Brewing Christmas Ales: How To Brew and Why Bother?
With the weather getting colder its time to start thinking about Christmas Ales with a recipie of our own and a little beer history.
How Important Is Water Quality In Brewing Beer?
Water is a big topic when it comes to home brewing, but can’t I just use tap water? We explain why or why not in this quick lesson on H2O.
A Brief History of The Stout: Enjoying The Darkest Beers
Ahh, the stout. A perfect winter warmer unless you’re like us and prefer them all year long. We love a good stout, whether flavored with coffee or peanut butter or just the way the good brewer intended them. And for homebrewers, few beers are as easy to brew as a stout. But stouts have a…
Top Homebrew Kits for 2018
Homebrewing sucks. It can be messy, time consuming and frustrating. Yet people still do it. And they love it. Why!? It’s all in that first sip. Cracking open that first homebrew, a beer made with your own hands, switches a light bulb on. This is awesome! So what if your yeast was a little…
Dip Tubes and Bazookas: Tips for Clearer Beer
Dip Tubes and Bazookas Tips for Clearer Beer Affiliate links below! Click here for more information. On the outside, homebrewing is easy. A little boiling water, some grain and hops, bango bongo we have beer. Sounds easy. But then the grains start slipping out of their bag, ingredients start to disintegrate in the boil and…
An Exhaustive Guide to Hops (And Where To Get Them!)
Nothing gets us beer nerds hyped up like a little talk about IBUs and hop varieties. Even for the most jaded IPA drinkers among us, there are folks that have no clue what hops are or which ones make your beer go “oooooh”. Some of us might even scratch our heads over the acronyms above….
Eight Christmas Beers We Would Drink All Year Long
Figuratively sue us for not jumping on the pumpkin ale bandwagon this year. We couldn’t help ourselves. It isn’t that we don’t like them. We like some of them. But we just didn’t feel it this year. It was probably because we were so concerned with slaughter and phantoms to bother with them. We…
What are Malt Extracts? Easier homebrewing with extracts
For those of us just starting to dip our toes into the world of homebrewing it can be a little intimidating. Especially for those of us who have stepped up from that box store “Mr. Beer” kit into something a little more complex. Ready to start brewing but don’t have the gear yet? We got…
Cool Your Brew: How To Use A Wort Chiller
Wort chillers. It sounds like an indie aggro-punk band from the west coast doesn’t it? Loud noises aside, below we explain just exactly what a wort chiller is, why they are good to add to your home brewing kit and which are the best wort chillers in each category. What you talkin’ about? Wort, the…
California water restrictions spell trouble for craft brewers
Slowly the great state of California has been drying up. Since 2011 California residents have been struggling with an ongoing drought that has forced them to reconsider the way they live, eat and drink. Recently craft brewers and wine producers have also felt the pressure. Now, California governor Jerry Brown has ordered mandatory water use…