By now we all know how easy it is to get consistently “good” beer, but many of us probably didn’t know just how easy it is to get consistently “great” beer with minimal effort. It is easy to tailor a beer to your particular taste and style with out much extra cost.

In becoming creative in beer making, there are no limits as to what you can do. You can take anyone of the standard beer packs that are available and modify is style by adding only the simplest of ingredients.

Tip: My only caution when exploring this maze is use only proper beer making products as these are balanced for sound fermentations. Bakery extracts etc are unsuitable for beer making.

Fields of Change

As we know, all beers are made from the same basic ingredients. Both the subtle and substantial differences come from purely what is picked to use from the list below, and the amount of each ingredients used. There are just three ingredients on the list to choose from that compose all beers:

1.      The Fermentables

2.      The hops

3.      The Yeast

Of course there are other additives (such as finings and dry enzyme's) but they don’t actually compose your beer, the simply add of take from it.

The Fermentables

This is the main area open for manipulation in beer making as this where the style of beer is formed. From a pale ale type, through the amber’s, the dark’s and to the heaviest of stouts.

The principal ingredient in beer is malt (malted barley). Even wheat beers use a foundation of malt, mainly for enzyme and filtration purposes. During malting, the barley is processed to different degrees, resulting in a variety of malts ready for brewery use.

There are basically three different types of malts.

Lager malt’s: Usually the lightest in colour it is regularly used in producing commercial pale ale’s and lagers.

Crystal malt grain: slightly darker in colour and used in such commercial beers like Tooheys new

Chocolate or Roasted Malt: This is a dark malt used in most stouts and dark beers.

By combining different types of malts a good brewer can compose any beer imaginable. The flavours imparted by these malts are as follows:

• Lager (Carmalt) Malt – Lightest colour possible, carries a soft toffee caramel flavour.
• Crystal Malt – A full rich crystal caramel, butty flavour. Reddish/brown colour
• Chocolate Malt – A light mild roasted flavour.
• Roasted Malt – A roasted, bitter mocha flavour.

Some beers can be made entirely from malt, which by the way is the law in some parts of Europe.

Good home brew packs are formulated from these various malts then concentrated to malt extract. They are also fermented with the addition of some sort of sugar. Companies here in Australia put out what they call Brewing Sugars or Brew Boosters, these are generally blends of sugars for adding flavour to the beer packs to either enhance or modify the flavour. Another company manufactures a range of plain malt extracts such as Carmalt, crystal and chocolate and roasted malts (Morgan's). The use of these allows you to completely compose you own beers exactly as the breweries do, or to add a can of one of the specialised malts to a beer pack instead of sugar. All you really have to do is dream up the type of beer you want, then go ahead and do it.