Simpler recipes. There's this overwhelming tendency to think that a complex beer must have a complex recipe, that a distinct beer needs a recipe that stands out. The thought is surely mistaken, and some of the best beers I've ever made have been ones with little distinctive about them. Consider my basic porter recipe: 81% pale malt, 8% chocolate malt, 8% medium crystal malt, 3% brown malt; hop it to 30 IBU with no finishing hops; ferment with a British/English/London type yeast. It's a great beer, but nothing about this recipe stand out, except maybe brown malt and what it leaves out. Even better example--weizen: 60% wheat malt, 40% pils or american 2-row, 15-20 IBU with any noble hops, german weizen yeast (I like white labs platinum series Bavarian weizen yeast). Also a great beer. And if you said to me "I already did that recipe, but I want to try a variation" I'd tell you to try either (1) a different weizen yeast or (2) splitting the wheat and pils malt 50/50 or 40/60. I wouldn't tell you to try adding 2 pounds of munich, and 3 oz. 15L crystal malt. I'm not saying that would be a bad beer, or even a bad weizen, but you shouldn't think that it's going to make a better weizen or a better beer just because it is unusual and would stand out in a stack of weizen recipes.

It's worth emphasizing that what stands out is often the amount of ingredients or process in the beer. Imagine a beers who's hop bill is 1 oz. chinook for 60, 1/4 oz EKG and 1/4 oz. Cascade at 40 minutes, 1/2 oz. EKG at 30, 1/2 oz/ oz Cascade at 20 minutes, 1/4 oz each at 10 and 5 minutes, and 1/2 oz. cascade, EKG and Amarillo dry hops. This beer immediately stands out to you. With good reason, you want to see what that tastes like. But do you have any reason to think that this beer will be better or more interesting that a beer that's hoped with 1/2 oz. Chinook for bittering, 1 oz each cascade and EKG for 30 minutes and 3/4 oz cascade and EKG dry hops? No. But I bet if you're a brewer, 3/4 times, you make the first one.

So my next several beers will be attempts to make something special without extra process. I'm going to chose a few grains that I think will make the beer good, and I'm going to choose them with a purpose in mind. I'm not going to try to make a beer that does ten different things in my mouth, which never, in my experience, makes a beer better.

Here's an example, a bitter that I just made (an 8.5 gallon batch): 12 lbs. maris otter, 1 lb. 60 L crystal, 1/4 lb. special B; 1 oz simcoe hops (12.2%) for 60 minutes and 2 oz. whole crystal hops for ten, fermented with white labs british ale yeast. Mashed at 151 degrees for 60 minutes (or there abouts, as I made a few adjustments while mashing.) If anything stands out about this beer, it's the small amount of special B and the limited use of hops.

Another example is a brown ale I haven't made (but hope to): 8 lbs. pale malt, 3/4 lb. 145L crystal malt, 1/4 lb. black patent; an English ale yeast; 25-30 IBU, no finishing hops.

Here's a dry stout (probably the next beer I make): 8 lbs. pale malt, .5 lbs. 145L crystal, 1 lb. roast barley, target to 50 IBU. Depending on how I'm feeling, I might add .5 lbs. of flaked barley for some head retention, but I don't know about that. I'm not really sure why I want the head on my beer not to settle.