towards a more balanced beer ?

Or a beer thats on target to be malty - balanced - hoppy

I saw mention in another post about the ratio of  IBU:OG  and that same thread had graph of OG vs. IBUs.

http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php?topic=1786.0

I did some googling about  IBU:OG but I'm still a bit clueless on what that number tells you. The graph is interesting -- but is it a style chart - a suggested range of brewing values ---- or what if your recipe is "off the chart" into the white areas is that bad ? Both sound interesting as tools but I'm not sure how they relate back to the actual beer you will create.

My head hurts

That is a great visual - thanks for sharing.  I'm a big fan of using that IBU:GU ratio to help compare recipes and to dial in on the malts/hops balance I am targeting.  Take the American Pale Ale style:  the IBUs for an APA can range from 30 to 50, and the OG (or GU) can range from 1.045 to 1.060.  Using the midpoints of each would be 40:52, or 0.77.  That corresponds to Extra Hoppy on the graph. 

But a mildly bittered (30 IBU) malt bomb of 1.060 would be 30:60, or 0.50, and evenly balanced on the graph.  I think that is where style comes in...the APA should be hoppy and a porter more evenly balanced.  And what we do for our tastebuds may differ from brewing a style to enter at competition.  (And I won a BOS with an APA of 63:51, or 1.23, clearly off in the white zone, so there is more going on than just these numbers.) 

And the BU:GU ratio helps a lot when copying a recipe into BeerSmith.  I usually enter the recipe verbatim with the author's batch size, lbs and ozs of ingredients, etc., so that the percentages and the BU:GU ratio are the same.  Then I scale it to my batch size.  That is also why it helps to know the hops model used (Rager, Tinseth, etc.) by the author because that greatly affects the top number in that ratio. 

When my head hurts, I drink a home brew.  Have you tried that?