Beer Strengths

[blokewithoutaname]

G'day fellas Been lurking here for a while but this is my first post.

Im wondering if different beer styles are naturally stronger or weaker than others?

Im a new brewer...im just about to bottle up my 4th batch but ive already noticed a reasonable difference in the strengths of my brews, both theoretical (IE what OG/FGs suggest itll be) and in practice (IE how many it takes till i fall over).

so far ive been taking it easy, and have just been knocking up coopers kits.

my first was a lager, with 1 kilo of sugar. It turned out to be 4.2%

then i did a bitter, i kg of sugar and it turned out a bit stronger at 4.6%

im used to beers around the 5.2 mark so the next batch i put in 200g more sugar.

so it was a real ale with 1.2 kg and that turned out at 5.3%. so thats 20% more sugar and more than 20% more alcohol (compared to the larger anyway), and pretty much exactly where i wanted it. so i figured 1.2k was the target to be aiming for.

anyway, long story short, im just doing a draught now. did the same. 1.2k of sugar and this load has taken off. had an OG of 1074 and seems to be setteling at 1006.
im looking at about 1.5% more than my last 'strongest' brew.

my others all started off in the 1050's and stabalised in the 1010-1012 range.

I should also add that ive left the beer alone untill the gravity has been stable for a few days, so i dont think its a matter of stoppiong the previous batches before they were done.
I assume temperature might have some effect, but being in tassie, even in summer we dont have many really hot spells to worry about. all my brews have stayed around the 20-22c range.

so...are draughts naturally stronger than largers?
are ales naturally stronger than bitters?
or is it just luck of the draw?

 

[jgriffin]

Does this answer your question?
http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/

Different styles should have certain OG's and FG's to fit to the authentic style.

 

[joecast]

well, there's a lot of ways to answer your question. ill start with the obvious two.

yes and no. examples??

yes, a barley wine will normally be stronger than a pale ale.

and for no, you can have countless examples of styles where there is a range of abv that cross over. as jgriffin pointed out the bjcp page you can look through.

as for your homebrwes that came out stronger/weaker, any number of things could (and probably did) happen.

the amount of fermentable sugars (the kit plus however much sugar/extract was added) will determine how much abv. will be possible. of course only what is converted by the yeast will actually give you alcohol. so the health of the yeast and conditions it has to work in (temperature, amount of oxygen) will determine what abv. you actually get.

so to answer your question for real this time. yeah, its luck of the draw. enjoy.
joe

 

[Jazman]

I would also dump the sugar ,that amount of sugar does not have a place in beer .but use a brew booster pack forst or use dried malt extract and your beer be better ...Dont forget beer is about 85 to 90 malt any way and with kits u get a cidery taste to it...

 

[ColdBeerLuke]

1076 is a very high SG for a Coopers kit and 1.2kg sugar. I would expect around 1046.
All Coopers kits, in fact most generally available kits, all have about the same malt content and hence the same contribution to SG. What you add to them determines your alcohol content.
There are so many different types of lagers, bitters, ales etc that there is no absolute rule for alcohol content of each of them. There are plenty of high and lower alcohol versions of all of them. There are general rules for each specific type of lager, ale etc.

 

[blokewithoutaname]

thanks for all the info fellas.

i was thinking 1076 seemd high, from everything ive read. but it seems ok.

when i pull some out to check the gravity i give it a taste test, just to see how its comming along, and this batch seems the 'nicest' of the 4 so far, so appart from having to remember its gonna have a kick, hopefully itll be ok.

btw...when i say sugar, i mean...dextrose (?)...the bags of stuff coopers sells.