How to Brew A Crowd Pleaser

We have all been there. There is an event coming up that you want, or have been asked, to brew a beer for, and you want to brew up something that sets itself apart from the light lagers that so many are fond of while remaining accessible to those same light lager drinkers. It is a delicate balance, but with some forethought, you can brew an ale that delights the palate of everyone at that next big event, regardless of what they normally drink.

What Makes an Ale a Crowd Pleaser?

Now, when we say a crowd pleaser, we know what we really mean; a beer that our macro-lager drinking friends and family will enjoy, while packing in character that craft beer drinkers will appreciate, striking a nice balance between the two. Aside from style, which we will get to in the next section, there are four main characteristics that make for a beer that will be loved by all.

Light – This is perhaps the most critical factor because one of the chief complaints about craft beer that I hear from BMC drinkers is that its mouthfeel is too heavy. You do not need your beer to be bone dry, but you should aim for your beer to be medium-bodied or lighter.

Refreshing – Imagine a beer that you would want to drink after mowing the lawn on a hot summer day, and that is how refreshing your beer should be. And nothing makes a beer more refreshing than being effervescent from higher than average levels of carbonation. 2.7 – 3.2 volumes of CO2 should be sufficient without over-carbonating your beer.

Low Hops – Your beer does not need to be devoid of hops, but to make the beer as accessible as possible to as many drinkers as possible, you should use a light hand when administering your hops. A light bittering charge followed by an equally light flavor charge. The way I think about hopping a beer like this is that the casual drinker should be able to taste the hops without being able to identify the flavor as coming from hops.

Low Alcohol – This is not a strict requirement, but if we are being honest, part of the draw of BMC is its session-able nature, and you can use that to your advantage in designing a crowd pleaser of an ale. Between that and the fact that session beers are becoming more and more popular among craft beer drinkers, it is hard to go wrong in keeping your beer in the neighborhood of 5% ABV or less.

Crowd Pleasing Beer Styles

We all know there are a multitude of styles to choose from, and many of them — too many to write about in this article — could theoretically be made into a crowd pleasing ale. However, there a few styles that lend themselves particularly well to pleasing crowds, and that is because of their inherent conformance to the above-mentioned characteristics. Here are some styles that work well as crowd pleasing ales:

Blonde – Just about anyone who likes beer will drink a blonde ale. A great style to choose when you want to maximize your chances of success, while having a bit of latitude to add some character.
Kölsch – This choice is a bit bolder, but still very doable. I brewed a Kölsch for my brother’s wedding, and it was a resounding success despite the extra punch of flavor Kölsch yeast imparts to the beer.
Cream Ale – Another solid choice that is hard to go wrong with. This style is about the closest you are going to get to BMC without dipping down into lager territory. While you are, of course, not bound by the style guidelines in home brewing, if you are going to stay true to style, this one has the least amount of wiggle room in terms of adding character.
American Wheat – I like doing this style as a crowd pleaser because you get a beer that is akin to a German hefeweizen, just without all the banana and clove yeast character that is likely to scare off non-craft beer drinkers.

As I said, this list is far from exhaustive, but for your first foray into brewing for the widest audience possible, these are the styles that I feel you are most likely to have success with.

Technical Considerations

Now, for the fun part! How do we actually design our recipes to achieve the characteristics listed above? There are several technical considerations that go into designing a recipe for a crowd pleasing ale, and while they are all fairly straightforward taken individually, getting them to play well together in a way that will tickle anyone’s taste buds is the true art of brewing a crowd pleasing ale.

