In the past, I’ve written about the flavor and scent of beer: what the bitter principles are, what off flavors are, or even what will make your beer smell bad. Something that hasn’t yet come up is the color. Most beers are some shade of yellow/brown, with tints of other colors occasionally coming in – […]
“Well, you see, Norm, it’s like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it’s the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and […]
Have you ever taken that first sip of a beer and had to put the bottle down because it was skunked? You liar. You drank it anyway, didn’t you. In between some of the poop jokes on the very exclusive Aleheads email list someone mentioned skunked beer, and it got me thinking as it’s something […]
As part of my interest in the science of brewing, I thought it might be interesting to write a little bit about sugar and the role it plays in beer. Beer is composed of roughly four or five ingredients: malted grain, hops, yeast, water, and occasionally an adjunct (spices, fruit extract, etc.) that adds some […]
This weekend, I had the opportunity to visit Cavalry Brewing in Oxford Connecticut. Cavalry is owned and operated by Mike McCreary, a veteran and victim of the Great Recession of 2008-10. When Mike’s company downsized a couple years ago, he took the opportunity to travel to England and learn how to make beer. The result […]
See here for my previous note on flavors and molecules in beer. A recent post about tasting notes from Brother Barley has really got me thinking. I’ve always felt humbled by the descriptive terms the other Aleheads in tasting notes, and felt that my own palate (or perhaps my nose) isn’t really up to snuff, […]
Hi again Aleheads – it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to post: it has been a busy fall and winter for the Professor. I’ve been buried in a job search that has been dragging on for many months and culminated in a huge amount of travel all over the country – including […]
Ah, Oktoberfest. The beer drinker’s favorite time of year. An excuse to get together with a bunch of other drunks, eat bratwurst, chug swill ’till you pass out, wake up, and do it all again. For 16 days. Not too different from a similar celebration in the US that we call “college.” Oktoberfest is a […]
During my recent trip to the Deschutes Brewery, I had the chance to try a number of great beers. Top of the list was Black Butte XXII, an imperial stout brewed in a limited release batch commemorating the brewery’s 22nd anniversary. Because you can’t get a lot of these beers elsewhere, I thought it might […]
As many of you know, Deschutes Brewery is a favorite around here. Although I can’t get their beer on the East Coast, I make a point to get some every time I go visit family in the Pacific Northwest. During the family vacation this year, we were out in central Oregon, and were able to […]
Well, that didn’t take long. I was hoping we wouldn’t be talking too much more about BrewDog’s The End of History, their ostentatious 55% ABV brew that came out recently. This will be a quick post, but I think should teach us all a lesson. Recognize when you’re in a pissing contest, and exit immediately. […]
Let’s be honest. This isn’t the type of blog where you’d expect to read about Pabst. Most aleheads aren’t hipsters. We don’t ride fixed-chain bicycles. None of us have ironic mustaches. We don’t wear wifebeaters. We don’t live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And we sure as hell don’t drink Pabst Blue Ribbon. Over the past several […]
The advent of “The End of History,” BrewDog’s ostentatious roadkill-themed 55% ABV brew has brought with it a lot of commentary and controversy. It’s certainly generated a lot of, well let’s say spirited, discussion on this site and we’ve seen it in various places around the web as well. Brother Barley mentioned in a recent […]
As an avid homebrewer, I read a decent number of books about beer. Like many Aleheads, Belgiain style beers are some of my favorites – especially the Trappist beers and abbey style ales. So it was with great excitement that I recently picked up a copy of Brew Like a Monk: Culture and Craftmanship in […]
I wanted to write a quick post about a blog I came across over the weekend that might be of interest to Aleheads. Cooking and Pairing with Beer is a blog written by Vanessa, a beer lover and talented cook: Beer and food are two of my favorite things in the world, so I found […]
This is a bit of a departure from my normal homebrew posts, but I thought this story deserved a mention for the Aleheads crowd. In the game of life, sometimes we’re winners and sometimes we’re losers. Sometimes, we feel like we could take over the world. And sometimes, we do something so impressively stupid that […]
A classic advertisement from “The Beer That Made Milwaulkee Famous.” You make us all proud to be beer drinkers, Schlitz. I thought this ad was pretty funny in an “I can’t believe they printed this sort of thing” kind of way, and then I realized that I’ve burned beer before… and I felt shame. When […]
This is the third in a series of posts about how to get started with brewing your own beer. [PART 1] [PART2] At this point in your homebrewing adventure, you’ve already gone through a series of steps: your malt extract was reconstituted in water, boiled, you added hops, yeast was pitched to the cooled wort, […]
Going along with Brother Barley’s recent modification of the beer tasting section in “Beer 101,” I thought it might be interesting to write about where some of the flavors in beer come from. Although you already know that there are only 4-5 ingredients in beer (water, grain, yeast, hops, and sometimes adjuncts), craft beers can […]
This is the second in a series of posts about how to get started with brewing your own beer. Last time, I talked about how to select a kit of equipment and ingredients, and how to make wort from malt extract, hops, and water. The next step in brewing is to add the yeast and […]
ALEHEADS 