First great beer you brewed?

The first really good/great homebrew that I made was about my 5th or 6th batch, an Irish Red. That was the beer that hooked me on the hobby. It was good enough that several people in my homebrew club encouraged me to enter it into a local competition, it didn't place but it did get honorable mention.

 

I've brewed a Pliny clone that was very tasty, and I was equally happy with a Ayinger Maibock clone that I did.

 

I hit my first "stride" about 14 batches in with a really good "Sorachi Wit", "Nelson Pale", "Habanero Chocolate Porter", and "Kitchen Sink Rye IPA".....

 

This is difficult to answer...I almost always find something I would change in a brew even if it turned out amazing. I had a college art professor who explained that an artist's work (he was speaking specifically about painting) is never finished. He had some art up in a couple museums and would always comment that every time he viewed his work he would want to add something to it....which of course he couldn't.

I would say that if we're starting from 0...my first really great beer was my 3rd...and a Vanilla Stout. It placed 2nd in an extremely small local competition.

 

I had many "pretty good" brews the first 2 years I brewed and no drain pours, but nothing I considered great. The first "great" beer I did (which I had defined as on par with a commercial craft brewery), was a coffee oatmeal stout. It was great and in a blind tasting was equal to FBS and WnB. I'd still tweak the recipe some to increase head retention.

 

My very first beer I made with my own recipe was supposed to be a dry stout. It finished a little sweet and a bit bitter on the roast side. 8 months later it won 1st place in the state fair for american stouts.

 

What exactly was it that separated your first great beer from the previous ones?

 

The first great brew I did was a gose made for Michael Jackson way back when. He'd recently written about gose, and I called it "Liepzig's Ghost", which gave him a stepping-off point to start his discussion from. It was much more subtle than most of what you find today, just lightly tart and salty, and he felt that it was pretty much right-on. My other beer, however, was a failure. It was a pumpkin barleywine called "Crack-O-Jack-O" and he said "I don't know who Crack-O-Jack-O is, and I don't know where the pumpkin is".

 

My first beer became a drain pour, but my 2nd attempt was a darn-near perfect clone of Stone IPA. It seems that I have a good beer/bad beer pattern at the moment. My NB Dead Ringer is a miss: perfectly cloudy despite weeks of being chilled in a keg and just doesn't taste right (has a slightly astringent after taste), but my all-Citra recipe I got off of brewtoad.com is a smashing hit. It just gets clearer and clearer when I thought it wouldn't and I have to fight the urge to have a 2nd glass.

 

A few batches in, I brewed an Oatmeal Pale Ale... it was bangin', and (like an earlier poster) earned an honorable mention at a local home brew competition. Can't wait to do an all-grain batch of this really soon.

 

my first batch has been the best, cloned Two Hearted Ale and it was a dandy. Had a few dudes and studs since then but my first was my best.
Technically it was my first all grain batch, but 4th brew if you include the extract brews I did prior.

 

I'd had really good batches before this, but had a Brett Blonde that was really hitting on all cylinders, scored a mid 40s BJCP and won BOS. Since then I've been fascinated with Brett.

 

I made an brown ale that won a blue ribbon at the Wisconsin State Fair in my 2nd or 3rd year brewing. Prior to that, I was very happy with only a handful of beers, including my very first partial mash, a Sierra inspired pale ale. The lesson learned from these beers was the KISS principle. Crazy ass bizarro ingredient beers were likely to be fails, but basic beers could be delicious.

 

The first one someone else said was great. That was a damn good one tho, some kinda extract red ale with lots of crystal and lots of hops

 

I really love stouts, so I would have to go with my own stout, I actually aged it for 4 months also. The aging I am sure helped

 

I support and completely condone your alternative lifestyle, cheers to your pride, brotha!

 

Not that there is anything wrong with that.......

 

My sweet stout is the best beer I've made so far. It's the only beer I've entered into a competition, scoring a 41.5, winning me the subcategory and second in all stouts. I've yet to brew it a second time. However, when I do, I'm going to make adjustments per judge advice, adding an extra 0.375# of chocolate malts for additional roast character.

 

Not at all!