Winter Home Brew Ideas
What Winter Beer Should You Brew?
Here at Brau Supply, we spend a lot of time thinking about beer. We think about the types of beer, the processes that go into making beer, what beer pairs best with certain foods, and, most often, we think about the type of beer that we are going to brew to usher in the start of a new season. With summer officially over and fall in full swing, this time of year is one of our favorite times to brew because, as the temperatures drop, winter beers make their return. In the first of a two part blog series, we here at Brau Supply wanted to go over some of our favorite types of cold weather beer that you can make using our home brew systems. Continue reading below to learn more.
Stouts
One of, if not the most, popular style of beer during the winter months is the classic stout. Stouts are a style of beer belonging to the ale family and are noted for their strong, malt heavy flavors. Stouts, traditionally, were not much different than porters, a similar style of beer that became extremely popular in London in the early 1700s. Porters are also noted for their strong, malt heavy flavoring and became popular among London city porters (hence the name) because it took longer to spoil than other beers and, as the beer aged, the alcohol content increased. Porters became so popular in England that they reached a production scale that, up until that point, no style of beer had ever achieved. This led to large amounts of porter being exported to Ireland and, as a result of the mass appeal of the beer style, an Irish brewer by the name of Arthur Guinness decided to try his hand at brewing the style. This led to the development of Guinness Stout, the most popular draught stout in the world today.
While Guinness is far and away the most popular stout in the world, it is not the only option that people have. In addition to Irish stouts (the style of stout that Guinness falls under) people also enjoy milk stouts, a variation that uses added lactose to add a sweet flavor to the beer, oatmeal stouts, a variation noted for its smoothness thanks to the addition of oats during the brewing process, and Imperial stouts, an even darker style of stout that was first brewed in London and exported to the court of Catherine II of Russia. Delicious on cold winter days and highly customizable, stouts are always a great choice for a winter home brew project.
Join us again next time as we continue to cover some of our favorite home brew beer styles that help make those cold winter nights a little more tolerable. If you would like to brew your own stout this winter but don’t own a home brew system, please visit our website or get in touch with us today. At Brau Supply, we offer the best home brew systems available and strive to provide a product that is not only of the highest quality but also one that helps to streamline the brewing and fermentation process.
More articles how to brew beer
The ultimate guide to Kveik yeast: Unleashing it's fermentation potential
Revolutionizing home brewing: The simplified art of no sparge brewing
Exploring amber ales: A guide with a twist on the traditional recipe
Mastering cold crashing: Enhancing beer clarity and accelerating the aging process
What is the basic function of the fermenter?
What causes a fermenter to heat up?
The art of lagering: A guide to perfecting the cold conditioning process
Troubleshooting fermentation problems in brewing: A comprehensive guide