There’s myriad information out there that we, as brewers, tend to take as fact simply because it has always been fact. Things like “hot-side aeration is bad” and “pitching at a slightly lower temp produces a better beer”. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve considered both of these ...

When I first started looking into using wood in my homebrew, my first question was “what sort of toast should I be using?” At the time I wasn’t aware there were multiple types of Oak, my homebrew shop only carries American White Oak, and the only difference I could see was the color of the ...

My typical brew day goes something like this: Wake up fairly early, grind coffee with my manual burr grinder, and get that going. Since I’ve printed out my recipe and measurements the night before, I double check that I have everything I need: water, grains, hops, mineral additions, etc. By ...

Toasts and Chars After the initial release of the Wood Primer, my work on it fell behind and stopped altogether while I focused on articles for other sites and took over some of the moderation responsibilities over at /r/homebrewing, notably, the Reddit Homebrewing ...

I imagine most people, like myself, see the term “oak-aged” and automatically assume the term is synonymous with “barrel-aged”. When I first started looking into using wood in my homebrewing, I spent a long time looking through the various sizes of barrels available and concluded there was no ...

I don’t have a mind for numbers. I love the idea of math and theoretical puzzles and problem solving, but I just can’t wrap my head around the numbers. If you’d like me to mimic the stand up routine I saw once last year, I’m your guy, but I most definitely couldn’t tell you the formula that I ...

I love Russian Imperial Stouts. I’m not a beer collector or trader, but I’ll go out of my way for a good RIS. I horde Yeti and Expedition. My first homebrewed Russian Imperial Stout, the Black Loch, was the first beer I’d ever call “mine”, and it’s the first beer I ever won an award with. ...

An Imperial Stout is, more often than not, defined by its grain bill. It isn’t a “hoppy” beer (though I have had some solid hoppy-RIS, like Close Encounters by Pipeworks), it isn’t required to have a specific yeast character, and while adjuncts like coffee often play a role, it ...

In the last part of this series, I explicitly stated my opinion that there is no place for a big hop presence in an Imperial Stout, citing Pipeworks’ Close Encounters as an example of a stout that was just too hoppy for me. A good beer, without a doubt, but in my mind it is way closer to ...

You may remember me talking about a friend of mine in the Czech Republic who is ranting and raving about their Pilsners, and that I took said ranting and raving as a challenge. Now, Bohemian Pilsner is not a style that I have a lot of experience with, which includes drinking them. ...

When I first started brewing I had no palate whatsoever. I couldn’t taste the difference between any sort of IPA (I still have trouble with this), all stouts were the same, and every beer I made was “good”. As I continued brewing, my palate developed on its own, I never thought about it. I ...

I have a friend named Evan who is currently teaching English in the Czech Republic. I don’t have too many opportunities to talk to him, but in one of our first conversations he was sure to mention one of his favorite parts of his travels: the beer. Specifically he enjoys the pilsners. He ...