To be honest, I worked a lot and didn’t get out much, but what I did see of this year’s National Homebrew Conference was great – a little more intimate than Philly, I picked up a couple new books to read; there was lots of interesting homebrew (see beet juice Berliner Weisse in the slideshow, and a 14.5% October beer shared at the banquet) and a lively local beer scene. It was a privilege to meet some of you blog readers in meatspace and share a beer.
I generally don’t hold truck with aftermarket modifications to traditional lagers, but if somebody put a gun to my head and said I had to add dried chipotle morita peppers to a bottom-fermented European beer, this might be a pretty good recipe for it. Continue reading
Wiesen/Wies’n
Among several words that are confusingly similar to the non-German speaker, this one means “meadow”. It implies a beer brewed for a carnival or festival (an Oktoberfest beer may be described as a Wies’n Marzen) or a rustic speciality.
– Michael Jackson, beerhunter.com
“There is a popular myth that there is one distinctive style of beer brewed for Oktoberfest – but historical evidence shows there have been many changes in the beers served at the festival … in the first 60 or so years the then popular Bavarian dunkel seems to have dominated … up until World War I, Bock-strength beers dominated the Wiesn. For decades reddish-brown Marzenbier ruled the tents, but … since 1990 all Oktoberfest beers brewed in Munich have been of a golden color … with medium body and low to moderate bitterness.”
– Conrad Seidl, The Oxford Companion to Beer
Well then. Continue reading
Recipe here. Twenty seven days later, on nitro through a stout faucet, and right on time:
Reader and Berliner Weisse brewer Scott hit me with this recently, and it was too chewy to not repost here:
So I recently came across this thread on Homebrew Talk ( http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/british-yeasts-fermentation-temps-profiles-cybi-other-thoughts-221817/).
Anyway, my initial question has less to do with the subject of the thread (ferm temps) but more to do with something one of the responders noted. His premise was that for lack of a better term “head pressure” during fermentation didn’t allow full expression by some of these British yeasts. He advocated an “open” or “semi-open” fermentation. I was wondering what your thoughts on this subject matter? Would a closed environment have an off affect than an open free release of gases environment?
The experimental hop fairy visited my house again recently, and this time it’ll be a lavishly alphanumeric best bitter type of deal. Continue reading
