Category: Front Page

I’ve heard this line for years: Homebrewers worry too much about water. However, there is a reason that more and more brewers “worry” about their water… it makes a profound difference to the resulting beer. Read on to understand why this is a worthwhile step in your brewing practice.
Water is the largest component in beer and its quality can affect the other beer components: Malt, Hops, and Yeast. While it’s true that you don’t want to brew with bad tasting water, how the water tastes cannot assure good beer. You actually need to do a little more to promote your beer’s success.

Ions such as sulfate, chloride, sodium, and magnesium make a difference in beer taste. But the aspect that brewers need to be most concerned with is the pH of their wort. pH influences beer quality and perception in a major way.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

As the leaves in the beer gardens begin to don their autumnal attire and the evenings hint of the harvest, my beer preferences turn to the kinds of beers whose colour reflects my surroundings. These gold, amber, and russet beers of autumn also have just enough added alcoholic warmth to stave off the evening chill –– the perfect transit point between the lighter beers of summer and the heftier beers of winter.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Nearly 40,000 people headed out to the horse race just beyond the Munich gates on that first Oktoberfest day in 1810. Families and groups of friends staked out places to sit on the meadowland heights surrounding the track and began tucking into their bread, sausage, and beer as the races began. The mood was festive at this Olympic-style race, and the event was a resounding success. After all, Munich at the time numbered 40,638 souls, and most of them came out to enjoy the race (Eymold, 327). It wasn’t long before plans were laid to repeat the event annually on what soon became known as the Theresienwiese (Therese’s meadow), named in honour of Crown Prince Ludwig’s bride, Therese Charlotte Louise von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. Try saying that even once after you’ve had a few Maß of beer on today’s Theresienwiese.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

It’s that time of the year again when the leaves start to turn and the National Hockey League season begins. It’s also the time of year when thousands of thirsty craft beer enthusiasts converge upon Denver for that annual pilgrimage known as the Great American Beer Festival.

Equal parts serious beer connoisseurship, Bacchanalian revelry, and street carnival, the GABF may not be as large as Munich’s Oktoberfest, but it boasts a truly impressive cross-section of American breweries and an array of beers to match.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

On 17 October 1810, 40,000 people converged on a field beyond Munich’s Sedlinger Gate to watch a horse race staged by the Citizens’ Militia (Bürgermilitär) in honour of Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. The numbers were impressive, given that the population of Munich at the time was only 40,338 inhabitants. It seems no one complained when the next edition of the festival rolled around the following year on the Theresienwiese, ushering in what rapidly became a hallowed annual autumn tradition.

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I’m getting mightily SICK of our ongoing glorification of this industrially produced, foreign-owned, cheesy example of the American dumbing-down of a great beer style – the Czech Pilsner – that became, for 100 years, ALL we had to drink in this country under the term “beer”. I read a repost on Facebook, titled “ The Girl who drinks Coors Light is the one that’s right“? Forwhom, exactly? One of those swaggering, posturing, cowboy wannabe throwbacks who live in the ‘burbs and drive pick-ups so they can pose as “country”, when they’re actually about as “country” as Woody Allen? This prefabricated grain-water is what we came to equate with “manhood”. For a century, we were told that drinking watered-down, sweet, piss-beer was somehow, inexplicably, linked to both manliness AND patriotism…and, until that day in 2008, when Anheuser Busch was sold to a huge Belgian beer conglomerate, and then bought out both Miller and Coors last year, the patriotism argument had SOME merit. Now, NONE of those largest-selling beers is American-owned. NONE…OF…THEM.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Most every beer enthusiast I know has his or her mythical geography of the beer world, a mental landscape dotted with legendary breweries and drink-before-you-die beers. This topography might also consist of wild yeasts residing in the rafters of old farmhouses, or historic hop kilns concealed along country back roads. Cities themselves stand out like beacons: Munich, Portland, Bamberg, Brussels. A large part of what sustains this mental geography is the excitement of the quest. Sometimes we manage to satisfy of our desires relatively quickly; sometimes the quest may take years.

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Image courtesy Huffington Post

 

WAUKESHA, Wis. — Angela Caddell started struggling with her Christianity 14 years ago when she came out as gay. But a gathering at a bar to talk faith over a cold beer once a month is helping her feel more connected to her religion.

“If you’re an atheist you are welcome. …. I’m a lesbian, I’m totally welcome,” said the 32-year-old from nearby Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, at a recent gathering.

“Tonight we’re talking about scapegoating. There is no scapegoating that happens here.”

This event is called “Jesus & Beer” and it’s part of an effort by some Christian groups throughout the country to recruit parishioners, connect with people struggling with faith or provide a relaxed outlet to talk religion.

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At the BJCP members meeting in Baltimore it was indicated by a large percentages of judges present that they had at least some discomfort with judging cider. That’s natural, and the cider exam committee is working on that. In the interest of helping alleviate that discomfort, we’re going to start periodically talking about understanding and judging cider and perry.

I’m going to start with Specialty Cider because in general the characters are stronger, with less need for understanding of subtlety or the need to search out hard-to-find or over-aged French ciders or Traditional Perries for judge practice and palate training. Later, if there’s interest, I’ll talk about Cider Characteristics, as well as Judging Standard Cider and Perry, Common Flaws, and Understanding Malolactic

Fermentation (MLF).

In the meantime judges who want to know more about cider are reminded to read the Introduction section of our 2015 BJCP Cider Guidelines before they judge, and are encouraged to visit their local orchards this summer/fall, try new and different apples when possible, and to do some cider reading. Ben Watson’s “Cider Hard & Sweet”, Claude Jolicoeur’s “The New Cidermaker’s Handbook” and Andrew Lea’s “Craft Cider Making” are a great place to start.

 

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What did I ever do to you, Jackass?!?

I’ve gotten a few emails – well, by actual count, 271 emails – in the past year that seem to presume that, since I’m a knowledgeable beer so ‘n’ so, I just hafta be against All Things Pumpkin, at least as the evil gourd applies to beer.

As I said, 271 times, that is NOT true.

As with every other style of beer, I find pumpkin beers that I absolutely adore and those I wouldn’t use to wash a cat. A LOT of people who confess to adore fruit-infused beers like Logsdon “Peche ‘n’ Brett”, turn right around and sniffily dismiss all pumpkin beers as though they were somehow plotting to crawl out of the bottle and taint their lovely peach-infused sour. That, folks, is irrationality at its blinkered, small-focus best.

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