Grain Selection – Depending on the crowd you are trying to please, bold flavors may be appropriate, but for the purposes of this article, we are trying to brew for the widest audience possible, so that means light grains are the theme of the day. Feel free to experiment, of course, but in my own brewing, I have found that the lighter in color the beer, the more likely the non-craft drinking public are to enjoy your beer. That is why I generally stick to the lightest grains, and add character by adjusting other parts of the recipe. Here are some staple grains that I use when brewing a beer that anyone can drink:

• Pilsner
• Pale Ale
• American 2-row
• Marris Otter
• Golden Promise

Amount of Grain – In keeping with the goal of staying under 5% ABV in your beer, you are not going to be using a whole lot of grain. It is going to vary, of course, based on the efficiency of your system, and the exact grains you use, but generally you will not be using any more than 10 pounds of grain for a five gallon batch at 75% brew house efficiency, which is how my system performs.

Mash Temperature – To achieve the light to medium body that we are looking for, we need to keep our mash temperature low, but not so low that it results in a bone dry beer. Without getting into the science behind mash temperature (to which I could devote an entire article), the basic principle is that lower mash temperatures result in a wort with more fermentable sugar than the same mash at a higher temperature. Thus, a higher mash temperature will result in a beer with more body, which we are not looking for here. The ideal mash temperature range to achieve the body we are after, in my experience, is 149 – 153 F (65 – 67.2 C).

Hopping Schedule – We are keeping our hop character low for these beers. Remember, to the casual drinker, the hops should be detectable, but not identifiable as hops. You are going to want a small bittering charge to balance the low malt sweetness, and then a small flavor charge to add a bit of hop character without being overpowering. You generally want to choose hops on the lower end of the alpha acid scale so that if you accidentally use too much, it won’t affect the beer as much as a higher alpha acid hop variety. Which hop varieties you use is up to you, but in in general, the safer option is to avoid the fruitier hops. However, given the sheer number of hop varieties, and their associated characteristics, experimentation will often lead to some amazing beers that still please a wide variety of palates.

Yeast – This part of the recipe is easy, but worth mentioning for completeness’s sake. Any clean fermenting, medium to high attenuating yeast strain will do very well, such as California Ale, American Ale, US-05, or Kölsch (if you decide to brew a Kölsch). Again, feel free to experiment because you can turn a run-of-the-mill beer into a great, yet still crowd pleasing, beer just by changing the yeast to one that throws some esters and adds a little extra depth.

Example Recipes Sure to Be a Crowd Pleaser

Here are two recipes of my own that saw great success and high praise from even the most staunchly anti-craft beer drinkers I know. The first one is a blonde ale recipe that I designed for the brewery that I am co-founding, which got rave reviews at our first tasting event open to the general public. The second one is the Kölsch that I brewed for my brother’s wedding some years ago that even my Bud Light-for-life aunt enjoyed. I would love to hear from anyone who brews these, or any other recipe based off of the information in this article, and whether they were successful in pleasing your particular crowd. Cheers!

Scuttlebutt Blonde Ale (5-gallon, 75% Efficiency)
Mash Temperature – 152 F (66.7 C)

Notes:Ferment at 68F, carbonate to 2.7 volumes.

Goldilocks Kölsch (5-gallon, 75% efficiency)
Mash Temperature – 152 F (66.7 C)

Notes:Ferment at 65F, carbonate to 3 volumes.

by Aaron Lott
Aaron started brewing while he was in the U.S. Navy, and has been home brewing for more than nine years. He is currently in the process of turning his passion for brewing into a career by starting his own brewery near Houston, TX. He lives in Houston where he goes to law school at Thurgood Marshall School of Law.

Want to Read More About Recipe Formulation? Check Out This Article »

After most of us have a few brew days behind us, and possibly a few beers in our belly, we get the bright idea that we can make a stellar recipe…on our first try. As I like to say, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.” However, chances are that squirrel is not you!I remember my first recipe – a southern English brown ale. I looked at the BJCP guidelines for 11B and saw there was a large emphasis on the “sweetness” in this style. I proceed to throw over 2-lbs of crystal 60L malt in that five gallon recipe and used very little hops which contributed to a low bitterness. A few weeks later my taste buds received a thorough lesson on the definition of a cloyingly sweet beer…

The post How to Brew A Crowd Pleaser appeared first on HomeBrewTalk.com.