Maybe they’re a little scared: Homebrew does, after all, enjoy a not-undeserved reputation for potency. Or perhaps after decades of drinking lifeless lite lagers, their taste buds have atrophied like unused muscles. Either way, it’s your job as a homebrewer to bring them into the fold, so here are some suggestions that might just get them hooked.
If ever there is an award for the most poorly named beer style, it certainly must go to cream ale. Cream ale contains no cream whatsoever, nor is it even vaguely creamy or cream-like. And cream ale is less an ale than it is an American lager that happens to have been fermented with Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ale yeast). The clean profile means lovers of lite lager are likely to lap up this low-key libation.
Golden ale or blonde ale is a sort of catch-all category for yellowish craft ales whose approachability derives from a soft malt profile balanced by just enough hop bitterness to counterpoint. While homebrewers might include some maize in cream ale, blonde ale is nearly always built exclusively on malt.
For more on all-grain brewing, check out the Craft Beer & Brewing online courses.
While American pale ale has very nearly evolved to mean “light IPA” in recent years, great examples don’t have to drip with hop resins. Go easy on the bittering (but keep it in balance), and use a light hand with the dry hops to avoid scaring off your cautious friends. And consider using hop varieties such as Citra, Amarillo, Mosaic, or Nelson Sauvin that taste more like mango and berries than pine trees and grapefruit.
Finally, if you have the means to brew lagers, then why not brew up a pre-Prohibition pilsner and introduce your charges to a bit of beer history? Mash a blend of North American six-row barley and flaked maize and hop your wort firmly but with restraint. Ferment cold, lager colder, and show your mass market beer buddies what a "real American classic" should taste like.
With the diverse range of beer styles to choose from, there’s a homebrew beer for everyone, even those who don’t know it yet.