Tell The Truth

[goatherder]

I've tasted some excellent kit beers. I've tasted some ordinary AG beers. I brew AG beers cos it's more fun.

 

[pint of lager]

Most beers at your local bottleshop are AG.

So you can taste for yourself what the difference is between a kit beer (yours) and an AG.

You will have to select your beers carefully. Megaswill and premium megaswill don't count.

Have tasted some really well made kit based beers. They do from time to time pop up on the winners list at the State and nationals. My hat goes off to the people that brew these beers.

The results at state and national level are dominated by AG.

Brew your beer that you enjoy.

 

[tangent]

if you can make a similar beer to VB with less extract twang than a VB, i take my hat off to you.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

... extract beer tastes like shit. ... tastebuds in his arse.

Beautifully internally consistent... :lol:

 

[hairofthedog]

Ya know I have a friend and a brother who love their red wine, to the point where their advice is sought after by others for a choice of wine....the friend has done some wine judging not full on though... but both are F@#king annoying twats when someone opens a red.

So me being me...someone who loves a piss take and shooting pretentious behaviour...swapped the contents of a bottle of some apparent reasonable wine, with a much lesser quality but still OK bottle of Red...can't recall the names now of the Wines.

Well I am sure that everyone can see where this is going......Yup they couldn't pick the difference, obviously if I swapped the contents for a real cheapo young wine they would have twigged. But I challenge most people to actually pick the difference, of something that is of reasonable quality

Especially if you smoke, eat lots of fatty and salty foods, your taste buds are screwed, so those who do and think they can taste many subtle flavours are kiddin themselves

Also please don't get me wrong here, I suspect that All Grain Brewing does make a better beer (assuming the brewer has a clue about what they are doing), I just hate pretentious behaviour....if that offends someone then oh well get a life.

These are my thoughts, take them as you will.

Hugs and Kisses
Brownie.

surely u dont brew AG then brownie cause anyone that does could tell the diff between AG & kit anyway u package it even blindfolded if u dont know what AG tastes like get yourself a james squire pilsner then try make it with a kit if there wasnt a HUGE diff between kit & AG id spent 15 minutes making a brew as aposed to 5 hours

 

[geoffi]

The difference is that even well-made kits almost always taste like 'homebrew'.

Well-made (or even not-so-well-made) AG tastes like beer.

 

[Brownie]

OK,

So as I imagined would have happened people have missed the point completely.

Read what I have said and not what you think I have said.

I am NOT doubting that All Grain beer is actually better than K&K.

What I am saying is that pretentious attitudes from some quarters towards K&K brewers is complete BS. I am amazed that it is believed, by becoming an AG brewer you suddenly increase IQ points and are able to experiment etc etc etc.

I shall refrain from continuing the discussion around flavour and taste buds, anyone that has done the true blindfold tests with food, knows that the human body can be tricked.

This reminds me of the Coffee Zealots at work, Oh no you can't go to that coffee shop their coffee tastes like bark...OMG....

Your Loving Servant
Brownie.

 

[Huhness]

AG does seem to be alot of fun to brew! I just put a Aussie PA in the fermenter yesterday and i wanted to do something differnet to what the instructions told me to do (even though it just tells you to add it to boiling water stir fill to 23L and sprinkle the yeast)

The only thing i did do was buy a different Pale Ale yeast which hopefully will improve the flavour..

How long before some of you began making your own uniqiue beers?? thats what i find most appealing to begin AG brewing!

 

[bonj]

if you can make a similar beer to VB with less extract twang than a VB, i take my hat off to you.

First off, why would you want to make a similar beer to VB? You never said in the same style

And 2nd, the quality of my beer jumped by orders of magnitude when I went AG. My argument is that it's not impossible with kits. Okay, I'm playing devils advocate.

Here's another analogy for you: AG is like fresh squeezed orange and pineapple juice, as opposed to reconstituted.

I have talked to numerous AG brewers that upon tasting homebrewed AG beer, instantly dumped kits. Some even poured 100's of litres down the drain. That speaks for itself regarding the difference.

It's not elitist, it's just the truth.

The truth? You can't handle the truth!

 

[troydo]

i remember my first...... THANKS GUYS from the QLD caseswap july 2007.... ive since then gotten an AG setup and made 6 ags....

once you go grain you'll never complain!

