Long time readers of these beer-brewing chronicles will nod in understanding when I say that I like brewing with rye. I like the spicy flavor. I like how it typically dries out a beer. And as a (mostly) BIAB brewer, I haven’t had to fuss with its notorious lautering issues. When I had yeast left […]
When the early summer strawberry season came on the horizon, my thoughts turned to Awkward Gingham 1 and how badly I needed to re-attempt that beer. Given how much I’d learned since that clumsy 2015 attempt, 2 and given the nostalgia I was feeling for that clumsy 2015 attempt… it seemed totally appropriate to once […]
I have a love/mostly-hate relationship with wheat beers. Most of the wheat beers I’ve had, I could do without; it’s either “too much banana ester!” or “ugh too grainy!” But once in a while there’s one that’s just right. It’s hard to put my finger on it. In an effort to get there, I thought […]
Though loved, the original Let the Wookiee Win probably didn’t get a fair shake. Readers familiar with that tale will remember that it was my first kegged beer, and suffered from just about every first-timer mistake I could manage. I wanted to give another crack at this one, perhaps without accidentally spraying it all over […]
For the past few months, I’d been idly kicking around the idea of doing a series of single hop pale ale experiments. I slapped together a few formulations, but there was no over-arching theme other than the fact that each one only used a single hop type. After thinking it over, I deleted all of […]
Since the bottles from batch #5 went so quickly, I was… forced to brew this again. And apply the lessons learned from the judges’ feedback. Honestatis (Mk. VI), my extra amber ale:
In 2016, my lovely partner and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. We never had a honeymoon, so it seemed time to remedy that by marking the milestone with a vacation that would make up for it. Being the gastronomes that we are, 1 much of our trip was […]
This beer didn’t start out as a master plan or a bright idea. This beer wasn’t a flash of inspiration. This beer was me staring at the sachets of leftover hops in my refrigerator. The hops I’d planned to use but at the last minute decided would add too much bitterness. The hops sealed up […]
In addition to all the homebrewing I’ve done over the past two and a half years, I’ve also been spending a lot of time around the local mead hall. As such, I’ve consumed my fair share 1 of mead. But I hadn’t yet made any. Deciding that this was an error to remedy, I combined […]
When 14th Star announced that they were going to sponsor the third Make the Cut challenge in 2017, I knew immediately that I wanted to enter, and I knew immediately what beer I was going to enter. After all, if I wasn’t fond of this recipe, then why would I have brewed it four previous […]