Ten Things About Making Beer
Observations more than rules…more like guidelines, really. Or not. Hardly in any order: 10. You can never know everything there is to know about beer. 9. No matter how often [..]
Month: November 2012
Cancer
I have two friends slowly losing the battle against cancer right now, so it’s been on my mind. Like most life forms, cancer’s success is measured in its immediate propagation [..]
Safale S-04 a top fermenter or bottom fermenter?
When I wrote about making a sparkling ginger mead using Safale S-04 (Fermentis) ale yeast, Carl Swan quite rightly pointed out that I’d said it was a bottom-fermenter, when traditionally [..]
Sparkling Ginger Mead
This is a recipe in progress for a sparkling ginger mead. I’m adding all my thought processes and decisions here. I’m making it for my friend Cynthia, unless she tells [..]
Historical fermented beverages
JoAnna Carrozzino asked me to write a post about the kinds of period beer. Historical fermented beverage types…funny you should ask…I just whipped off a couple of very quick paper topics to [..]
Bud’s Glögg (gløgg) (glug)
I guess it’s not too soon before Christmas to share the very best recipe for hot spiced wine I know. I make a single gallon of this at Christmastime every [..]
Drink Like A Roman
If you like Roman history, you’ve probably heard they drank wine. At the high point of the Roman empire’s history of wine, around the first century AD, it has been [..]
Etiquette of drinking when you’re with someone in AA
Thanksgiving was lovely, thank you for asking. Thinking over it, there is something I’ve never quite settled with myself comfortably. My aunt, who hosted, has been in AA successfully for so [..]
Giving Thanks for Homebrewing, 2012
I have tons and tons to be grateful for – but why am I grateful for homebrewing? Some thoughts, not in any particular order: I’m grateful for almost all the people [..]
Kwak: Caramel, malt, dark fruit, but how do you hold that wood thing?
I have a bottle of Kwak beer waiting for me at home. Kwak is a maple-syrup red/brown, with a lovely eggshell-colored, just-off-white head that lasts a while and leaves lovely [..]
Ancient Law: Ireland, Beer and Mead, Malt and Honey
The Irish were great ones for writing their laws down, and the many existing law-texts, whole or in fragments, give us enticing glimpses of how things were done as far [..]
Hard Cider Apples
News flash for some folks: you can make apple juice from any apple, but you can’t make good hard cider – I mean the fermented stuff – from just anything. [..]