Crafting your Own Beer at Home

Instead of choosing your beer at the store or local craft brewery, why not make it at home? With a home brewery system, you become the brewmaster: make beer suited to your particular taste, all in the convenience of your own home (or garage). People have been making beer for ages, and craft beers have enjoyed a tremendous surge in popularity. We have some advice to help you start brewing your o...

Brewer's Perspective: Making a Consistent Pilsner

Consistency is key in making Pilsners, and that comes with continuously making adjustments to make sure you haven’t verged off the pre-determined path. Lars Larson, brewmaster at Trumer Brauerei shares his thoughts about being solely focused on Pilsner.

“One of the ways we’re able to be reasonably successful with our Pilsner is that we have a vision for the flavor profile that we want, and w...

Five on Five: Wheat Beers

Wheat beer is a diverse category, and personal preferences play a big role in picking the right one. We asked brewers to share their thoughts on wheat beers they enjoy. Here are their suggestions for the next wheat beer in your glass.

Boulevard Brewing Co. Unfiltered Wheat

Doug Cambell, President of Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, New York
“One of my favorite rituals with witbiers is to hav...

Loving Summer Blonde Ale Recipe

This blonde ale is more flavorful than your average “lawnmower” beer, so save it for after you mow. Once you dial in the recipe, this beer will get your non-beer-drinking friends started down the path to craft-beer obsession! And you’ll enjoy it, too.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.013
IBUs: 29
ABV: 5%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

4 lb (1.8 kg) Pilsner malt
4 lb (1.8 kg) Mar...

Growing Hops in the Backyard

From Planting to Harvest and the Hazards in Between
By Stephanie Montell  

Republished from BrewingTechniques' May/June 1994.

Growing hops at home is easy if you know the tricks of the trade. But you better hurry - as spring turns to summer the prime time for establishing new starts is quickly passing.

Driving along Highway 99 in Oregon's Willamette Valley, just a few miles north of BrewingTe...

Cooking and Baking with Rice Malt and Gluten Free Beer

Another great product from Eckert Malting & Brewing

One of the great flavors we all enjoy from beer is malt. Now there are even more ways to obtain malt flavor in everyday ways. Eckert Malting & Brewing has come out with an Amber Rice Malt Cereal
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Steps To Designing A Gluten Free Beer Recipe

• Beer Style – Designing a beer recipe starts by identifying the style of beer you want to create. The Beer Judge Certificate Program (BJCP) provides style guidelines which include aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, overall impression, comments, ingredients and vital statistics. While the BJCP style guidelines list ingredients, this information includes base ingredients that are generally...

Cask Conditioned Brewing

Lessons from Britain

Originally Written by Steve Parkes (Published in Brewing Techniques, Volume 6, Number 5)

When the Campaign for Real Ale resuscitated the market for cask-conditioned ales in the United Kingdom, many brewers had to make significant adjustments to their brewing processes. As real ale becomes increasingly popular in the United States American brewers are well served to take note of the lessons learned by our fellow brewers across the sea.

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The 5 Scary Things That Could Be Lurking In Your Beer

The only bad thing about home brewing: to pour your heart and soul into a batch, only to discover that there are weird flavors in your beer. Let’s take a look at some of the culprits that cause these strange flavors, and ways to stop them from wreaking havoc on your beer.

1. Acetaldehyde – The green apple flavor. 

Cause: Acetaldehyde is a naturally occurring compound during the fermentation o...

6 Mistakes Beginner Homebrewers Make (and how to avoid them)

Even a mild interest in homebrewing has a habit of growing into a full on passion for the hobby. Beer and ale enthusiasts turn to homebrewing to save money, craft their own unique drinks, and in general be a part of a practice that dates back to the earliest human civilizations. The excitement and enthusiasm associated with this hobby can cause newcomers to get a bit ahead of themselves.

Throughout the journey of learning to brew, everybody will make mistakes. It’s inevitable, and it happens to the best of us. That’s why learning as much as possible about homebrewing is essential for every beginner. Not just to ensure that you’re making the best tasting product, but so you don’t waste too much of your time and money along the way.

The following are some of the common mistakes that beginner homebrewers make. If you’ve done any of these, don’t worry… we all have. But, here’s what you need to know, so you know how to avoid them. 

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Dry Hopping Techniques

Want more hop aroma in your beer? Then try dry hopping and transport yourself to hop heaven. 

Hops play a number of roles in the brewing process. Depending on when they are added, they contribute bitterness, flavor, aroma or something of all three. The bitterness comes from alpha acids contained in hops, while flavor and aroma come mostly from volatile oils. The term volatile refers to the f...

Gluten Free Brewing Not So Different After All

There are many reasons why people are drinking gluten free beer ranging from personal health choices to significant medical conditions such as Celiac disease. Gluten Free Home Brewing was started as a Facebook page in 2010 in an effort to help centralize information about brewing gluten free beer. Part of the issue at that time was there was not the availability of ingredients as there is today. If we wanted malt it meant we had to malt our own grains. There are the same limited extracts today as there was in 2010. That means extract and partial mash brewers face some of the same challenges achieving the wide range of beers styles. However, there are now numerous buckwheat, corn, millet and rice malts that are all naturally gluten free. These malts allow the all-grain brewer the opportunity to brew beer which is very comparable to conventional beers. And it provides the partial mash brewer with malts to diversify the flavor profile while increasing body and head retention.

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