I can still remember reading this dude’s book for the first time. I remember distinctly that it felt like a call to action, but even so, I think that year’s edition of MD would have had a hard time imagining what a seismic, life-changing decision that fateful first five gallons of Extra Pale Ale wort actually represented, charting a course and starting a common thread to run through the next couple-three decades and connecting me with a network of like-minded deviants (Summit Brewing founder Mark Stutrud’s term, not mine; but I wear it with pride) all over the world. Continue reading
Red Rice Lager/Münchner Wies’n
Schloß Wolfenstein Alte Hundchen Dunkel
I’ve found I tend to get excited about oddly specific (and admittedly sometimes just odd) things; not quite phases, more like a recurring orbit. Hard bop. Rorquals. American wheat beer. Tradition hops.

courtesy hachenburger.de/hopfengarten
utepils
“… utepils simply means any beer enjoyed outside, at any time of the year, but it is true that the first one of the season is a much anticipated ritual.”
– h/t An enthusiast’s lexicon
lager yeast & dog: everybody wants to get fed
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Rauch-Hell
If there’s anything that smells better than Rauchbier wort, I don’t want to know what it is.
I know I say that about a number of different worts, but this time I mean it.
Utterly Groundbreaking (Last Year) Session IPA
Since it was last discussed here, my stance on this “style” has softened a bit. I have found it useful to view it as more of a Pilsner which used the wrong hops and was fermented with an ale yeast. Continue reading
brew day: Saison sans Merci
Time is utterly without mercy, fleeting by in blur until there’s just a midden heap of brew days, barbecues, and fishing trips that could have been. This is about closing down summer and the thirties, about getting back on the blog horse, grabbing what’s left of the daylight in the midst of transitions. A silent brew session in anticipatorily fall-like weather. Porter that isn’t quite ready to be porter, a saison turning dark for autumn.
Well, at least I’ll have some damn beer on tap.
Saison sans Merci
Target OG: 1.055
Grist:
- 90% Pilsner
- 5% Oats
- 5% Patagonia Perla Negra
Mash:
- 152°F for 75′
- 170°F for 10′
Boil:
- German Brewer’s Gold (pellet, 6.2% aa) at 60′ to 30 IBU
Fermentation:
- Chill to 85°F, O2 and pitch with Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison – for that classic flavor
- After ~48 hours, pitch Wyeast 3711 French Saison – for quicker attenuation, because time is without mercy
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reader question: nitrogen dispense for homebrew
A while back, reader Joe J. asked
Can you school us on how you nitrogenate your beer? I am upgrading soon, and would love to have some insight.
… to which I reluctantly agreed, because there are few things I dislike more than Imperial pints of dry stout poured on mixed gas. So with my usual battery of caveats (“this is just how I do it and it works for me, but it’s not the only way, YMMV” etc.) let’s dig in.
Tibetan origins of lager yeast?
Vectored from Current Biology via Ed’s Beer Site:
It has been clear that the lager yeast is a hybrid with one portion of its genome having originated from S. cerevisiae ale yeast [2] . However, the source of the non-ale subgenome, which endows lager yeast with cold tolerance, had been a matter of debate [3] . Recently, a Patagonian origin hypothesis of lager yeast has been proposed based on the discovery of a new cryotolerant Saccharomyces species from Patagonian native forests of Argentina [4] . This yeast, named S. eubayanus, exhibited the closest known match (99.56%) to the non-ale portion of lager yeast and, thus, was believed to be its progenitor. However, we now show that this yeast species is likely native to the Tibetan Plateau. One of the Tibetan populations of the species exhibits closer affinity with lager yeast than the Patagonian population as inferred from population genetics and genome sequence analyses. We thus provide strong evidence for a Far East Asian origin hypothesis of lager yeast, which apparently corresponds better with geography and world trade history.
Pretty cool – and much more intuitive than a Patagonian origin, what with the aforementioned geography and history (maybe it traveled via a horsehide bagful of kumis strapped to some Mongolian saddle?), and also what with China as a possible origination point for the Saccharomyces species.
Hardly scientific, but Tibetan monks and bock-brewing Franciscans in the Alps make a pleasing kind of cultural symmetry. Plus: yetis.