Extreme Beers for your Home Draft System

Kegerators are, of course, wonderful inventions. Many beer fans from all over the world enjoy both home brewed beer and commercially produced ales from the comfort of their own homes, thanks to kegerators and other home draft systems. But using only typical beers gets boring - trying out some different beers once in a while can make your home kegerator more fun and exciting again. But what exactly defines an extreme beer? Some care is required when stocking your home draft system with an extreme beer.

See how trying out some different extreme beers can make the home kegerator more fun and exciting.

Home draft systems are a booming business. It is easy to see why – with harsh penalties for drunk driving, cutbacks in public transportation, and the relative ease of availability of parts and units through the internet, it just makes sense to drink beer at home rather than run the risks of going out continually. At least, for those who already have friends, and are not looking for other drunk human contact.

While having your favorite beer always on tap is nice, it is also good to try something new. Many kegerators have multiple taps build in for this reason, but in most cases, these home draft systems do not have enough room for more than one full, regulation sized sanke keg. Home brewers have the advantage in this respect in that they can fit many soda kegs into your typical kegerator. Smaller, pony kegs are available commercially to help non-homebrewing kegerator owners to sidestep the space issue.

If you are interested in extreme beer, it is a good idea to go to the beer store and try a few bottles to see what you might like to buy in bigger quantities. Extreme is qualified in a few ways. Certainly, any beer that has ingredients other than water, yeast, barley, and hops may qualify.

Any beer that has a unique yeast-y or sour flavor qualifies to my palate, but in countries where those beers are the norm, a porter might seem quite extreme. Beer made without hops is often considered extreme, and these ales often have other herbs in the hops’ stead, such as heather, lavender, wormwood, and many other variants. Any ale with fruit or fruit flavor, such as ale containing goji berries, blueberries, pear, apple, or strawberries is likely to have a unique taste.

Extreme beer can also be made by putting the beer through unique ageing processes, such as aging in oak whisky barrels. The beer can also be altered in an extreme way by aging uncommon ingredients inside the ale during the fermentation or carbonation phase of brewing. The addition of nuts, chocolate, coffee beans, ginger, and wild tasting bacteria or yeast strains can certainly make a beer taste extreme.

It is important, whether pouring an extreme home brew, or an extreme beer that is commercially produced, that one takes the proper care of one’s kegerator. Whenever trying out an “extreme beer”, it is a good idea to have beer line cleaner on hand. Extreme beers may have very strong fruit or yeast flavors that would not translate well to beers from which these flavors did not originate. Always clean your beer lines in between kegs.

For the home brewer, it is a much simpler process to get a hold on a keg of extreme beer. All one has to do is add some chipotles to a porter, or pear juice to a pale ale, and you have a new and interesting taste sensation. For those kegerator owners who stock their home draft system with commercially produced kegs of ale, it is important to find a beer store that specializes in such kegs. A call to your local beer distributor might be helpful in finding the retail outlet you are looking for or try this beer wholesaler directory.

Related Kegerator Articles :
Draft Beer System Setup for Home Brewed Beer -- See why homebrew kegs often condition your ales better than bottles do.
Homebrew Kegging -- Tips why homebrew kegging allows greater ease than bottling, is a savings of time.
Extreme Recipe: Fortified Fennel Porter -- Beer Recipes for Keg Conditioning in Your Kegerator.