While summer won’t “technically” arrive until June 21st this year, it sure feels like like spring has come and gone. In fact, I could hardly fall asleep last night in my non-air conditioned home. Fortunately, counting the drops of sweat dripping from my brow lulled me into sleep. Perhaps the most quintessential summer beverage, is [...]
Craft beer has always prided itself in offering one thing that the big macro lager producers fail to: Flavor. But in that past several years or so, the craft scene seems to have taken that offering and grown it exponentially. Beers are being brewed with obscene hop levels, bombastic malt backing, and at times, seemingly [...]
No matter how much beer seems to be growing, it still seems to remain wine’s ugly cousin. Many, many, many presumptions keep beer’s status well below what it ought to be. I’ve often seen complaints from people about the cost of a four or six pack, yet those same people don’t have an issue paying [...]
In order to fulfill the foreign language requirement in high school, I took four years of Japanese. In fact, a the age of thirty, I still wear my Japanese Club t-shirt from my junior. While I have forgotten most of the language (but still have dreams in which I’m speaking semi fluent Japanese…weird) I haven’t [...]
It’s been a while since we’ve revisited the topic of how to mash brew, so I thought it was high time to complete the task. I know that some of you are on the edge of your seats. Now that you know how to perform various mashing methods, it’s time to get all those sugars [...]
Love it or hate it, the TV series LOST has proven to be a drama of epic proportions, having dominated whatever time slot it has filled for the past several years. At one point, the president of the United States even had to rearrange a State of the Union Address so as not to interfere [...]
Beer…what’s the point? I can think of two scenarios in which I’ve been asked, “Why do you drink beer?” Perhaps you can identify with at least with one of the situations: 1. A concerned friend believes that drinking alcohol is sinful, and concerned for my well being asks: “Why do you drink beer?” 2. Fellow [...]
This week’s Sip With Us Saturday, Obscure Exports, led me to the country of Sweden. I hopped on my private jet, flew in to Stockholm, and grabbed a bottle of Nils Oscar Barleywine. Well, I was going to do that until I realized my wife was already using the jet to pick up some sushi [...]
In an effort to find an non U.S. beer off the beaten path for Sip with us Saturday, I found La Divine by Brasserie De Silly from Belgium. Admittedly, I wanted go a bit more off the beaten path for this one but my choices were a little more limited. Not that I’m complaining, I [...]
Here’s a picture of me mashing my decoction (note the two pots). There are certain types of beer that are very conducive to the various mashing regiments. I’ve mentioned in previous posts which types of beers tend to fit into which categories. We’ve covered single infusion and step-mashing to this point, but what about decoction [...]
