Where are the good beer makers?

[Mr. Guru]

Forget the kit and the bottling.

Besides those, do you see anything wrong with this process?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCW-...&nohtml5=False

[Mr. Guru]

FHG, you ever try brewing a classic american lager. A light lager close pretty much.

Any tips?

[fantasyhockeygeek]

No problems with the classic, simple process of course! It's where we all start. Then we get carried away.

I tend to prefer ales just because they're so much faster to turn around than lagers, and need much less finicky temperature control. For lagers you really need to be able to give them a nice long rest at a low temperature (4-6C) so you need to have the right setup for that.

If you've got just the simplest gear, you'll be much better off using a light grain bill (like in a classic american lager) but working with an ale yeast, as those are generally happy and effective at room temperature.

Happy to help, just holler if you want more info!

[Mr. Guru]

Any tips with trying to make a Hoegarden clone?

And, FHG, have you ever done a fruit beer? A 'beer' like Fruli, more specifically.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

Get the yeast strain and fermentation temperature right. Hoegaarden has a pretty common and cloned malt bill so that should be the easy part.

Never made a fruit beer but I've made loads of sours. I'd expect the trick would be to make sure the fruit addition isn't contaminated with any undesirable yeast/bacteria?