As an entry level brewer I did little more than buy a Whitelabs vial, bring it to 70ish degrees, gave it a good shake and pitched it into a carboy full of cool wort. Voila! It worked. Eventually, curiosity, evolution, the desire for better beer, or whatever we are calling it today, took over and I started really researching and experimenting with my process. I quickly (after about 2 batches) made the switch from extract to all-grain. I soon realized how much I really didn’t know about brewing and how many areas of my process needed attention.

I read through John Palmer’s How to Brew, and The Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian. At the time, I figured the easiest change that I could make would be to start making yeast starters. I constructed a few stir-plates and began making starters with dry malt extract (DME). My fermentations started much sooner and typically finished more completely and with lower final gravity readings.

From DME to Real Wort For Starters

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For a far too brief a time, back in 1989 – 1991, I lived in Knoxville, Tennessee. I absolutely loved it there. Some of the best memories I own are of sitting on my back stoop in the evening, after a long day of pulling kudzu and reframing windows and doors, and looking out that long vista across downtown and out to Fountain City and Powell while sipping iced Red Zinger tea. A family I love very much lived right across the street and I was involved in starting a new regional theater company, from absolute scratch. It was a magical time…spoiled slightly by one major deficiency…

No beer. At least, no beer that a hard-core, life-long beer snob such as me would even think about drinking.

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ANHEUSER BUSCH-INBEV, the world’s largest brewer, recently made headlines by announcing that it would temporarily rename Budweiser, one of its best-selling beers, as America. It’s a curious name choice, not only because AB-InBev is based in Belgium, but also because of what the new name stands for: independence.

As Anheuser-Busch InBev looks to finalize a $107 billion merger with SABMiller, the world’s second-largest brewer, federal antitrust authorities need to weigh what this means for the growing number of small brewers and independent distributors who are driving the industry. Recent reports say that antitrust authorities are likely to approve the deal by the end of the month. If they do so without adequate protections, the merger could stifle consumer choice and choke off America’s beer renaissance.

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Unfortunately a lot of uncovered women brewers here-PGA

The craft beer industry, a notoriously male-dominated sphere, is experiencing a major shift in demographics. Not only are more women enjoying beer, but increasingly they are becoming the brewers themselves.

After reading an article about Local Brewing Co., a brewery owned and operated by two women, San Francisco photographer Natalie Jenks was inspired to create a portraiture series celebrating women in beer. She began this journey in July 2015, becoming increasingly impressed with the various jobs that females were holding in the industry. From her subjects, she quickly discovered that women were occupying positions across the craft beer industry spectrum, fulfilling roles such as brewery owner, brewer, lab manager, beer delivery and marketing coordinator, among others.

In creating these portraits, Jenks desired to emphasize the role of each individual female within the context of her workplace. Interestingly, she learned from her subjects that, unlike many other largely male fields, the craft beer industry is truly one of collaboration, not competition. Women in beer are quickly becoming less of an anomaly, and as Jenks states on her website, “The hope is that we get to a place where it’s not about being a woman, it’s just about making great beer.”

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This post was motivated by a recent and frenzied convergence of dozens of people with whom I have an online relationship, writing things that are rooted deeply in some antiquated notion that there are Universal Absolutes that apply to all evaluation of their beers, wines, or booze faves. I participated in a discussion, last week, in which a notable and respected beer writer opined that he was put off by all these different kinds of beers; all the stylistic variations and what he considers wrong-headed misinterpretations of styles. He took specific aim at the Black IPA, otherwise known as the CDA – Cascadian Dark Ale. He never mentioned the CDA but claimed that calling something “Black” as attached to a style of ale properly called “India PALE Ale” makes no sense. And, in one sense, he’s right. Maybe some name like “India Dark Ale”  would fix his problem but somehow I suspect it wouldn’t. Most people who waste valuable air, blood, and minutes bitching about well established things they have zero hope of influencing wouldn’t consider the problem fixed unless they could summarily waive it totally out of existence. I can’t speak for him, of course, but as the conversation centered on the idea that we don’t need all these different styles of beer, I feel safe in saying that he wishes the whole notion would just…go away.

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Step aside with your claims to long legacies, craft breweries! This reconstructed beer recipe is over 5,000 years old. It’s the earliest beer recipe—and the earliest known use of barley—in China.

Archaeologists at Stanford University, wile digging along China’s Wei River, made an intriguing discovery: A marvelously complete set of brewing equipment. And at the bottom of that equipment was something even more wonderful: Residue from the drink it once brew

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