Beer with Strangers Episode 42

This week, we get a taste of what's on tap at Xtreme, recap the week in beer news, including the discovery of 150-year old beer still in the bottles and comment upon/mock beer listicles:

Beer with Strangers Episode 37

Shawn Hager pinch-hits for Doug this week as we post-mortem the Good Beer Festival.

If you're interested in participating in our Hangout on Air or you'd like to come in and share a beer with us, email me here, or message Tony on +State of the Beer. The show's Facebook page is Beer with Strangers and we're "@beerwstrangers" on Twitter.
Finally, and please, consider subscribing on iTunes or on YouTube (if you click the iTunes, your iTunes window will open. Don't be afraid).
If you are or know anyone who is interested in taking a brewing basics class (the class is free and lots of fun) have them reserve a space here. Taking a class is the best way to figure out whether homebrewing is for you. Many people take several before trying on their own at home.

 

If you love to look at us, here's the video:

Beer with Strangers Episode 33

This week, Kickstarting the beer revolution. In the first of a Kickstarter two-parter, we discuss a brewery's campaign to begin canning, robots that serve beer and the awesomeness that is winning a home brew competition and brewing your homebrew on a massive scale.
We'll also hit some of this week's highlights in craft and home brewing.

Beer with Strangers Episode 31

This week we discuss the challenges and opportunities in brewing beer from pre-20th century recipes, New Belgium's foray into politics for better or worse, and, finally, the answer to who will be the next brewery to put out a Siracha Pale Ale...

If you're interested in participating in our Hangout on Air or you'd like to come in and share a beer with us, email me here, or message Tony on +State of the Beer. The show's Facebook page is Beer with Strangers and we're "@beerwstrangers" on Twitter.
Finally, and please, consider subscribing on iTunes or on YouTube (if you click the iTunes, your iTunes window will open. Don't be afraid).
If you are or know anyone who is interested in taking a brewing basics class (the class is free and lots of fun) have them reserve a space here. Taking a class is the best way to figure out whether homebrewing is for you. Many people take several before trying on their own at home.

 

Show links:

Episode 25: De-evolvolution

In this week's show we wonder, aloud and at length, about the ups and downs of a return to what used to be called and ordinary, or a tippling house. These were colonial taverns where a person who was willing to brew beer, distill spirits, and take in strangers could make a living. Shawn Hager (my cohost this week, pinch-hitting for Doug), talked about his desire for mid-priced restaurants to get into the craft beer game. A pizza place, for example, that had a house beer, or a diner, maybe. Which craft beer would go best with Salisbury steak is anyone's guess, but we're willing to find out.
The nature of the business means that a brewery often has to continue to grow to have success. Hell, the nature of business is that it has to grow to be successful, and the demand for craft beer is such that it's foolish for a quality brewer to not rise to meet the demand. But a world where, say, a nano brewer works for just one restaurant, isn't only believable and sustainable, but even likely.

Episode 23: Celebrating taste

In this week's episode, Doug and I discuss the new Old Bay flavored beer at 3rd Wave Brewery in Delmar and the implications of a salty beer (awesome). We also get into the yeast genome project profiled in the NYT and the potential for inventing or isolating characteristics (also awesome). Although neither of us knew Jack Joyce, founder of Rogue, Doug talked about his experience at the Newport brewery and I talked about how much I hated that beer 17 years ago. I've since elaborated on my State of the Beer blog, which it would be cool of you to check out.

Epioside 22: 'Tis the Saison

It's the simple things that make brewing such a fascinating topic. True, if you're reading this and are a regular listener, what follows may not be a shock for you, but still it's worth marveling at how brewing evolved and evolves. The show was slated to be about additives, but early on, I asked Doug whether he was always very busy for Memorial Day weekend. My thought was that it was a massive brew day.
My thought was wrong.
Although it was counter-intuitive to me, he said summer isn't particularly a busy time for homebrewers because the unpredictable heat spells make it tough on yeast and on fermentation generally. Unless, of course, you're making a lighter beer, like a Saison.
Farmhouse ales, as it turns out, aren't an accident of history but rather a produce of weather. Most people (I guess) are aware of this, but it was a headslap moment for me.

