Writer: Drew Beechum & Denny Conn
Making Your Homebrew Club Engaging
Homebrewing is going through a soul-searching moment. One area we all feel can spur the love of the hobby again is through our local homebrew clubs. Get some pointers for reinvigorating the best of what can make them invaluable to the greater brewing community.
Learn How to Smoke Your Beers
Beer produced with smoked malts don’t need to be smoke bombs. Learn to craft your own smoked malts and use them in recipes.
Concept Beers
Once your mind is set on brewing a new take on a beer, the next step is to design the recipe. Drew and Denny offer up their best advice on taking a concept for a beer and making it become a reality via the most direct route.
Averting Disaster
Nothing can ruin a homebrewer’s day faster than finding that they ruined a batch of their beer. Learn from others’ mistakes and ensure success with your next brew by reading these thoughtful ideas.
Learning From Mistakes
A skill that separates great brewers from good ones is the ability to learn from mistakes and adapt their processes to minimize repeating those mistakes in the future.
Yeast Pitch Blends
With the advent of monoculture brewing in the late 1800s, most breweries around the world have slowly moved away from their traditional yeast blends in favor of single-strain brewing. Drew and Denny advocate for going back to blended pitches.
A Simple Guide to Hop Charges
When hops get added to your brew will dictate what their main purpose is for that beer. Drew and Denny dig into how the timing will determine when and how much of our favorite aromatic flowers to add.
The Sanitation Department
Once your equipment is clean, any gear that touches your wort and beer after the boil should be sanitized. Take a walk through the various ways homebrewers can achieve sanitation.
Cleaning Action: An ounce (28 g) of prevention
Anyone who has homebrewed long enough knows we’re just janitors with benefits. Make sure that you are doing a good job of keeping your brewing equipment clean.
Playing With Extract: Sometimes simple can be better
When an experienced homebrewer uses malt extracts, opportunities abound in terms of the beer’s potential. Denny and Drew have some tricks for those looking to save time on brew day.
Lazy Day Blonde Ale
This is the lightest, and simplest, extract beer we’ve ever made. You can get in and out and have a tasty beer in no time flat. What kind of beer? The beer-flavored variety, naturally.
Into The Cider House: When fall calls, we pick up
As the days get noticeably shorter many homebrewers around the world start to think about making hard cider. Find some pointers on getting the most from this year’s apple harvest.
