IPAs: Beer Brewing From Home--The Experts Tell Us How To Do It Properly *as featured in Porch.com Written by Beards Head Brewer Justin Koziol The much celebrated India Pale Ale (IPA) has a long history dating back to the early 1800s in England where the style originated. British merchants found that beer being shipped on long ocean voyages, specifically to India, ended up less than fresh when they got to their destination. A little trial and error by British brewers led to the development of a new beer style with higher alcohol content and a significant increase in the amount of hops used i ..read more

How to drink/taste your beer properly! It’s Beer Education Day, folks! Every week (we aim for Thursdays, but sometimes the universe interferes) our Harbinger of Beer brings us beer facts, tips, and tricks to improve your craft beer drinking experience. This week, she’s walking you through how to drink your beer. Drinking might seem like a Duh! concept, but drinking for ultimate enjoyment takes just a little more time, enthusiasm, & effort. So, let’s break it down into 4 easy steps: 1. LOOK at the beer in your glass. Notice the color of the beer, the head on the beer, the effervescence ..read more

"F" for Fermentation Another weekend, another Beards A-Z! For this week, we have the letter “F” for FERMENTATION. First, there are actually three different forms of fermentation. 1. Lactic acid fermentation: This is the process that turns yeasts and bacteria into a variety of food such as pickles, yogurt and sourdough bread 2. Acetic acid fermentation: This process turns starches and sugars into foods like vinegar and kombucha 3.THE ONE THAT GIVES US BEER– Ethanol or alcoholic fermentation: the process of turning starches and sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This is the one we want ..read more

More on Malt! We are still breaking down all the fun facts surrounding MALT, so this week we’re going to focus on a few vocab words that help us understand the importance of malt in the brewing process. BEER VOCAB: Grist: ground malt Mashing: the act of adding temperature-controlled water to the grist during the brewing process Mash: the end result mixture one gets during mashing; a porridge-y like consistency Wort: the end product of mash starch turning into dissolved malt sugars Mash tun: the brewing vessel where both mashing and wort runoff take place Thanks for tuning in to this week’s ..read more

"E" is for Beer Engines ENGINES–beer engines to be exact! In the earliest days of making beer, most likely simple open vessels were used, and the beer was ladled out to cups or bowls. Can you imagine? Obviously, that wasn’t a good long-term solution for getting beer into mouths quickly and efficiently. Welcome Dutch inventor John Lofting to the beer scene. According to the internets, he moved from Amsterdam to London in 1688 and a couple of years later patented “a very useful engine for starting beers and other liquors.” Lofting’s invention allowed a pub to store beers apart from the bar i ..read more

"D" is for Deadly Sins Beer Series Another Beards A-Z drops RIGHT NOW! We missed last week so you’re getting 2 whole letters this week! Today, we are tackling the letter “D.” And Mary & our Harbinger Emily decided to go with DEADLY SINS, 7 DEADLY SINS as a matter of fact! Say what?! Should we be mixing religious stories and beer? We promise the concept relates back to Beards, so just hang in there. First, about the seven deadly sins: So, the concep of deadly sins is an ancient one and may have existed in Greek culture long before Christian times. As far as a written record, they were o ..read more

Intro to Malt Your weekly Beer Education Series has arrived! This week’s topic: Intro to Malt Why is malt important? Malt affects beer when it comes to aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, and color. Malt is 1/4 ingredients (water, hops, yeast, malt) that we need in order to brew beer. Think of malt as the food of the brewing process. When the malt is added during the brewing process, hot water opens the grains, releasing sugars into the mix. Without these sugars, the yeast would have nothing to eat and thus nothing to ferment into alcohol. What is malt? Malt starts as a cereal grain. When we take th ..read more

"C" Beers at Beards! For the letter “C” this week, we are going take a looksie at 2 of our prominent “C” beers, Oh! the Citranity! and Copperstar Galactica. Oh, the Citranity is classified as a Session IPA. This means that with its relatively low ABV of 5.0% you could allow yourself two if you wanted, and still get the great hop taste you would expect for the IPA style. The hop giving the beer its name, the Citra, is relatively new variety that was developed in 2008 in Washington state, but has a mixed heritage German Hallertau, Tettanger, Bavarian, East Kent Goldings, and Brewers Gold hop ..read more

“B” is for Bitters It’s another week of Beards A-Z! Each week Mary will be diving into her own beer knowledge as well as outside research to provide us Beards Enthusiasts with more craft beer trivia and knowledge. So this week, we are tackling the letter ‘B!’ ‘B’ is for bitters. Here’s what Mary has to say on the subject: To the beer drinker, it is simply a style of beer with a bit of hop flavor. The style is broad and can vary in color, hops, and ABV. In almost all cases, the Bitter is an ale, a beer fermented at a higher temperature than their “cool” counterparts, the lagers. Looking at ..read more

Imperial Thursdays are for Beer Education! Today, our Harbinger brings you another Beer Vocab word: IMPERIAL Much like “session” from last week, “imperial” is a term based mostly on the alcohol percentage and drinkability of a beer. But where “session” refers to lower ABV beers that have an easy drinkability, “imperial” mostly refers to higher ABV beers with amped up style characteristics. Let’s look at some history! “Imperial” came on the scene linked with the origination of the Russian Imperial Stout, which was a new beer style made in England in the 1700s specifically for Catherine the ..read more