That book, of course, is Homebrewing, Volume 1 by Al Korzonas. It’s excellent. It focuses on beginning and intermediate homebrewing, and it’s packed with tons of info. It’s also got a great troubleshooting section which most other books lack. I’ve always wondered if there was going to be a "volume … Continue reading

This press release on BeerAdvocate is interesting: The 9th Annual Amber Waves of Grain Homebrewed Beer Competition is looking for beers made with some very special ingredients. This year’s competition has added a special brewing style called "Category 99 – Gluten Free Brewing". This category, sponsored by Bard’s Tale Beer, … Continue reading

The Number One most important thing in homebrewing is sanitation. You can do almost everything else wrong and as long as your sanitation is good, you can still have a drinkable beer. You need to be religious about keeping everything clean. This point is reinforced in this article: Both Tinsen … Continue reading

At one point when I was homebrewing more, I was dreaming up ideas for what would make a good breakfast beer. Something that could actually be enjoyed once in awhile with (or for) breakfast, like mimosas or Bloody Marys. A fruit beer, or a lambic like Lindemans Framboise are the … Continue reading

Kind of a throwaway article, but still kind of interesting, "Brewer’s goal is a chicken in every pint" is about an award-winning homebrewer who brews with odd ingredients. Just check out some of the ingredients the award-winning home brewer has put in his beer: spinach, sweet potatoes, marshmallows, tea, coffee, … Continue reading

If you’ve been homebrewing for any amount of time, odds are you’ve had at least one explosive occurence with your beer. I have had two, and fortunately I was present to see both of them. The first was a fermenting batch of Toad Spit Stout (from The Complete Joy of … Continue reading

Interesting article in The Anchorage Press here about homebrewers having their recipes brewed by microbreweries. Converting a homebrew recipe to a beer for commercial production is not a matter of simply changing the proportions of ingredients. Certain things are gained and lost in the translation, and because yeast is perhaps … Continue reading

Opened up the first bottle of my Pumpkin Ale this evening. (I would have tried it last week, on Thanksgiving, but I was too sick.) It’s quite good. It has the hint of pumpkin pie spices in the aroma—not as much as I’d like, but it’s noticeable (perhaps next time … Continue reading

We bottled up the Pumpkin Ale this evening, after 8 days in the fermenter. Normally, I would have racked it to a secondary fermenter for another week or so, but I wanted to be able to open a bottle (or two, or three…) for Thanksgiving next week, so no biggie. … Continue reading