What Are The Easiest Beers To Home Brew?

Believe it or not, learning to brew your own beer is very similar to learning how to bake. A pastry chef in training doesn’t start with a chocolate soufflé, so don’t start out your experiments in home brewing with a style that’s tricky like a witbier or a tripel! Most if not all beers require a certain attention to detail if you want to make sure your batch turns out the way you want it to. That being said, some beers are more forgiving to the new home brewer than others. In general, lagers are trickier than ales since they have to be kept at a cooler temperature during fermentation (i.e., not room temperature). If you’re new to home brewing, you’ll probably want to start with one of the easiest beers to brew. Following are five good styles that will help you start your life as a home brewer on the right foot.

The Five Easiest Beers To Brew At Home:

American Amber Ale This malty, caramel colored ale features a low to average amount of hops. Amber ales are easy to brew because any type of hop or malt you use will produce a quality beer with a rich, toasty flavor. American Pale Ale As anyone that enjoys pale ales knows, their defining bitter flavor is determined by the amount of hops used. Pale ales have low malt levels, are a great way to satisfy your hop cravings, and allow you to experiment with hop usage without ruining the beer. American Wheat Beer Notice a pattern here? American wheat beers don’t require a lot of unique ingredients as long as wheat malt extract is used. The hop levels can vary with this light- to medium-bodied beer, and yeast is the only ingredient that requires extra attention. Brown Ale Brown ales have a few more restrictions on the type of hop and malt compared to the three styles above. There are subtle differences between English and American styles, but both are easy enough for a beginner- to novice-level home brewer. Dunkelweizen The dunkelweizen is a perfect example of a beer that sounds more complicated to make than it actually is. It’s versatile depending on your taste for hops and malts, but basically is a combination of a wheat beer with a dark, rich German dunkel. These types of beer are typical springboards to more advanced beer recipes, but each is popular for reasons beyond their versatility and simple creation. Chief among the reasons is that they’re all delicious!