Category: Brewing

Articles related to brewing, brewing news, homebrewing, and other alcohol-related goodness.

  • The Coffee Pot Project

    Last year I read the article, “How to brew beer in a coffee maker, using only materials commonly found on a modestly sized oceanographic research vessel” and, although it sounded interesting, I didn’t really give it too much thought. Well, fast-forward a year and I stumbled across the article again and, this time, I wondered…

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  • (Chocolate) Java Porter

    Three days after Colleen and I were married, I decided to brew a beer. Mostly using ingredients that I already had around the house, I decided to brew a Porter but that quickly morphed into a Java Porter when I decided to toss some coffee in the mash. The final product turned out to be…

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  • Franken-Rye P.A.

    Over the past year, I collected up various leftover grains that were sitting on the shelf waiting to be used. I usually buy a bit more ingredients than I need and so I decided to put a few of these grains together for a mix-and-match beer. I also wanted to use some of the Nugget…

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  • Marketing Hype vs. Reality: Large Breweries Struggle While Craft Breweries Flourish

    If you listen to the Big Boys (AB Inbev, MillerCoors, etc.) then the beer industry in America is in trouble. Despite going merger-crazy and leveraging economies-of-scale, macrobreweries in the US (and around the world) are in trouble. For example, Budweiser is having to give away free beer and “freshen” its image while the number of…

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  • How a Brew Day Goes Horribly Wrong

    The last couple of years, I’ve taken time off from brewing during the summer months due to the fact that I have a hard time keeping my fermentation temps regulated when the weather is warm. Sure, I’ve used a swamp cooler but cycling out the ice packs gets to be tedious and and have a…

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