One of the most challenging things about brewing is that there’s no bible. No law. Sure, the Germans gave it a shot with the Reinheitsgebot, but even that was more about the shopping list and less about what you did with the ingredients. Simply put: there’s no set of rules out there telling brewers what to do. We need to come up with it on our own, which means that in this question of what makes for a “good” beer, there’s literally no answer that we can all accept. If you listen to beer drinkers and brewers, however, you may notice that they often throw a word out there that seems to be valuable in their assessments, recipe formulations, and flavor profiles: balance.
“Have you tried that new DIPA? They really balanced the sweetness with the bitterness.”
“That porter I made last week found a nice balance between roast and smoothness—it was like drinking café au lait.”