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Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

Cheap beer amusingly is often some of the hardest to “craft” - pilsners require some skill.

Home brewery stores get people asking if they can make Budweiser to start and have to be steered toward a stout or Porter as those are much more forgiving.

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Oft repeated but not true. The commercial processes used to brew cheap beer make it incredibly easy. There weren't a ton of strong flavors to start with and extra steps to remove flavors (ex aging on beechwood) make a consistent result easy. You're using 1 variety of hop, 1 or 2 of barley (or rice), and a battle-tested yeast, no dry-hopping, much easier to control. 100 bbl in a single run then you filter it until it practically runs clear.

Much harder to make some wacky IPA w/7 hops, adjunct stout with breakfast cereal or foudre-aged wild ale and have it not turn out horribly. You can't hide that many mistakes. Your local brewery has a pilsner.

The point is that making a beer with a simpler taste profile is harder to control. The 7 hops wacky thing is easier because no one knows what it's supposed to taste like and there's so much going on any off flavors are hidden.

That being said, I like macro brews and crazy beers. They both have their place.

Exactly - and the pilsner is "easy" with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment to monitor and measure everything.

But at home, with imperfect tools? You can make almost anything but you can't make it twice.

Even some of the craft breweries have difficulty keeping the taste consistent on their brews (this is the reason behind "limited edition runs" often).

No it's easy with an electric kettle system too, or even brewing in jugs. That's why a lot of new brewers start with SMASH recipes, they're easy. There are enough DIPAs on the market now that we know they don't cover flaws that much.

Most “cheap” beers use lager yeasts and have subtle flavours by moderating the yeast temperature. Temperature control during fermentation is probably the most important factor, and many new home brewers do not have the equipment to control it yet. Furthermore, ale yeasts are usually happier at room temperature and more forgiving for unexpected flavours (than lager yeasts). So whilst you are right to say cheap commercial beers are “easy” (for commercial brewers), they are actually harder to get a “good” result for most new home brewers. I always suggest beginners start with a basic ale.

I'll take a lager from a homebrewer that can't do a decent diacetyl rest is before drinking some macroswill though!

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