Brew a Light Beer? WHY?!?!

That question is what I had asked myself as soon as I discovered beers that were *not* light. Well, my class at UC Davis finally gave me a good answer to that question.

As with any good discussion of beer, a lot of unpleasant comments were made in reference to the most popular beers in this country during our class: Bud, Coors, and Miller. But the discussion took a turn that I did not expect. Our prof, Michael Ramsey, surprised us by commenting, "Say what you will about light beers, but try to brew one yourself and you'll find quite a challenge." He reasoned that brewing a beer with hardly any flavor is much more difficult than brewing one that is over-hopped, over-malted, or that is loaded with fruit or spices. "You have fewer flavors to hide your mistakes behind," he told us.

Well, I decided to take up his challenge and see how good my brewing, fermentation, and sanitation is. Today I brewed Morebeer's American Light Ale kit (from extract) at the shop.

First thing's first, I did a started of White Labs: California Ale Yeast (WLP001) to get the yeast culture awake and ready to go for pitching.

Then came brew day (another day I have been paid to brew). We were at a full boil by noon and well under way.

After some light hop additions and a good vigorous boil, it was time to cool the beer. Our immersion chiller works wonders for this process! And you can use the water for your cleaner, rinse, and sanitizer.

Finally I took a gravity (1.042: definitely on the lower end) and pitched in the yeast.

Lag time was about 35 seconds and it took off like a bat out of hell! I'm guessing the beer will finish faster than any other I've done before. This test will hopefully show where the mistakes I'm making are (assuming I'm making mistakes) and will tell me what I need to work on to make cleaner, better beer.

Thanks for reading!

-Richard