If you wanting to play mad scientist and create your own unique brew. We put together some helpful tips and advice to help you do that.

We have an extremely wide variety of Recipes. Before creating your own recipe I would go check out what we have as we may already have what you are looking for. You can also look at the archived recipes to see all of our old recipes as well. You can find this in the footer of our website.

These recipes could also help provide a good foundation for you to create your unique recipe.

Style

The first thing you will want to decide on is what beer style you will be making. Depending on what style you want to brew that will help you select your ingredients as you get started. You can choose from your base styles like Lager’s, IPA’s, Stout’s Etc. If you want to get real serious about your style then check out the BJCP guidelines. The BJCP guidelines, or Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines, are used by Beer Judges all over the US. The guidelines will inform you on what ingredients tend to go into your favorite beer, and what aromas, flavors, and appearance characteristics you will be aiming for. If you have a commercial beer in mind, look up that beer specifically. Sometimes the brewery will list hops and grains, and sometimes other homebrewers will post their own clone recipes.

Base Malt

Now onto selecting your base malt. I would go by two characteristics when picking your base malt. Color and IBU’s. Color more related to lighter beers. If you want to brew a light color lager, IPA or pale ale then you will want a light color base beer. However, if brewing an amber or stout you do not need to pick a dark base. You can always add ingredients to make it darker. You can always darken a beer but you can’t lighten it.

Hops

Selecting hops can be maybe the most fun part of building your own recipe. There are so many varieties of hops nowadays it can be overwhelming on what to pick. If you wanting to create an IPA or pale ale or something with some bitter bit then go for the bittering hops. It’s always good to add some hops for aroma as well so adding hops late in your boil at flameout or dry hopping is a great way to get more aroma than bitterness. Before you select your hops do a little research on what style you are wanting to brew, and you can usually find hop recommendations for that style. Then read the description of the hops to learn more about what flavors they provide to make sure it is right for your beer.

Adjuncts

Next, you will want to decide is what specialty malts or adjuncts you will want to add to your beer. These can be things like a booster, dextrose, DME or LME or 2-Row, crystal malt, and the list can go on and on. There are a lot of different adjuncts so make sure to pick something that will be beneficial for your beer. If you want to brew an IPA then maybe a light DME so you can boil your hops in that too for bitterness. If your brewing a big stout, then maybe some chocolate malt and roasted barley. If your not sure about what to pick you can chat with us and we can help you our or you can go to that magical machine Google and there is a ton of information out there about this stuff.

Yeast

The last part is the yeast. The style of yeast you pick can impact the flavor of your beer greatly. If your brewing a wheat beer you want to pick a wheat yeast, if you brewing a Saison then you want Saison yeast and so on. Some yeast styles are just for certain styles of beer while others can brew a few different styles and are more versatile. Make sure to do some research so you are selecting the right yeast.

If you ever have any questions or are not sure just contact us and we would be glad to help you out.