interesting read. i've never seen that before, nor have i seen anyone use it here in discussion... so i'd say this hasn't quite caught on yet.
I'm struggling to understand them, I understand the general theory but I still don't know wat the values imply wats the difference between a balance value of 3 and a value of 1. Wat value is a balanced value and how can I use it to improve my beers?
your question boils down to "so what does this mean for me?", and my take away is that this knowledge isn't particularly relevant to brewing.
the article is correct that comparing BU:OG between styles isn't a good way of comparing them. but as far as i know, it was never meant for this either.
the key passage, for me, is "The BU:GU ratio works quite nicely for beers with similar apparent attenuation ratios. The Dubbel is highly attenuated, so its starting gravity belies its dryness relative to the Bock." so this formula is useful for comparing beers - is my bock as balanced as my dubbel. but how useful a question is that? saying that BU:OG isn't good for comparing different beers misses the point of that ratio: it's meant to give guidance within a style as to what your bittering ratio should be. in this case, the attenuation differences between various styles is irrelevant, because a recommended/typical BU:OG ratio is for a given style so the attenuation level is already baked in (i.e. all dubbels are assumed to have the same attenuation ratio, so within the style you can ignore this variable).
BU:OG is useful, to me, because I know what bitterness level to aim for depending on my OG. not sure what this new formula adds to my brew day...
