The Grand Tasting

For any home brewing buff, the moment of truth is always the tasting. You will not get a real idea for how good or otherwise your beer is when the brewing is complete. Even at this late stage, there is more that needs to happen before it is what it will be. You will put your beer into bottles still not being sure that it is quite right – and this is enough to send a lot of home brewers crazy with impatience. And the thing is that there’s more to it than that. Even once you have left the beer long enough to carbonate completely it may still have time to go.

To clarify, the time that you are advised to leave your brew before drinking it is the “ready to drink” time. Now, there is a world of difference between “ready to drink” and “worth drinking”. Many beers benefit from being left a little (or a lot) longer in the bottle before you drink them, during which time they get to settle, to broaden in terms of taste, and to do any number of other things that will turn them into highly drinkable beer.

The reason for this is down to countless small influences that can affect a lot of things to do with the beer. You cannot expect a perfect beer after the minimum “ready to drink” time, just as people who make their own wine will not expect it to mature to its highest quality within weeks. Some of the best wines around have been in the bottle for years – and it is not just wines for which that is true.

Tags: home brewers, moment of truth, All you need to know, highest quality, Hospitality Recreation, Cask ale

It’s Not Just About Beer

The words “home brewing” send just about every mind off in the same direction. Beer, and probably fairly dark beer at that. But variety in home brewing isn’t just about making a drinkable lager, or amping up the darkness and producing a stout. In reality, there is a lot more you could be doing if you are prepared to diversify your portfolio (and, in some cases, invest in more equipment). It might not be advisable to try making hard liquor (the margin of error is narrower and getting it wrong could blind you) but there is more you can do.

A good change-up from beer is cider. It is, of course, an entirely different drink and some of the ingredients are completely changed. The most obvious is the central ingredient. Beer is made with hops, cider is usually made with apples. And indeed, for your first few efforts you should not make cider with anything else. Get the hang of apples and you can then look at brewing more interesting ciders – there is a fashion in a few countries right now for pear cider (otherwise known as “perry”), as well as other, sweeter flavors.

If you fancy an even bigger change, then it is possible to make wine at home too. Indeed, this is a pretty common practice in France. Even some of the wines on sale in stores close to you were not made from grapes grown in a giant vineyard – some of them are from true family businesses in California, France and elsewhere. Obviously, the fresher the grapes the more delicate the wine will be – but if you can grow your own or find good fresh ones nearby it is worth the effort.

Tags: true family, Quebec cider, Food and drink, Home Breewing Tips, pear cider, Hospitality Recreation

Variety Is The Spice

There are several great lies about beer. One of those is that it makes you funnier. It doesn’t, it only makes other people more likely to laugh at your jokes, and they need to be drinking too. Another, and a more serious one, is that all beer tastes the same. This line is so untrue that there should be disclaimers issued on national TV every time someone says it. One can only wonder how many people are sitting in bars, drinking just to get drunk, who have only ever tasted a couple of beers and don’t really like them.

When you brew your own beer, you come to appreciate just how much variety there is in the process of making certain beers and in the taste of the end result. Many home brewers never make two batches that taste exactly alike. One small change to the brewing process can lead to vastly different results. It might not be a change you enjoy, but it will certainly be different.

There are so many different kinds of beer that the idea of them all tasting the same is flawed right from the get-go. You have light, crisp lagers and heavy, dark ales. You have thick stouts and sharp white beers, and these are just a few of the options out there. That is before we even get to the stage of adding flavors, experimenting with strengths and other variations that can produce incredible results. All beers taste the same? No. No, they don’t.

Tags: end result, Beer in Belgium, home brewers, Types of beer, dark ales, Pale lager, different kinds, Home Breewing Tips

The Advantages Of Brewing At Home

There is an impression in many people’s minds that factory conditions are necessary in order to make something as complicated as beer. It is true that brewing a beer is not like cooking a meal – the skills involved in both overlap, but there are plenty of people who can do either one of the above, but are useless at the other. But factory conditions are not necessary, and you can brew your own beer at home and produce something worth drinking. Indeed, some of the more critically acclaimed beers available commercially were brewed in something that equates to a garden shed.

The advantage that home brewing has over purchasing ready-made beer commercially is that you are not limited by the choice on the shelves in front of you. Do you want this batch to be just a little darker? Do you want to flavor the next one? What flavor – banana? Plum? Apricot? Once you have the equipment, the world of beers opens up in front of you and you can be as bold or as conservative as you like.

Home brewing is not easy, and the chances are that even with a lot of preparation your first batch will be pretty close to rancid. Don’t despair if that is the case, the chances are that one of the many steps involved went a little bit wrong somehow. Retrace your steps and see if there was something you forgot. Try and work out what you can do next time to make sure it is right. Be a little more ambitious every time and before long, you will be producing beer that is the equal of, and then better than, that sold in any bar.

Tags: Home Breewing Tips, Hospitality Recreation, Food and drink, home brewing, American-style lager