Category: Projects and Thoughts

Sorry, yet another book review, the good news is I am on…

I’m a bit of a beer/brewing book collector, I have a Library of twenty or so books, and my amazon wish list is sure to have a few brewing books on it. I have recipe books, basic brewing books, advanced technique books, scientific books, historical brewing books, books about starting a brewing businesses, the list goes on. I have so many unread, that I made a goal for 2014 not to purchase any more books until I’ve gotten through the backlog. Fortunately I preordered this book back in March of 2013 so it doesn’t count as failing against that goal. When this book finally arrived I did not expect to pick it up for some time, or do what I did, read it cover to cover in a week.

For 2013 I set achievable goals, and I believe I met all…

This is not my usual brew day recap, I’ve planning on brewing a big imperial stout, and I wanted to use all the grains we were putting in the mash tun to create two beers instead of just one. This calls for leveraging the age old Parti-gyle technique. While the technique is old school, I’ve yet to find a modern tool that can design a parti-gyle recipe.

Making a mead has been in my brewing pipeline for quite some time. Last fall I took a swing at a cyser, but it was really more of a honey fortified cider, than a real cyser. Having tried a really good example at one of the BFD club meetings, I knew I wanted to make a better example. After listening to Michael Fairbrother (member of, and former President of BFD) of Moonlight Meadery on BeerSmith’s podcast talking about meads, and specifically Kurts Apple Pie (Cyser) I had a fairly good idea how to make a cyser I was hoping for.

Posting some belated tasting notes for the Heady Topper Clone which was brewed…

Brewing is a involved endeavor. To plan and pack all of my…

This is a review of my attempt to brew a traditional english mild using the brewing classic styles recipe. I’ve been all about session beers lately. It’s nice to be able to enjoy a pint, or two and not feel it in the morning. I feel like too many of the homebrewing recipes I come across start at 1065, and only go up from there. This beer started where many a homebrew stopped, 1.030, and…

This beer is the culmination of brain storming and contemplating seasonal brewing over the last few months. Back in July when the commercial pumpkin beers hit the shelves I was quite perturbed. They were invading my summer beer shelf space with sweet, overly spiced wheat beers way too early. I was still enjoying refreshing berliner weisses, hoppy pales and IPA’s. I made a personal resolution to avoid buying all pumpkin beers this year. I can’t sit idly by when they put the beer out so early that it’s old by the time fall sets in and I want to enjoy one. Since I wasn’t planning on purchasing any pumpkin beer, I figured I would need to make my own, when pumpkins and squash were in season.

This is a review of my first sour beer a berliner weisse made with 100% local grain. I split the batch into two versions, they are the same sour mashed wort and the same primary fermentation.