Catching up on my reading in the airport en route to NHC – this is a few days old, via FlandersNews.be:
The monks of the Notre-Dame Abbey of Saint-Remy are deeply concerned about the quality of their famous Trappist Beer Rochefort. The source providing the water for the making of the beer, is bound to dry up due to developments in a limestone quarry nearby. The abbey is situated 5 kilometres from Rochefort, in Namur province in the Ardennes.
Back in my day, when we had a gold-to-amber colored hoppy ale that was about 4.5% abv, we didn’t call it Session IPA. We called it “pale ale.” It was bitter but balanced, reasonable about its alcohol content, and it smelled like grapefruit and pine trees and cat piss … and we liked it that way. Continue reading
Glassware – it makes a difference. So do beer snobs. Continue reading
Czech pilsner: the OG single malt-single hop beer. It’s caramelly, it’s malty, it’s hoppy, it’s a lager but it’s got some yeast character; it’s demanding to brew but it’s so, so easy to drink. It’s been too long since I’ve made one. Continue reading
The recent opportunity to try Westvleteren 12 (thanks, David!) got me thinking: what makes a beer memorable? There are objectively great, world-class, special occasion beers – like the Westy – and then there are your personal favorites, and the overlap (or lack thereof) is interesting. Continue reading
I like Dave Miller. His Homebrewing Guide was the technical manual in the mid-90s and the book that ushered me into all-grain and kegging. He had previously written a number of other books, some of them for what would eventually become Brewers Publications. Then, like many others, became a homebrewer who went pro.
That was more or less the last we heard from Dave in print for a while, until last year’s Brew Like a Pro. Mr. Miller has retired as a pro brewmaster and once again taken up the small spoon; this book is, in his words, “a field report of my reentry into homebrewing.” Continue reading
A reader posted this question to the “About” page of this blog:
I’m curious about your thoughts of the hops industry, or lack thereof in MN. It seems that there are breweries opening every month, but virtually no one in MN is growing hops at even a semi-commercial scale. Do you think this is a needed industry in MN, and do you think that the local brewers would prefer to brew with locally sourced hops?
… and as I’ve written and rewritten my thoughts on this, the response turned into something that needed more than a one-paragraph reply to a thread on a different topic. Continue reading
Merry Christmas, citizens. Be safe, be happy.
In which we take a break during today’s Doppelbock mash to answer a reader question about some next-level reading material.
What are your favorite, most indispensable, desert island beer/brewing books?
Last week there was a spate of social media posts and articles in the national media about the state of craft beer in America. I’m just now getting caught up on my reading because I was brewing a bunch. Continue reading
the beer engine 