With spring’s warm weather on the way, I was looking forward to a crisp pale beer to enjoy after mowed lawns and spread mulch and balmy garage brew days. Last spring’s big hit was that cream ale Uncle Rico, but with three more years of brewing and about two years of judging under my belt, […]
I went even bigger than last year — with 17 entries across beers, ciders, and meads in the 2019 Greg Noonan Memorial Homebrew Competition. Had an excellent showing overall, as well as the added privilege of getting to judge in two categories (i.e., Saison; Smoked and Wood-Aged Beer).
Oof — where to begin with this one? With the delicious end product and the against-all-odds happy ending? Or with the nothing-is-going-right process that got us there. Either way, Expensive Chaos is a New England-style IPA with Belma, El Dorado, and Sabro:
An Altbier was on the list of styles to brew, but it wasn’t high on that list. But then a friend from the Mashers threw down the collaboration gauntlet for NHC. “What should we brew?” We settled on Altbier, each made a recipe, compared notes, mixed and matched, and… Alt, Jung, Es Ist Alles Gut […]
Rolling out of Creighton’s Quip, it seemed a waste to just toss a perfectly good, healthy, and large yeast cake. What better to do with it than re-pitch onto an Irish Extra Stout — one that I’ll call “International House of Beverage” 1 or I.H.O.B. for short: Quick back story on the name: “International House […]
This year, I thought that a good ol’ fashioned Irish Red Ale in time for St. Patrick’s Day seemed like just the thing to have on draft. Reading through the style guide, I thought that a dry and slightly grainy interpretation of the style would suit me. That’s what brings us to Creighton’s Quip: 1 […]
Yeast harvesting and re-pitching had kind of fallen by the wayside for me over the past year or so. In 2017 through the early part of 2018, I’d tried to do quite a bit of it. The petite fiasco with Prosody (Mosaic) turned me off on that aspect of homebrewing for a while. That being […]
I’ve got a soft spot for amber beers. My first homebrew was an American Amber Ale (née red ale). It morphed into Honestatis, which I’ve brewed eight times (with multiple variations). And of course we can’t forget Sirius Moonlight (and Mk. II!) and Le Rousse. So when we were doing our BJCP study group, and […]
Braggots — that fun little beer/mead hybrid. I’ve made the one so far, and used honey in brewing a fair number of times. I pitched a talk to Homebrew Con and thought that if they accepted it 1 then it would be good to bring a variety of braggots to share. The Naked Braggot would […]
During our 2017-2018 BJCP study group, we talked a few times about doing an off-flavor training. We’d pool our money, pick up a spiking kit, and spend one session working through a few of the common off-flavors. For better or worse, we didn’t manage to get around to that. Meanwhile, a study group formed for […]