Understanding Your Brewing Water


Brewing water plays a very important role in the flavor of your homebrewed beer.   Knowing the character of your local water source as well as how to adjust it to improve your beer is a critical skill, particularly for more advanced brewers.
Water impacts beer in three ways.  Water ions are critical in the mashing process for all grain brewers, where the character of the water determines the efficiency and flavor of the extracted wort. ...

Kathy Folio from North Central Distributing forwarded me an email newsletter from Merchant du Vin, Importer of such wonderfull brews as Samual Smiths, Ayinger, Rochefort, and Westmalle among others. The newsletter contained this wonderful article on hops. Of course, many beer geeks may already know this stuff, but I think this article will be very informative for someone learning the ins and outs of beer. So enjoy.

 

Beer starts as water and grain - barley, usually...

What’s the difference between ale and lager? I will attempt to answer this common and age-old question. Here goes! (It’s okay to take a beer break somewhere in the middle)

It all starts with a simple one-celled creature of the fungus family, saccharomyces cerevisiae (Ale Yeast). This little critter has been around for a long time and has spawned many different variations, all designed to multiply and eat the fermentable sugars in brewers wort; then expel ethanol (alcohol) and burp some...

An American craft brewer is small, independent, and traditional.

Small: Annual production of beer less than 2 million barrels. Beer production is attributed to a brewer according to the rules of alternating proprietorships. Flavored malt beverages are not considered beer for purposes of this definition.

Independent: Less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft...