Saturday, May 24, 2014

What Homebrewer Excuses Really Mean

A home brewer may use a lot fancy words to describe their beer to help their friends understand what's being handed to them.

While most beer drinkers get "hoppy", "malty", and "bitter" there's a lot of other terms that home brewers will use to try and accurately describe their beer, while trying to hide that it probably wasn't exactly what they were going for.  And much like a haircut, it's bad when it's not what you wanted, no matter how much everyone else raves about it.

So here's some common excuses (not saying I've actually used some to most of these) and what they might really mean.  If you're not sure, ask "what were you going for?"



Says: "We went for a light carbonation."
Means: "Apparently we needed more pressure or more time to force carbonate or something so the bubbles stick."

Says: "We wanted to have that sweetness of a double, without the punch in the face alcohol."
Means: "We used extract and lots priming sugar."

Says: "It's light and crisp [non-lager]."
Means: "We totally pooched the mashing temperatures."

Says: "Erupts out of the bottle"
Means: "Open this beer over a sink.  I think we got teaspoons and tablespoons mixed up on the priming sugar and my vaulted ceilings are beer colored now."

Says: "It has a subtle hop nose."
Means: "We forgot to add aroma hops."

Says: "Wanted something really hop forward."
Means: "More is better.  And by more, I mean we're directly responsible for the on-going hop shortage."

Says: "It's got a lingering bitter finish."
Means: "We put in too many bittering hops."

Says:"It's aged."
Means: "We left in the carboy for a few weeks because we were busy with other things."

Please be kind to home brewers as they put a lot of time and effort into that bottle they just handed you.  And always return the bottles to them.  Cheers!

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