Not a whole lot to write about tonight, mostly because I’m super busy on a web project that needs to be done by the end of the month. But I did try a bottle of Widmer‘s Snowplow Milk Stout tonight, and I quite like it; I’ll do a formal review … Continue reading

Yes, I’m still on the topic of Poor Richard’s Ale. Today I thought I’d share the extract-based recipe for Poor Richard’s that I devised based on the all-grain recipe (PDF)—for those of us homebrewers who don’t brew all-grain yet, or don’t have the time. The recipe is a bit simpler … Continue reading

Last night I finally got around to making the pumpkin ale that I talked about way back in November (the pumpkin was frozen, so I was still able to use it). I followed my recipe here, with a couple of variations: I used American 2-row malt for the partial mash … Continue reading

Here’s a fun little first-of-the-year account (or end-of-the-year, depending on how you look at it) of something you rarely get in commercial beers: excessing foaming. I had a bottle chilled to about 45 degrees and when opened, foam immediately started spilling out of the bottle. I quickly got it into … Continue reading

One of the things on my list to do someday with homebrew is kegging. Several years ago, I picked up a cornelius keg, CO2 tank and the necessary hoses and regulator from a garage sale, and as near as I can tell it’s all in usable condition. I’d simply have … Continue reading

Sorry I hadn’t posted much for the first week of this month—my in-laws were in town and we were celebrating a birthday, so we had a busy week in the real world. Anyway, I still have a bunch of pumpkin in the freezer that I’m going to brew with, and … Continue reading

I’ve got enough pumpkin this year for two nice batches of my pumpkin ale. I’m thinking I’ll make my regular recipe for the first batch, and then maybe experiment with an Imperial Pumpkin style recipe for a Christmas/winter ale. Or maybe start with the heftier beer since it’ll take longer … Continue reading

When bottling your homebrew, you typically need to "prime" the beer with a bit of sugar to reinvigorate the yeast enough to produce the desired carbonation in the bottle. This primer can be straight sugar (corn sugar is typical, but table sugar would work too), or another source of fermentable … Continue reading

I really like this article on homebrewing: Ale alchemy. It’s a good overview of the craft, an interview with and profile of a guy running a homebrew supply shop, and even an interesting source of homebrew trivia/oddities. Martin poured the dregs of the beer, murky with yeast, into a shot … Continue reading

Now here’s a recipe that doesn’t sound half bad: Peanut Butter Porter v0.1, from the SleezySherm Breweries weblog. He took steps to minimize the amount of oil going into the beer; I don’t think you can completely remove the oil from peanut butter, and it’s the oil that prevents head … Continue reading