Saisons
Winter Time: Belgian Dark Strongs, Barleywines (aged 1 year, but brewed annually), stouts.

 

Saison, Brett beers, Pale ales & IPA

Too hot down in SoFL to be churning out 5+ gallons of anything really dark or heavy. Over the past year I've done mostly Brett beers anyways, just really versatile yeast.

 

Hefe/Blond Ale - Summer Refreshment

APA/IPA always in season

Robust Porter/ Stout - Winter time favorites

 

Tripel: my favorite style to drink. I brewed a really good tripel one time and I've been chasing that success ever since.

Sours: the waiting kills me, but I feel accomplished when I drink that year-old brew.

IPA: bog-standard, usually, but once in a while I make one I really like. I usually try to always have an IPA on tap; right now is one of the rare times I don't. This is my most-commonly brewed style.

 

I don't have a favorite, but I find any beer either dry hopped, Oaked, or spiced, comes out as a favorite.

 

IPAs, under 5% ABV hoppy beers, and variations that I cannot readily buy. I know that isn't 3 styles but I got into homebrewing mostly because I wanted to make beers I couldn't buy. I can get half a pound of Citra for an IPA much more easily than a brewery can get enough to make a decent IPA. I can overload a "session IPA" with the same amount of hops as a regular IPA without worrying about cost. I can add slightly unconventional ingredients such as peanut butter, peaches, and raspberries without worrying about cost as well. So my styles vary a lot but I brew what I can't buy for what I consider a reasonable price.

 

The act of brewing is not sufficiently variable to drive a favorite style. It boils down to what's my favorite to have around. That's probably a mild with hints of sweetness and chocolate. Or else it is a balanced bitter. It's something I can drink everyday and not get tired of. I really like the idea that I can make a couple cases of a decent dubbel at a small fraction of the cost, but this is not the type of beer I want to drink every day.

 

When I first started, it was English-style session ales. I've been on an APA kick all summer though. I'm getting ready to go back to the session ales though. Time to try a new yeast (I've yet to use 1968), and my wife is now complaining about too many pale ales...

So, I guess the top two are obvious:

American Pale Ale: Dynamic style that can be heavily hopped, balanced, whatever
English-style Session: Balanced, tasty and under 4%

Third...I'm going to have to say a slightly stout-ish porter. I've been on the quest for what I'd define as the perfect Porter. Probably a little bigger than style (6ish%), only slight roasty, lots of caramel, chocolate, vanilla. We're rapidly coming up on cool weather in Massachusetts. Time to get back in the dark beers.

 

Please elaborate...are you bottling before attenuation is finished, or do you mean something else?

 

I've never really thought about it in terms of a Top Three (or top whatever). But without consulting the records, I'd guess the styles I have brewed the most would be...

- American Pale Ales
- Bohemian Pilsners
- English Brown Ales (though maybe Saisons)

Why... I like to drink them slightly more than other styles I guess. I don't plan a seasonal brew calendar. Typically I don't decide what I'm making next until sometime between the last brewday and the next. It's just whatever I feel like. I used to plan ahead for competitions, but that got old and a pain in the ass.

 

I enjoy making lagers because of the process, having to stay on top of it throughout fermentation, and the anticipation while lagering. I love seeing how crystal clear they turn out without any additives to make them do so, just time and cold temps.

I love brewing rauchbiers and other beers with smoked malt just because the smell during brewday is awesome and makes me think of fall (my favorite season). Unfortunately, I'm usually kind of sick of the smoke when I'm about halfway through the keg, so I don't brew them often.

I also like making my ESB recipe. It's straight-forward, not a lot of ingredients, simple fermentation, and ready to drink pretty quickly. It's a no-frills brewday/fermentation that makes a really good-tasting beer.

 

IPA- A little more than half of my beers have been ipas. It is my go to style year round. I enjoy trying out different hops and combinations. The aroma you get when the hops hit the boiling wort is awesome.

Stouts- Probably my second favorite style to drink. I like that I can get creative with the specialty grains.

Pumpkin Ale- I only brew 1 a year but the thing I really like about brewing this style is I drink it during the fall which is my favorite time of year. I brew it in September so the weather is usually some of the best of the year for brewing outdoors. When I think about brewing a pumpkin beer I think about the fall weather, leaves changing, football, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

 

Realized I never said why so here we go again:

2 standards are:

IPA (regular, black, Imperial Red): $5-8 for 16oz or less is just absurd when I can spend $8 on a 6 pack. 6 packs are too iffy as you never know how it has been handled and in many cases the beer is past its prime. I can brew a full keg of Imperial IPA at under $1 pint, and drink a full pint if I want a full pint, none of this 12oz pours of IIPA because OLCC is all up in my beer enjoyment crap.

Sours of all kinds: $20+ for a single bottle or $20 for 52 bottles? Nuff said.

3rd slot goes to Saisons in the Late Spring/Summer/Early Fall replaced by Imperial Stout for Late Fall/Winter/Early Spring.

Saisons: Can't find them packaged and easily available and affordable. If they do get packaged and distributed here (GD Collette) they are replaced by Fall seasonals in July, or they are absurdly over priced and not that amazing (Upright), or really good but even more expensive (Logzdons). I also really like traditional Saisons, super dry, Dupont, rustic, low ABV, finished with Brett for some funk.

Imperial Stouts: Outside of Narwhal and maybe Old Raspy Imp Stouts are always price jacked and in 22oz bottles. I can brew one and drink 11oz or 22oz, my choice, not their's. And again, the cost savings impacts it greatly.

 

The styles I brew the most are basically the styles I most enjoy drinking. Go figure.

German pils: a great beer style that you can drink by the liter without getting (too) hammered, and also one that's challenging and fun to brew. I like the way tiny adjustments to the grist or mash temp make big differences in the beer, and it's fun to try different combos.

IPA: God, I'm so boring. It'd be so much cooler of me to say Berliner Weiss or whatever. IPAs have become the cliché of the craft beer "movement," so much so it's just taken for granted that everyone can brew a hop bomb. But what can I say? I still love drinking a good one, especially when I can tailor the aroma and IBUs to my own tastes.

German seasonals: I also like brewing with the seasons, and I usually go through a cycle of helles, pils, hefe, marzen, weizenbock, doppelbock, or something along those lines as the months roll by. Which reminds me... I better get that marzen going. Mach schnell!

 

Pale Ale/IPA: Generally the beers I enjoy drinking most. Always fun to experiment with new hops or combinations.

Sours: I love drinking them but hate paying for them. I can make 2 cases worth of sour beer for the cost of a single bottle in some cases.

Porter: I like having a nice dark beer around for a change of pace. This is the one type of beer that I hace never brewed a bad/disappointing one, and I am very critical of my own brewing.

Runner up: Saison. I keep trying but just have not hit the nail on the head with this style. I have made some tasty ones but I begin to get tired of them much quicker than other styles. I really need to find a way to emulate the Tired Hands/Hill Farmstead/Jester King's of this world. I need to keep these beers more interesting for a longer time, maybe I will begin doing mixed fermentations with a mild strain of Brett and some Lacto.

 

Pale Ales, Cali Common, Hefeweizen. They are my 3 favorite styles to drink too.

 

Sounds like mine, you biting off me?