Hard To Buy, Good To Brew

[mondestrunken]

I'm looking for new brew ideas, so I've got a question. What's your favourite style to brew that is hard, impossible, or just too expensive to buy commercially?

So, for example, APAs are pretty common-place these days. You might be able to brew one better than those that you can buy and/or you can make one exactly way you like it. But, I'd like to know what you've found is a good style of beer that you can make easily but can't buy. Similarly, stout's always popular with homebrewers, but there's generally a fairly broad range of stouts at most supermarkets/bottle-os.

What do you think?

 

[Bada Bing Brewery]

Not a stout fan. I'm a Koslch fan. Keep it simple - Wey pils, bit of wheat and acid malt and kolsch yeast 2565, tettnang or saaz to 25 IBU. Can't **** it up .....
Cheers
BBB

 

[Lecterfan]

Agree with BBB, also saisons.

 

[bullsneck]

Perhaps a bland lager...

 

[cam89brewer]

You could make a traditional English IPA instead of the more popular American IPA's that seem to be around. English hops like Fuggles or Goldings , Yeast s-04 or Wyeast 1098, grains maris otter/vienna....

 

[neonmeate]

this is the main reason i brew. to make things i can't buy.

anything involving wild yeast.

good american IPAs used to be necessary to brew at home but not any more, thankfully!

good german beers of any description are hard to find at the moment. there used to be a few good small breweries imported but just about all we get now is big macro stuff out of munich, aecht schlenkerla excepted. which is ok, but the good stuff in germany is out in the sticks. so good kellerbier, altbier, superdry and hoppy north german pils, schwarzbier, roggens, basic hefes with character etc. much better brewed at home and served fresh. HB klsches are ALWAYS better than the bottled crap too.

same goes for any english beer. you can not get decent english beer in a bottle full stop. but how bloody easy is it to brew a tasty dryhopped bitter with WLP002 for instance and how much better does it taste than any oxidised, sweet, bland muck you buy for $10 a bottle.

imperial stouts are another great thing to brew that is not usually cost effective to drink all the time out of the bottleo.

 

[Jay Cee]

Murray's Anniversary Ale. Last years was a great drop, but a rare treat at $40 a bottle.

The brewery guards their recipes very closely.

 

[Jace89]

Maybe not to expensive but big Belgian beers can be pain to nail.

 

[DJR]

Kolsch for sure. Also altbier.

 

[white.grant]

Kolsch for sure. Also altbier.

Kolsch +1 - fresh is best and the travelling kills them. My other "can't buy it so I'd better make it" beer is Gose, at last count only produced regularly by a handful of breweries in Leipzig and north America. Again freshness counts.

 

[crozdog]

schwartz, dunkel, bock, wiezenbock, brown ale (us & UK), 80 shilling, wee heavy, steam beer, RIS

 

[QldKev]

Mine would be Schneider Weisse. Extremely hard and expensive to get. The homebrew version is such a great beer, and I love watching that 3068 go off.

QldKev

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

A really good APA/AIPA - you can get good ones, but the ability to dry hop the hell out of it (without profit margins being a factor in formulation), and the ability to drink fresh - means it is always better and cheaper home brewed.

As an example - I go to Hammo Hotel for a cheap lunch steak (well cheap for Hammo) - order fat yak in a pint - I can smell and taste cascade. In the bottle, I can't taste a damn thing. Which leads me to believe that the kegs are fresher and treated better than the stubbies, and therefore the hop flavour and aroma are still present.

Given my home brew only has to travel a few metres, and the beers as fresh as is possible - it's always better.

And if it gets a little less fresh/less hoppy toward the end - I just open up the keg and dry hop a little.

Oh, and Roggenweiss - yet to find a commercial version.

 

[Gar]

An Irish Red done right is a beautiful thing

 

[petesbrew]

Altbiers, Belgians, and good hoppy AIPAs.

Never tasted a commercial Altbier yet, and probably never will. I see Peter Van Gent winery have done a collaboration with Mudgee brewery, but it's not cheap.

So far the homebrewed ones I've made or swapped have been delicious.

 

[Josh]

Eisbock

 

[Muggus]

Eisbock

Damn straight!

That and Altbier.
Don't agree with Kolsch though...seems like every 2nd craft brewery is having a crack at brewing this style, which is not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, but only when they get it right.

But yeah, Altbier, sure being an amber/brown sort of ale it will probably never be in vogue, and commercial examples are damn hard to come by, not to mention there being 2 distinct "styles" of Altbier...Dsseldorf and Northern Altbier...just to throw a spanner in the works. Would be great to have more Aussie breweries having a crack at these styles.

 

[Lecterfan]

That and Altbier.
Don't agree with Kolsch though...seems like every 2nd craft brewery is having a crack at brewing this style, which is not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, but only when they get it right.

...bear in mind there is probably a local matter of availability, other than 4pines I've yet to find any Kolsch in Ballarat...I reckon the pickings might be even slimmer in Gero!

 

[brettprevans]

Just work ur way through the bjcp style headline and brew one from each cat.

 

[Bribie G]

There's one particular style you just can't get in Australia so I have to make my own.