Category Archives: Beer FAQs

Homebrewing 401 – How to Make Your Own Beer Recipe

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bottle-questionSo you successfully brewed your first batch of beer using extract in 101. You steeped some grains in 201, and went full blown all grain in 301. Now you have finally arrived at the point for which you started this all. Homebrewing 401, making your own beer recipes.

Brewing is a delicate balancing act. You can’t just throw everything in a pot you think will taste good. Certain ingredient ratios are needed for the process to even work, and your results take months before you can even test. That could lead to literal years of trial and error. So where do you start?

First research established recipes of the style of beer you are going for. There is a wealth of recipes available in books, online, and at local brew shops. You will start to get a feel for amount and types of grain used for the particular style you desire. You could also play it safe your first go and brew directly from a recipe with some minor substitutions or additions.

The second thing you will need to do is… math! Like recipes, there are tons of complex formulas you can research. You can crunch numbers for your recipe and figure out the potential gravity, IBUs and ABV. This can get very confusing very fast. Fortunately in our technological age we have programs that can easily do all this for you. There are many out there, but I found the easiest for me is Beer Calculus, the online calculator by Hopville. You enter in your ingredient amounts and times, and it will tell you everything your beer will potentially be. It will even tell you color and whether it will be sweet, bitter, or balanced. It’s quite fun to tweak the grain to hop ratios trying to get just the right color and bitterness you want. This tool is not perfect, and there are many other variables that can factor in, but it’s a good basis to work from.

Lastly, now that you have your own unique recipe, brew! This is the longest step, since it can take a couple months before you know your results. Make sure to write everything you do down. Hopefully you calculated properly and got close to where you want. Now tweak your recipe with each brew batch until you get what you were going for.

Congratulations! You made your first original beer. Now come up with a cool name, stick a label on it, and mail one to us!

Stout versus Porter – What’s the Difference?

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bottle-questionWhat’s the difference between a stout and porter beer? I have been asked many times.

Here’s the technical definition: Porters were a dark beer enjoyed by London river porters. Stouts were a stronger porter, or stout porter. Fast forward a couple hundred years later, through the many rises and falls of dark beer popularity, and the names are now acceptably interchangeable with no text book definitions other than dark beer. You can find that answer all over the place.

What you wont find anywhere but here is the Suit’s answer. He is the stout fan of Crooked 3 and over the years has come to his own conclusion.

[This is a worldwide Crooked 3 exclusive.]

Put simply, stouts are more thick and flavorful while porters are lighter and more watery tasting. This is a good rule of thumb that proves true most of the time. You want a dark beer to sip and enjoy – have a stout. You want a dark beer that is easier to drink – have a porter. So while the original definitions of the two words are viewed as no longer valid, in the real world they still seem to be true.

A great place to experience this is at BJ’s where they brew both – so you have minimal variables. Get tasters of the Tatonka Stout and the PM Porter. The stout tastes dark, thick and creamy. The porter also tastes dark but watery.

There’s also a few other interesting trends. Porters tend to get flavored. You can readily find smoked, coffee, vanilla, pecan and other varieties. Possibly their lighter flavor makes them easier to alter. Stouts tend to just grow stronger with imperial variations.

So that’s my answer. While technically there is no difference, in the real world there are definite trends.