Expert: Keith Patton - 12/25/2008

Question
I am thinking about starting to  brew my own beer. Can lite beer be homed brewed? Thanks for any help.

Answer
Randy:

Trying to brew lite beer is kind of like trying to build you own car from scratch.  Why bother?

Lite beers and even american regular lager beers are bland and tasteless.  BUT, they are masterfully consistent.  Until you start brewing you won't appreciate how much effort and skill it takes to make budweiser and miller taste bland and flavorless on a consistent basis.

There are a myriad of variables in brewing beer that can add flavor, some are desirable, some are not.

European ales for instance, are becoming very popular in the US, hence Budweiser American Ale.  It has more flavor and is heavier.  It can also hide more inconsitency in its larger bouquet of flavor.  In lite beers or american light lagers ANY off flavor will show through.  That is why you have to take you hat off to Bud and Miller for making their beer so consistent, if undrinkable.

So again I ask, why bother.  Making a good light lager beer at home is a very difficult task.  You need not only the normal beer making equipment, but also a refrigerator to lager it in with an additional thermostat for precise temperature control.  You will also need a kegging system, since bottle conditioning (the way most home brew is carbonated in the bottle) leaves a yeast sediment in the bottle which will make the beer a bit cloudy and yeasty and will probably lead to disappointing results if you like lite beer.

A kegging system can eliminate this and allows forced carbonation of the beer in the keg.

Keith