I have found it impossible to brew the same beer twice. Just always want to do something different and challenge myself, and there’re so many styles.
Yep, me too. I have made 8 all columbus hop IPA’s and everyone had a different grain bill. A little more of that, a little less than that, I just can’t help myself. When I have a good one I always think about trying to duplicate it but I never do. Oh well, I like the thrill of the chase, so to speak. I have found out that a 50/50 mix with am.2-row and MO works very well, along with a little wheat, works for me. That is for my IPA’s anyways.
Each beer that I brew will be the first of It’s kind on planet earth, at least that is what I think but who knows. I might try some repeatabilty in the future but I’m having too much fun to care.
I have a few taps for new things that I am trying , and have a few taps that continue to run tried and true house ales.
I find it just about impossible. If there is something that I really liked that I want to do a quick turnaround on, I have done something similar, but will almost always make small tweaks to the ingredients and/or process. I’ve repeated a recipe process-wise on cal commons, bitters and IPAs, but I will almost always tweak ingredients based on my tasting notes. 3oz more pale choc malt in the cal common, use notty instead of london ale in a bitter.
I think one thing that is cool about this hobby is once you have a process down (cold-side temp control, somewhat repeatable/efficient mashing situation), you can taste a beer and tweak it the next time to suit your own preference. My last premium bitter was awesome. Just awesome. But on the next one, I am likely going to add a bit of pale chocolate malt to give it a little toastiness (even though its not necessarily BJCP style appropriate). So no, its not exactly the same recipe, but you have a good base recipe, then you can add/subtract/tweak to suit your own tastes.
I went through that phase for a while, then 20-25 years ago I started to narrow it down to a half dozen or so beers that I particularly liked. At that point I began aiming for repeatability.
I did it just as Pietro describes…doing repeat batches and tweaking successive batches to hit my personal ‘sweet spot’
These days, I regularly use only three different yeast strains (but still favor the house strain I’ve kept going since the late '80s), and I bulk buy only 4 different hop varieties, still favoring two classic, “old school” varieties (if I feel the urge to try new varieties based on forum buzz, I’ll just buy enough for a batch or two).
So while I certainly still experiment on occasion, I like my ‘old dependables’…and at this point I always know exactly what to expect from them.
I guess this could have something to do with the infancy of my homebrew status. It hasn’t even been a year yet. But, I can’t even brew the same beer twice with slight tweaks (although my neighbor is begging me to repeat an IRA I made). Sounds like it’ll level out with time like you just mentioned. Mind if I ask what those four house hops are that you bulk purchase?
I have brewed the same beers two or three times on occasion, but it is rare. I design all my own recipes and about 95% of the time, it is a brand new recipe. I keep telling myself that eventually I will go back to the beginning and brew them all over again. But 14 years later, it’s not really happening yet. 
I didn’t really re brew anything for the first year. But since then I’ve repeated several tried and true recipes. There are some beers I like to make every year for a specific season. Like a pumpkin beer for thanksgiving and Halloween. Or Dennys bvip for Christmas and the winter months.
I have been brewing just less than a year myself, only doing 18 so far without repeating. I know i haven’t even scratched the surface yet, but there are so damn many to try! There are a couple i’m dyin’ to try with all grain that tasted great with extract. The strange thing for me is that when i first decided to brew, most of the beer i made & liked were wheat or dark, malty ones. Then it was pale ale that i preferred. Now i can’t get enough ipa’s to satisfy! 50 IBU’s isn’t “extreme” anymore! Must be evolution man! Strange. 8)
I typically brew twice a month. One of the brews is always a stout that SWMBO likes, so I’ve gotta keep her supply up. The other is dedicated to new recipes. The stout is the only recipe that I’ve truly repeated, although I re-do recipes with tweaks. For example, I just did a brown ale with the same grain bill as a previous one, but increased the IBU’s by about 25%.
I make it a point to brew the same beer over and over until I get the same result every time. It’s really helped me perfect my skills. It’s also a great way to fine tune a recipe.
I’m 2 years and change into this and have repeated some basics - Stouts, Irish Red, and a great wheat beer my local brew shop designed. I can’t imagine being disciplined enough to keep at one brew over and over! I seem to try a new one 75% of the time.
I think part of the issue for me is that after drinking 5+ gallons of one brew I’m pretty tired of it and ready to try something new.
I’m 2 years and change into this and have repeated some basics - Stouts, Irish Red, and a great wheat beer my local brew shop designed. I can’t imagine being disciplined enough to keep at one brew over and over! I seem to try a new one 75% of the time.[/quote]
When I was developing my pretty well known Rye IPA recipe, I brewed it 5-6 times (at least) only changing one thing each time to zero in on the right flavor. Then I brewed it another 5 times or so exactly the same to be sure it was repeatable. Brewing a recipe repeatedly is one of the best ways to hone your brewing skill.
Have been at it for about 15 months now, so I’m definitely no expert, but I’ve done multiple batches of 3 styles that I particularly like- a Doublealt in the Fall, an Oktoberfest in the winter, an Irish Red and a Stout in the Spring. I’m still tweaking those to fit my taste preferences, and probably have a few more batches to go to get it right. Otherwise I enjoy the experimentation to find whatever my ‘next favorite’ might be. I’ve made a few I know I won’t bother with again… I just love this new hobby- a perfect combination of cooking, chemistry and biology. And I get beer! :cheers:
There’s 2 recipes that I repeat brew, a house amber that is a favorite for every palate around. And a hopped up old ale that is one of my favs. Everything else is a new batch.
I’m in a similar boat. I love the experimentation and recipe design part of homebrewing. I end up designing 3 or 4 recipes that I want to brew for every one that I actually do brew.
Still, the really good ones I have marked for rebrews. And there are a couple of recipes that I’m trying to nail down to be my regular house brews. I doubt I’ll brew a particular recipe more than once or twice a year (except for my porter, this is the first one I really want to nail down to perfection, so I’ll brew it every few months so I still have a few left from the last batch or two for comparison).
Something someone else alluded to was actually exploring the styles via homebrewing. Other than when I was in England, I don’t really recall having many commercial ‘best bitters’ (other than Coniston Blue Bird, which is $%#@ing awesome), but my brewing it really got me to dig the style, and I could frankly see it being one of my ‘house brews’ down the line.
I guess my point is, if I’ve never had a schwarzbier (I haven’t other than the flawed one on my BJCP exam…), BREWING it (then drinking/evaluating it) is a great way to learn about it!
[quote=“Pietro”]Something someone else alluded to was actually exploring the styles via homebrewing. Other than when I was in England, I don’t really recall having many commercial ‘best bitters’ (other than Coniston Blue Bird, which is $%#@ing awesome), but my brewing it really got me to dig the style, and I could frankly see it being one of my ‘house brews’ down the line.
I guess my point is, if I’ve never had a schwarzbier (I haven’t other than the flawed one on my BJCP exam…), BREWING it (then drinking/evaluating it) is a great way to learn about it![/quote]
Agreed, and I did a lot of that when I started brewing.
[quote=“Denny”]
Agreed, and I did a lot of that when I started brewing.[/quote]
Years ago, brewing helped me learn what flavors I like what flavors I don’t – especially with wheat beers. The only way to really learn that was taking lots of notes and trying to stay as controlled as possible with few variations. It was hard to do at the time… but now I feel like I can make the things I want, when I want them, and have them generally turn out the way I want them.
This is especially true for wheat beers; where I learned about how to control the various esters that are produced (I generally hate the clove-y odors and tastes that some recipes and fermentations produce) and produce a product that I truly love.
Cheers.