Episode 20: A spoonful of yeast

A future of homebrewing, but probably not the future of homebrewing

Normally, I'm an all for innovation, gadgets, and bring on the robot masters kind of guy, but I'm conflicted about PicoBrew, an automatic beer brewing machine. Billed as a home brewing appliance, PicoBrew does all the work, requires less cleaning and zero supervision. You dump all the ingredients into the machine and come back a week later for your beer. But unlike every other time saving appliance, it just feels wrong. Maybe it's too romantic a view, but home brewing doesn't seem like a chore people are looking to get out of. Instead, it's something people like to do. They enjoy spending the better part of a day making beer for their friends and themselves, working to make sure they've eliminated as many problems as they can, and dealing with the results. 

Episode 18: Mead-ieval times

It would be inappropriate call call mead an up-and-comer, since it's one of the oldest drinks on the planet. It would be appropriate to point out, though, that homebrewers increasingly are dabbling in mead. It isn't as if mead is easier than beer or wine, or that the results are any faster. Mostly, mead's popularity has to do with what might be called a brew bug. Once people start brewing, many people just develop a taste for the creative process, the place where craft and art connect. It's like a mild case of productive OCD. People want to make their own things and, as they get better at it, they make more stuff and different stuff. They make better stuff.

As spring comes on--the feel, that is, I'm aware we're already a month in--mead is appropriate because it's made with fruits and honey. Learning the mead basics now could allow a person to make their own mead from all of their own ingredients when the fruit trees start producing in a few months. This, to say nothing of the honey that's more accessible from local sources than it was a decade ago. Point is, if you're on the fence about mead, there's still time to get off it and make something a little different and a little sweeter.

Episode 17: Wine all you want

This band helps keep the bucket at an even 75 degrees, helping
the wine ferment properly, completely, and in a timely manner.

Because it is spring and because there's a class coming up and (mostly) because we know you want to have something else to get involved in, this week Doug and I discussed wine making basics. If, like me, you've never had good homemade wine, it is likely for one of two reasons. The first is impatience, the second is aesthetics, the third (kind of) is a combination of the two.
Wine takes awhile just to reach the point where it isn't too bad. I takes at least a month to be drinkable but really nine months to a year before it starts to get good, and many wanes that can be made from home kits improve for the first three years. Lots of times people don't want to wait that long and crack open wine that isn't as good as it should be.

Episode 15: Where in the world to get good beer

Map of participating breweries tapping "Unite" this weekend.

Second things first: In this week's show we spoke about American Light Beer, Women Brewers, and alternate brewing opportunities. But in case you don't finish the show or the rest of the column, click on the adjacent map to find out where you can get beer brewed as part of International Women's Month. I've gone over it regularly as part of the +State of the Beer G+ feed, but in case you missed it:
Professional women brewers groups in England and a the U.S. got together at their respective breweries earlier this month to brew a rye beer they're calling "Unite." The beer is due to be tapped on March 22. It isn't clear whether all the participating breweries will have an event to acknowledge it, or if they're only being held regionally.

Episode 14: ReAle Revival

I've been interviewing people for more than a decade, but this was the first time I ever engaged in an "ambush" interview. True, it was an accidental ambush, but still...
J.T. Merryweather and Chris Brohawn, who own +Realerevival Brewing in Cambridge, were shopping at Xtreme Brewing (where we produce the podcast). They're establishing a pilot system where they will be brewing new beers to start rounding out their repertoire. J.T. said they wanted to make sure they had the beers they're producing now nailed before they started expanding their offerings. But if they can get the beers they used to make as home brewers to scale up nicely, they can start making more beer. What follows from that, they hope, is distribution on the mid Shore, the area north and west of where they are now.

Episode 13: Eric Camper, hop monster

It could be said that brewing takes time, but I prefer the notion of brewing giving time. Over the six-or-so hours it takes to get a beer ready to go, even the most efficient brewer is going to have plenty of time on their hands to drink, to talk, and to plan. Sometimes the plans involved different beers to brew, sometimes they involve different ingredients, but almost always these conversations include improving or better personalizing the beer.
In this week's episode we spoke with +Eric Camper who has been experimenting with growing his own hops. Much of what he learned, he learned through trial and error. But the good