 

[Stuster]

Huhness, it's definitely a lot of fun. I think my second AG batch was the first one I made that was unique. Maris Otter, some Munich and crystal. Chinook to bitter and some Styrian Goldings at 10. Pacific Ale yeast. It was ok, but strangely I haven't made it again. :lol: You certainly don't have to do AG to make unique beers, and unique beers aren't always the most delicious ones to drink. I don't mean you can't experiment, but I believe it's good to make a few batches somewhat to style and then branch out from there based on how the beers taste to you.

Oh, and which pale ale yeast was it?

 

[paulwin]

i was at a party last and i gave this guy there a glass of my ag lcpa clone his comment was wow that doesn't even taste like homebrew.
i think kit beer can sometimes taste like homebrew but all grain beer never gets that kit twang they have a smoother flavore
extract makes good beer all grain makes the best beer.
cheers paul

 

[johnno]

Well I do find it a bit of a chore brewing AG. But I do like the taste.

cheers
johnno

 

[paulwin]

the only chore is cleaning up at the end of brewing
cheers paul

 

[hairofthedog]

the day i tasted AG i gave away the 10 cases of kit brew i had under the house & have never looked back the only problem with AG is its highly addictive

 

[domonsura]

I am a little divided on the extract vs AG issue (sort of). I have tried a couple of extract beers recently that honestly weren't BAD - I wouldn't rave about them, but nor were they offensive. One in particular in last years SA christmas case was a goody, I even ended up with 2 bottles of it somehow, and polished the last of it off last night, was quite nice - the fact of the matter is that a number of the beers in the Christmas case I thought were pretty average (I'm not going to specify publicly which ones) and most of them were AG. But when you're talking about cold and fizzy and a damned hot day, the line in the sand is drawn in a different place I suppose.

HOWEVER......when it comes to brewing beer, if I had a choice between making a kit beer and not making a beer at all/not having beer.......I would consistently land on the side of not making it at all and going without. But then...there was this one extract beer in the case..........

Not elitist IMHO, I just know what i like and what I don't, and I also know that I personally have NEVER made an extract beer that I liked.

AG was an eye opener to me in more ways than one, and one of the main things I like about it is the depth of control/ability to tweak the beer that you don't really get with a kit beer. And the fact that I seem to be able to make a decent AG beer

CONFUSED? Not me. (Really...) AG all the way......

 

[tangent]

i poured a heap of partials down the drain or gave them away when i started AG too. I had a batch in a fermenter and still bottled it and wrote a big L on the caps for Last extract I ever touch. Most brewers seem to have the same story. Elitist maybe, but it IS better beer. I always hear extract brewers defend extract until they go AG, then they never seem to mention it again.
It's also about control of what you make, not how much corn crap you add with your number 2 brew-booster.

 

[Huhness]

Huhness, it's definitely a lot of fun. I think my second AG batch was the first one I made that was unique. Maris Otter, some Munich and crystal. Chinook to bitter and some Styrian Goldings at 10. Pacific Ale yeast. It was ok, but strangely I haven't made it again. :lol: You certainly don't have to do AG to make unique beers, and unique beers aren't always the most delicious ones to drink. I don't mean you can't experiment, but I believe it's good to make a few batches somewhat to style and then branch out from there based on how the beers taste to you.

Oh, and which pale ale yeast was it?

The yeast was Brewers Craft Premium Ale Yeast i think.. <_< i went to my "LHBS" Pete's Homebrew Store, it wasn't what i expected.. :huh: I was hoping for yeasts in the fridge and grains and hops and someone to talk to about HB, but its just a video rental store/newsagent/general store/homebrew store.. no one knew anything about HB and they just sold some kits and a few bits and pieces..

But i had beer to brew at home and that cheered me up haha... asked alot of questions to some very confused people bought some $2 yeast to be polite and left..

 

[enoch]

Picking up on the coffee zealots comment from further up..
While there are some OK instant coffees around and some dreadful coffee brewed from beans I have never tasted a good instant that comes close to a good brewed espresso or plunger.
Have a mate who is doing K&K from LHBS with good turnover and using brew enhancers but it still tastes like homebrew and isn't a patch on what is coming out of my AG system.

 

[johnno]

Well I would brew kits if I couldn't do AG.

And if I was wealthy enough I probably would not even brew. I would just get all my favourite beers delivered to me and post up on the "What in the glass thread".

I cannot beleive the way some people go on about AG.