OOps this thread got buried...
The German Reinheitsgebot dictated that beer should be made only from malt, hops, water and many German beers are of course great. However go anywhere else in the world and most beers are made with adjuncts - pop across the German Border to Switzerland, Austria, France and the Netherlands and there are great beers made with adjuncts.
Grain Adjuncts: Heavily used in US beers, not necessarily as a cost saver. American Six row barley produced cloudy beers, being high in nitrogen, and the use of corn and rice adjuncts enabled the production of clear lagers towards the end of the 19th century - the corn and rice can 'soak up' the extra enzymes and proteins during mashing. Classic American Pilseners as brewed before Prohibition and now being rediscovered are a lovely beer, often with a fair whack of maize. Apparently since the rice crisis, it now costs the likes of Budweiser more to use rice than malt, but try changing the recipe and see how the public would react.
In the UK in the 19th century the use of artificial fertilizers created bumper crops of barley but, again, high protein - and brewers were getting persistent hazes, so breweries started using grain adjuncts as well. This is not an issue nowadays because low protein barleys have been developed, but some adjuncts are still used, and particularly sugar.
Sugar: In the Uk many beers are made with a proportion of sugar, and have been since grain rationing around the time of WW1. UK bitters and milds have a 'character' in which sugar plays a part. Similarly in Australia mainstream beers have been brewed with a large amount of sugar to thin the body and produce an easy quaffing lager suited to a hot climate.
So if you are brewing a favourite beer you have had overseas or looking to produce a more gutsy version of a favourite Australian beer then you need to have a look at how it's made and take that into account. So if I'm aiming for a clean drinking Australian Classic I'll probably add a few more hops, but certainly use some sugars, and also some rice to give a polished clarity and finish.
Some of the most appalling Aussie beers are all malt. An example of this is the new VB raw. Try it and see for yourself. The point I'm making is that chanting a mantra of "malt, hops, water, yeast" is putting your brewing in a strait jacket. Apart from the Reinheitsgebot there's nothing to say that you can't put whatever you like into a brew :icon_cheers: The Reinheitsgebot, anyway, was apparently " introduced in part to prevent price competition with bakers for wheat and rye. The restriction of grains to barley was meant to ensure the availability of sufficient amounts of affordable bread, as the more valuable wheat and rye were reserved for use by bakers. Today many Bavarian beers are again brewed using wheat and are thus no longer compliant with the Reinheitsgebot. "
