In the never ending quest to find new ways to tinker with our beers and produce better flavors, it's been promoted that to produce more ester and phenol characters in a brew, one should pitch less yeast. 

The theory is pretty simple - esters and phenols can be by product of poor yeast health or a stressful fermentation. This gets pounded into your head during BJCP training and is one of the reasons brewers have been recommended to make starters to ensure they have plenty of healthy yeast at the ready to tackle the job.

It's happened to us all - too many kegs, not enough time left to "properly" carbonate your beer before it needs to be served. Who knows, maybe you have a party or club meeting. Maybe you just need a beer, damnit. 

There's been a big kerfluffle in the online brewing world this year over "LoDO" brewing aka Low Dissolved Oxygen brewing. Proponents of the extremely complex methodology theorize that by reducing the amount of oxygen entrained at all times in the mash or the boil that you prevent oxidative reactions that damage the beer's flavor and reduces the overall malt character.

The reason they're obsessed is they're driven to recreate the "it" character they claim German beers have with their malts that they find lacking in many commercial and homebrews.

The IPA is the king of the current American craft beer scene and in recent years the new belle of the Hop Ball has hailed from New England. Heady Topper from Vermont's Alchemist was the first to catch beer lover's attention and since then many beers in the same vein have appeared. Skipping over a great many of the discussion of the style centering on the word "juicy" - a number of beer exhibit an intense hazy appearance. This murk is a controversial part of the equation (not every example has it for instance).

A number of homebrewers, even advanced all-grain veterans like Denny, don't own a mill at home. Many depend on the mill at their homebrew supplier. (Denny uses a friend's mill.) They buy their grains crushed courtesy of their store of choice. Naturally, life happens after we've crushed our malt and everyone is afraid of the ticking time bomb that is crushed malt. Naturally, since we're homebrewers we don't want to waste our money ingredients if we don't have to - so can we use that pre-crushed malt?

Some studies have shown that First Wort Hopping (FWH) actually produces about 10 percent more measureable IBUs than a 60-minute addition, but it tastes less bitter. Is this true? Should we all be First Wort Hopping our beers. Wait a tick - what's First Wort Hopping? Simple - it's a process of adding a hop addition into the boil kettle immediately as you begin running off from the mash tun. The hops stay in and you boil them for the full time of the boil.