Blending Different Brews

[nigebeer]

Has anyone tried blending their own different brews together?

[Eric]

Yes, several times.

[jaroporter]

oh yes.

..now if only i could keep more beers on tap more often..

[wezzel01]

Yes, handy if you over bitter a brew and can tone it down with something less bitter. I remember my standard pub tipple when I was a teenager was a pint of light and bitter


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[Mashman]

I remember my standard pub tipple when I was a teenager was a pint of light and bitter

Me too, 1970 ish ?

[wezzel01]

A little bit later. Around 1978. The barman would be chatting and forget to stop pouring so I often ended up with a full pint of bitter AND a bottle of light ale for the price of a pint


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[a-slayer]

I used to love a light split as we called it, always felt like you got that little extra beer as the bitter was always overfilled. That would have been 1978 as well

[Haydnexport]

Have done this a few times with over bittered brews , works a treat.

[wilfh]

Eric, Jaraporter- could you elaborate? What did you do and what was the rational and did it work?
Wilf

[Barley Water]

If you mess around with sour ales you should probably be prepared to engage in blending. I'm not doing it now but for about 5 years I would make an Aud Bruin every year. The first year, I saved the entire batch. The next year, I took half of the first batch and half of the second batch, blended them and bottled the blend (leaving me with the same blend in storage). The next year, I again did the same thing so after a while I had some really aged beer in the blend. With sours, you can get some weirdness so blending tends to get you a more uniform product. I am seriously thinking about getting this going again although this time I think I will try for more of a Rodenbach type beer. Oh, and you can also add fruit, spices, oak or whatever and really create a unique drinking experience. Big fun but extreme patience is required.

[Sadfield]

Not tried blending yet. Although, I have just started doing something vaguely similar to Barley Wine. I have a Farmhouse Brown Ale, with various Yeasts and Bacteria, sitting in a 9L corny keg with oak chunks. The plan is to draw of 6L every 6 months and top up with a fresh beer.

Would love to do a parti-gyle sometime possibly with the Fullers recipe below, although that's blending wort.

Would be interested if anyone has done similar.https://beerandbrewing.com/practical-parti-gyle-brewing

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[jaroporter]

but seriously it's great for picking up old beers with fresh ones, adding depth/flavour to brews, diluting a strong ale or just to drink something a bit different. careful blending can even make a bad beer drinkable sometimes.

i once poured a whole keg of ipa and porter 50-50 cause the blended export porter was so good.

sadfield, i partigyled once or twice but i rarely have enough boilers or fermenters available for that. it's definitely cool to do but i found more convenient ways to get multiple brews out of my setup. makes a little more sense at commercial levels i think but still fun if you want to go for it

[Eric]

Eric, Jaraporter- could you elaborate? What did you do and what was the rational and did it work?
Wilf

When a firkin was needed for a daughter's wedding with a then maximum brewlength of 23 litres, two brews were combined. The recipes were similar, but the second was adjusted to ameliorate the properties of the first to meet the requirement. More recently, without a suitable beer on hand to bottle for another occasion, two were put together in proportion to suit.

I can have up to 6 beers in plastic (Wilko type) barrels and very often the best drink can be a mix. As some beers are coming to the end of their lives it can be revived by mixing with a new one. But what I think you are after is the combination of two or more brews into a single cask or container.

This is best done when the beers have conditioned when by trial and error the proportions of each brew can be confirmed. It is inevitable some oxygen will be introduced and dissolved CO2 will be lost. To overcome the potential dangers it is essential to ensure live and active yeast is still present and there is sufficient nutrition and sugars present.