Guys have any ofyou tried brewing your own?

I haven't gotten into homebrewing yet, but I'd like too.

But FWBret brews his own beer all the time, and it always comes out great. He's made everything from lagers and pilsners and porters up to Double IPAs and Imperial Stouts.

As a starving student, I once worked at a wine and beer supply shop. Most home brewers use malt extract, sold in cans. I never much cared for the product, but you can get up to 14% or so alcohol, if that's your goal. The hard core home brewers worked with malted barley grain and fresh hops. This is a messy and tedious process. (It involves holding your 'mash' at various temperatures for various intervals.) One of the main drawbacks is the difficulty of removing the yeast from the finished product. If you want some "spritz" in your beer, you have to leave a little residual sugar in the bottle. This will ferment inside the bottle, and the yeast will eventually settle to the bottom. You can pour the brew off the yeast, but the bottle must be handled carefully. Not ideal for tailgating.

I was unaware sugar content had to do with color. We sold roasted barley for deeper color. It will make the brew darker, but it doesn't have the carbohydrate content of the lighter grains. It also adds a "burnt" taste I didn't much care for.

If you find yourself in San Antonio, stop by Chester's hamburger joint. They have a huge array of beers, and you can experiment a bottle at the time.

Personally, I prefer Spaten.

You can get 14%+ ABV using pure grains and various sugars, too.

Bret recently brewed a 14%+ Imperial Stout, featuring maple syrup, balanced out with a TON of hops to push the IBU's up over 100. Delicious.

ABV??
IBU?? thats way advanced for me. So I guess the Mr. Beer keg at Bass Pro is not the equiptment you guys are using correct?

ABV, alcohol by volume. When you see a number listed referencing how strong the alcoholic content is...say, 10%...that's the ABV.

For reference, Coors original is 5%, while the average light beer is about a percent point lower.

Imperial Stouts, Barleywines, Belgian Style Ales, etc...usually range closer to 10-15%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABV

As for IBU, that stands for International Bittering Units. A measure of the beer's bitterness, often referencing how hoppy the beer is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bitterness_Units_scale

And you'd be correct about that lol.

I suppose it all depends on context. When I'm hot, tired and thirsty, I don't know that I would want to reach for one of those "over the top" beers. Another thing that perhaps bears mentioning is that, if you prefer a good malt taste, you might find European products more satisfying. Domestic brewers make heavy use of unmalted grains. And for reasons indicated above, a beer light in color may very well have a more robust taste and alcohol content than a dark beer.

For hot and thirsty type beers, I like a good hefeweizen myself. Light in ABV, and a very refreshing taste.

And there are lots of amazing american craft brewers who make great malty beers. American brewers have come up with great interpretations of Oktoberfests, though one of my personal favorites is Avery's The Kaiser.

They're a fantastic craft brewery out of Colorado, and The Kaiser is their "Imperial" Octoberfest. Ranges from 9-11% per year, depending on the batch, but it's always delicious, sweet, and malty.

Try Maredsous. It's a Belgium brew you can find at Central Market.

Which Maredsous do you prefer? They brew quite a few beers, however the 8/Dubbel and the 10/Tripel are the two most common.

The 8/Dubbel is a little darker, and 8% alcohol, while the 10/Tripel is lighter, a little sweeter, and 10% alcohol.

Guys a couple of friends of mine and I are going to have beer tasing night. We are gonna pick up a few beers from here and there and sample. Have any of you done that before? What besides the taste makes the beer? what are a few good ways to judge a beer over all?

By the way thanks guys for all your input.

Cool, sounds like fun! Yeah, I have done some beer tastings as well.

When you're comparing beers, especially premium craft brewed beers, in addition to taste you always want to make sure you get a good sniff of it.

How's the beer smell first, and then how does that smell compared to taste? A big part of taste is in the smell, after all.

What tastes and flavors can you pick out in both the smell of the beer, and the taste. Is it sweet, is it bitter, malty, hoppy, roasty?

Try and see how many different flavors you can taste. ( In some of these beers don't be surprised if you find things as varied as flavors of coffee, chocolate, cotton candy, grapefruit, malt, caramel, pineapple, etc and many many more, as a wide variety of the sort of flavors you may find. )

Also, how does the beer feel in your mouth? Is it thin and watery? Is it thick and syrupy, or somewhere in between? Does it taste like you oughta be able to chew on it? Is it heavily carbonated, or lightly carbonated?

Is it easy to drink? The best beers should still be easy to drink even when they're really high ABV, or full of complex flavors. Of course, when you're just getting into more serious beers, it may take a few before they start to get a little easier to drink for some.

Stuff like that.

Thats a hell of an idea. When you had your tasting how did you set it up? I was thinking about picking up some wings at wing stop and each bring thier beers and we can compare the beers. I was thinking pouring in a glass, the sniff like you said and kinda back and forth on it while drinking the beer. I was thinking of having maybe a once a month kind o meeting of the minds .....(Im not gonna say tasting anymore it sounds not so manly, meeting of the minds kinda rings better)and list the beers that we liked.
What do you recomend?

We did it at my buddies house, and we did it while spending a weekend camping on the bank and fishing.

Basically, bring a bunch of beers, and a bunch of glasses, and pour each person a little bit of each beer so you all get the same taste and about the same amount of beer. ( Or each have a whole beer if you've got enough and it's a small bottle. )

Moving from beer to beer, so you can all taste the same beer, at the same time, and "compare notes" as it were.

Sounds like you've got the right idea so far!

And who cares if tasting doesn't sound manly, when you're pouring a 24oz bottle of 12% beer...that's pretty manly lol.

Keep in mind some beers have "sediments" on the bottom, usually leftover yeasts and things, and you want to pour carefully to avoid pouring that sediment into the glass as it tends to "muddy" the flavor if you get too much of it.

( Unless it's a wheat beer, then it's meant to be poured into the glass, and will likely say so on the bottle. )