New England IPA Series - Is it the Yeast?

Submitted by drew on

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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).

Subject: 

Experiment Status: 

Does the yeast choice generate the haze in a "New England Style IPA"

Oh Say Can You See (through your beer)

Submitted by denny on

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In the last couple years, we've been seeing the growth of what I guess you could call a new style of beer....The NorthEast style, usually made as an IPA.  The common factors seems to be a "soft" bitterness (often brought about by adding large amounts of calcium chloride to the water, rather than calcium sulfate which is more usual), a massive hop flavor with a pretty forward aroma, and usually a hazy appearance.  And by "haze", I mean a lot of them look like gravy!  Proponents of the style say "who cares how it looks, it's about the taste".  Others, like myself, are mystified.  Why does a g

Episode 14 - Season of the Bruce

Submitted by drew on

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Another episode and a new feature! Read on!

In feedback we hear more about people's weight loss journies. Could we be on the way to skinny brewers? Also a listener chimes in to let us know that he won serious medalage with Drew's Peanut Butter Jelly Time recipe. 

In the pub, we talk our "plans" for Homebrew Con in Baltimore in June - a live Q&A, a Troubleshooters Corner, Book Signings and more! We talk about the 500th Anniversary of the Rheinheitsge-whatever and we revisit the Moonlight vs. Moonlight Trademark fight. 

Saison Yeast - Airlock vs. Open Ferment - Does it prevent "stall"

Submitted by drew on

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These days it seems like if you want to open a craft brewery you need 3 different styles of IPA, a few DIPAs for people to pound, a couple of bourbon barrel something or others, some sour projects to charge ridiculous amounts of money for and then my favorite style - saison. But there's a problem - the two primary strains people use Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison and White Labs WLP565 Belgian Saison I both suffer from quirky fermentations.

Subject: 

Does using an open fermentation technique avoid the fermentation stall and produce a noticeably different beer that typical closed fermentation techniques used by modern brewers.

Writeup: Comparing First Wort Hopping to 60 minute Bittering Additions

Submitted by drew on

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Ok, so this writeup as a little delayed. Blame it on my schedule or something! I've been a busy man. But here we go - the results haven't changed in the last few weeks and things are primed to re-experiment!

This is a variant of an experiment Denny's done a few times over in the past always with mixed results. Will this time be any different?

Episode 13 - Olive Oil and Black Man

Submitted by drew on

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Another episode and this time we're here with Olive Oil results!

In the pub, we talk our "plans" for Homebrew Con in Baltimore in June - a live Q&A, a Troubleshooters Corner, Book Signings and more! We talk some gluten free barley, a new name for an old country and why some trademark fights make us sad.

A new room is added to the house as we sit down in the library to discuss the imminent release of Homebrew All-Stars! 

Impact of Crushed Malt Age on Beer Quality

Submitted by drew on

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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?

Subject: 

Does cracked malt that's been left to sit for a month produced a noticeably different beer than freshly cracked malt?

Confessions of a Yeast Abuser

Submitted by denny on

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I have a confession to make...I am a yeast abuser. And I have been for years. Yes, I know all the "rules" and try to follow them, but sometimes I fail and resort to....yeast abuse. Recently I brewed a batch of my Rye IPA recipe on my Zymatic. Looking in the fridge, I saw some WY1450 with a date of June 26, 2015....10 months old. I thought "I could make a starter with that", but then I thought "Damn, that would take effort".

Episode 10 - You've Got Questions, We've got "Answers"

Submitted by drew on

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It's Episode 10 and it's finally time to see if we're as smart as we say we are. We discuss the listener response to our Session Beer efforts and promise to post a kickass list of session beer recipes. (Link below) We run off to the pub and discuss the recently concluded Pacific Northwest Homebrewers Conference and the lameness of "pink washing" and silly sexism.

Session Beer Day Recipe Bonanza - 14+ Recipes For You To Brew

Submitted by drew on

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Inspired by Lew Bryson's appearance in Episode 9 of the podcast, we decided if we were going to talk session beers and promote the idea of session beers, then maybe we oughta give you some recipes. So we reached out to a bunch of folks, both known and not so known, and asked "hey, give us your favorite Session Beer recipe!"

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Have You Seen Ester?

Submitted by Saccharomyces on

I remember back to when I brewed my first batch of beer. It seems like yesterday; however, over two decades have elapsed since that faithful day. Much in the world of home brewing has improved dramatically during the last twenty years. An improvement that comes readily to mind is ingredient quality. Those of us who were participating in the hobby during the first home brewing boom can attest to having to work with hops that were often brown and malt that was past its prime. Small-scale brewers used to receive macro brewer cast-offs, and home brewers received the macro cast-offs that small-scale brewers rejected. While poor ingredient quality and selection are a thing of the past, there are areas of home brewing that have changed very little in the last twenty years. One such area is an understanding of fermentation byproducts. We have transitioned from a hobby with an incomplete understanding of fermentation byproducts that fermented at room temperature to a hobby that uses temperature-controlled fermentation chambers to mask our incomplete understanding of fermentation byproducts. The topics covered in this blog entry are fermentation byproducts and the role that they play in beer flavor.

Olive Oil vs. No Aeration

Submitted by drew on

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In September 2005, Grady Hull of New Belgium, developed a new technique of strengthening yeast in storage by adding olive oil. The theory was that yeast use oxygen to synthesize sterols to build stronger, better cell walls so instead of introducing beer staling oxygen to the mix - why not add a tiny drop of cheap olive oil, a source of sterols, directly and let the yeast do it's thing. Cheap olive oil vs. expensive aeration equipment

Subject: 

Does the addition of olive oil to a fermenter replicate the organoleptic impact of aeration on a the beer versus doing no aeration at all?

Episode 7 - A New Faction

Submitted by drew on

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In Episode 7 - Denny and Drew take a spin through listener reactions to the first experiment results unleashed online and in the podcast. Then it's off to the pub where they discuss the rise of homebrewing around the globe (focused on an article about Indian homebrewers), Denny wields the eraser of correction about the beers he tried from Barrel of Monks and Drew talks up Lew Bryson's Session Beer Day project.

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