I've been homebrewing for 17 years and in that time have brewed about 475 batches of beer. Nearly every one of those batches has been on my "Cheap'n'Easy" cooler mash tun system, as I chanted the mantra "The brewer makes the beer, the equipment doesn't". While I still love my cooler system, I may have to rethink that mantra.

When I started homebrewing, the friend who introduced me to it said that 90% of homebrewing is cleaning. Now, I've never tried to measure the exact percentage, but I do know that if you don't do the work, the results will show up in your beer. Like most homebrewers, I'm cheap so for years I've used Oxiclean Versatile (without the TSP sub that many think is necessary) to do my cleaning. Once in a while I'd pick up some PBW which seemed to work even better, but the cost kept me from using it as often as I would have liked.

From the Guardian - more proof that wine tasting is bunk:

You may be aware that one of my favorite beers is a chanterelle mushroom infused wee heavy that I call "Wee Shroomy" (recipe in Experimental Homebrewing"). I'm extremely luck y to line in the Pacific Northwest for a number of reasons, but one of the biggies is the surfeit of wild mushrooms we have here. During mushroom season, I can walk out of my back door and usually find the several pounds of mushrooms I need to make a batch of it.

One of the biggest attention getters in the book is that we feature a couple of "Meat" based beer recipes, like Jeremiah Marsden's "Pork Soda" or Charlie Essers' "Bacon Helles" or our own spin on Digby's Cock Ale. The recipes certainly grab your attention and make you cock your head in such a way as to go "huh?" (There's a real reason too.. read to the end of the article) Why the meat talk? Because thanks to our kooky friends at Dogfish Head - meat beer is back in the news - since apparently they are producing a Scrapple Beer for their Beer for Breakfast.

The boys (and Beevo) over at the Brewing Network were kind enough to have us on their main show full of jokes, asshattery and beer news you can use. Denny and Drew talked to Justin and the crew for an hour or so covering a wide array of subject and even got good ole Doc to twitch when Drew slagged on decoction mashing, again! So sit back and give it a listen via your favorite way to play mp3's

More talking about the book! This time, Denny flies solo!

http://klcc.org/post/mad-science-pursuit-great-beer

Our good friend Chip Walton of Chop & Brew filmed an interview with us back in June at the 2014 AHA National Homebrewers' Convention in Grand Rapids, MI. Maybe you should take a gander and enjoy the back and forth silliness of us.

Well, after living with the first 2 versions of the American Mild for a few weeks now, I have some thoughts and ideas about the direction of this project.....