Blending Beers

[Dirty Horse]

Hi,

I have read that you can blend home brewed beers successfully.

I have several bottles kicking around of a strong, sweet and well hopped brew that didn't come out the way I wanted. Plus a lighter brew that doesn't have the hop bitterness I was looking for.

If I was to mix these 2 together should i ferment it again with some yeast and then bottle with sugar to carbonate or is there is a different process for blending 2 "failed attempts" together.

 

[jmcnamara]

Since they're both bottled and carbed, your best bet may be to just blend it for each one you drink, maybe in varying ratios to test what's good. But keep in their original bottles like now until you want one.

I think for a new blended beer, you'd have to estimate the co2 volumes of the finished batch and adjust your sugar accordingly when you blend prior to bottling. Maybe a little less sugar than what would be called for until you get a sense of how it carbonates.

Keep in mind I've never done or really looked into this

 

[Nosybear]

You could degas and blend - pour all of each beer into two sanitized buckets, stir vigorously, then blend and re-bottle. That's a lot of effort and a risk of oxidation if you can't keep oxygen out. Either blend in the glass or drink as-is, my recommendation.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I have a 4 tap system and I regularly blend beers in my glass just to try, most of the time its a light beer blended with a very hoppy beer, a rich beer with a thin beer or a bitter beer with a sweet beer, I just do 1/2 to 1/2 or 1/4 to 3/4. most of the time its great

 

[GernBlanston]

Blend away, and I hope you get something you like. Just remember, in most cases, blending two sub par beers can produce a beer that tastes like ass. Just saying.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

Man this is good, took a Blond 75% and blended it with 25% of a very strong alcohol pale ale and Loving it, just perfect

 

[jmcnamara]

the new issue of Zymurgy has an article on blending. haven't read it yet though