Malts or Hops <whats your choice>

[bierman2000]

Is your favorite beer hoppy or malty and why?

[toneyc]

Well, I am only a recent arrival to "real beer", only one year, so I'm not sure I know enough to make an informed answer to your question. I like hoppy beers like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Lagunitas IPA, but I'm not sure I've had anything malty. Could you give me some examples that might point me in the right direction? I like porters and stouts, are those malty?

:) Toney.

[bierman2000]

Stouts and porters are usually maltier ales. Porters being of a less complex nature and Stouts having both a blend of malts and hops , one where the beer taste different throughout. The West coast brews don't make it out to the East coast often and another example are Barleywines. Old Foghorn, Bigfoot Ale are good examples and are usually brewed a bit differently each year.

[Richard English]

Although this may be a common experience, it is not necessarilly true that stouts are more or less hoppy than bitters.

The darkness of the stout (or come to that, a porter) is due to the degree of roast of the malt. The more roast the blacker the beer. In fact, the most famous stout of all, Guinness, was originally brewed when the Arthur Guinness over-roasted his malt an went ahead and brewed with it nonetheless.

The maltiness of a beer depends on the amount of malt used in relation to the other ingredients (and if the beer is brewed under the strictest rule (such as the Rheinheitsgebot) it will contain only malt, water hops and yeast and thus it it will be the proportion of malt to hops. In beers brewed using other sugars, then the balance of those against the malt will also affect the taste; the more of the cheaper sugars, the less malty.

The hoppiness of the beer depends on the amount of hops used (as well as the type of hop).

Mild beers (I suspect possibly an unknown style in the USA) contain fewer hops than bitter beers and are usually, but not always, less strong.

Don't confuse the burnt bitterness imparted by heavily roasted malt (as in Guinness) with the bitterness of a high hop level (as in Goose Island IPA).

[skar]

Originally posted by Richard English

Mild beers (I suspect possibly an unknown style in the USA) contain fewer hops than bitter beers and are usually, but not always, less strong.


Not quite unknown, but very, very rare. I've heard of two of them.

Back to the second question, Scottish ales come to mind as great examples of malty beer. Try Belhaven Wee Heavy, Traquir House Ale, and Orkney Skullsplitter.

Back to the original question, I enjoy beers from every style. But I drink hoppy beers most often.

[Richard English]

Belhaven beers are a little too sweet for me (but still fine). Traquair House. Well, now you're talking...!

[hnrblbrbrn]

I'm partial to the malts, especially Guinness. My homebrewing tends to run dark beer having no hops and the paler ones being hoppier. I keep planning to hop a darker beer, but I keep feeling it's wrong.

[toneyc]

Hmmmm, the three or four stouts that I've made all had hops in them, Irish Stout: 2 oz Bullion, 1 oz Willamette, Russian Imperial Stout: 3 oz Magnum, 1 oz Cascade, Oatmeal Stout: 1 oz Challenger, 1 oz Fuggle, and there was one more I think, that I can't find.

On the beerguts page, I get an error about needing a newer version of the Java Virtual Machine (not available for NT) but it seems to work OK. I dunno if I'm missing anything or not.

:) Toney.

[fidcastro]

I definately lean towards the hoppy end. I was just looking at the list of beers I've had in my kegerator since I got it, and about 2/3 of them have been on the hoppy side - mostly IPA, a few bitters. The malty ones have been my wife's selections. I'm not complaining though. Most of them have been good, and I am just thankful to have a wife that likes beer as much as I do.:D

Fid