Wheat beers, in the hands of skilled brewers, bring out the best of expressive yeasts. Here, five pros share their favorites, across styles.
Instead of the usual Editors’ Picks, we recruited a guest critic whose perspective on this style—barleywine—is sharper than anyone’s we know: Alex Kidd, the mind behind the Don’t Drink Beer.
New Zealand’s Garage Project may not be a household name in North America, but between their work with local hop growers, Phantasm powder, and crowd-pleasing fest pours, they’ve built a reputation among peers for creativity and honest experimentation.
Tracking what’s happening inside your fermentors in real time is the best way to know when you have an issue with your yeast, what’s causing it, and how to fix it—ideally, without losing beer. These data curves help demonstrate how.
It was once indispensable to their refined character, but Brettanomyces is rarely involved with oak-aged barleywines these days—and that’s not all they’ve lost since the 1800s.
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Courtesy of Jeff Stuffings, founder of Austin’s Jester King Brewery, this homebrew-scale recipe for their highly regarded rustic table beer uses funky bottle dregs combined with a blend of saison yeasts to approximate their unique house culture.
Opening your fermentations to a wider array of yeasts and bacteria can add great complexity to your beers. It can also add complexity to your brewing process—but the challenge is both surmountable and rewarding.
From our Love Handles files on beer bars we love: This homey Irish pub in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood specializes in conviviality, local beers, and the occasional homemade burrito.
Regula Ysewijn’s recently revised book, “Belgian Café Culture,” is a striking look at a country’s traditional third spaces as well as a compelling plea to support and preserve them while we can.
Scholars have long argued that alcohol is a way of “cheating” the brain’s pleasure circuits. But in his book, “Drunk,” Edward Slingerland synthesizes research that shows our success as a species is linked to our 14,000-year relationship with beer.