Beer in Theory

23 breweries, 1 festival and miles of beautiful New England (plus New York, that's not part of it, right?) and 13 days later, my liver emerges slightly worse for the wear. "Epic" was the word often thrown at Nathan and I as we drove a 2010 Roadtrek 22' Camper Van from Newark, NJ, to Littleton, New Hampshire, and back.  "You did like 90% of it," one guy remarked, "You just missed Maine."  Yes, the Portland-to-Portland connection will have to happen another day, but still, we executed a phenomenal tour de bier focused on highly rated and respected breweries of Northeast America.  These are the highlights.   Day 1: The Longest Beer Wednesday, September 14, 2022 It sucks flying East; you lose a day.  We were up around 6AM to catch a 9AM flight from PDX to EWR (the worst airport on the planet save for its proximity to the better parts of NY).  We landed around 6:50pm, booked it to Ringwood NJ where we picked up the Roadtrek in the last trickle of daylig

Never Half-Ass Two Things.  Whole-Ass One Thing. -Ron Swanson The 2021 Fruit season is finally over here, and good lord, I need a beer.  It's the busiest time of year here and I never seem to have enough freezer or fermenter space.   After so many hours processing fruit, moving beer around barrels and blending tanks I thought I'd share some wisdom.  This is my evolving learnings on using fresh, whole fruit and the only certainty is it will continue evolving.   This is a post for those interested in using whole fruit - perhaps local, maybe you can find and drive to an orchard to buy a few boxes.  I know fruit purees are en vogue, and there's nothing wrong with that... but you don't need my help, the product is as straightforward as adding malt extract in beer making. The best I can offer in bone fides is fruited mixed ferm beer is my "thing."  Another one of my other hobbies is growing stonefruit, rubus berries, strawberries, rhubarb, botanicals for beer on my

Let's be clear: beer is an acidic beverage.  You like acidity.  And if there's one factor to a mixed-fermentation beer that determines whether I readily go for that fifth and seventh sip... it is your artful restraint.  I even think about acidity in the brewers toolkit when tasting draught Guinness, how a lower pH adds to the balance of each sip, and ends up rounding out other qualities.   pondus Hydrogenii (pH) We measure our mash pH, we might measure our post-boil pH, and we make fairly banal comparisons in sour beer.  It's an incredibly useful measure in the brewing process and the overall success of a beer. Cascade Brewing will always get credit for breaking me into the style as a local thought leader in my mid-20's, when I couldn't afford the good European stuff.  They (in)famously "don't use brett" (though that seems to be debunked), putting an emphasis on their LAB cultures and running a solid oak aging program.  I recall leaving a bit of their

You are holding a full, open pack of JuicyFruit gum.  You take one stick out, replace it with a stick of Wrigley's Spearmint gum.  You close your eyes, put the pack up to your nose, and inhale deeply.  Mmmmm...   You open your eyes to a sunny yellow bulb with flimsy white petals dancing around it.  It's a bright, lemony, bubblegum-fruity, and slightly minty aroma... lively, and yet calming.  Chamomile.    From my garden, a mix of vegetables, fruit, and herbs often feed my fermentation projects.  Over the years I've let certain beneficial gypsy volunteer plants "win," like yarrow, and our star of the day - Chamomile.  When I first constructed the garden, the beds, the paths, I loved the clean look, but I'm not running a public garden.  I want plants for my toddler to torture and explore, without triggering deep breathing exercises.  Chamomile is the perfect self-reseeding perennial that will fight back when you harvest.   She Loves Me; She Loves Me Not Chamomil