Tag: BEER & HOMEBREWING

Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer’s Yeast by Jeff Sparrow

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Wild Brews is a wonderful little book that deals specifically with the wild-fermented beers in the Belgian tradition — that is, Lambic (and various subtypes and blends like Framboise, Gueuze, Kriek, and so on) and the Flanders Ales. Anyone who is even a little experienced in homebrewing is going to at least be intimidated by the idea of brewing a lambic. Most of us make beer happily knowing that the fruits of our labours will be drinkable in a month or two, six months at the most in many cases — it’s a rare beer that takes a year to …

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Brewer’s Glee

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Well, I got a few things in the past week that are bound to lead to brewer’s glee — that state in which someone who makes beer at home finds himself gleefully laughing at all the wonderful things he’s going to be able to do. One was a shipment of goodies — some of them brewing related, some not — from Miss Jiwaku, especially including a bunch of Indonesia “gula” I left behind at her suggestion. “Gula” is sugar, but not the kind of thing one who’s grown up in whitebread Canada thinks of at the word. It’s unrefined stuff, …

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For you Home Brewers out there…

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… or anyone interested in beer, brewing, and associated lore. I doubt the whole book will be of interest, but these few pages I typed out are probably at least a little bit interesting if you’re a brewer: From Roles of the Northern Goddess by Hida Ellis Davidson. London: Routledge, 1998. (from the Chapter titled “Mistress of the Household” (Pg 138-141): Yet another important use of water by the women was for brewing ale, the usual drink for all ages at a time when water was often suspect. Its association with a goddess may be seen in ancient Egypt, where …

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Pumpkin Ale

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Well, and I’ve finally arrived at the last batch of homebrew I’ll be making in November — a pumpkin ale. I couldn’t get my hands on a big old orange pumpkin — or, rather, I figured I’d have less mess and trouble, and better results, working with a smaller pumpkin. Mind you, I haven’t seen too many “sugar pumpkins” in my neck of the woods, so I went with “단호박” which are the small greenish squash one sees often in Korean groceries. They’re sweet enough when you cook them, have a decent amount of flavour, and they’re available. So anyway, …

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Didn’t Do Hallowe’en This Year

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Free Hallowe’en PDF at GUD — stories from the first four issues. (Available for now.) Plus some other stuff too… Didn’t do Hallowe’en this year, beyond watching Inglourious Basterds. Stuff to say about it, which meshes pretty well with what I have to say about another SF film, District 9. SF? Why yes, Inglourious Basterds is an alternate history, after all. Need one make a spoiler alert at this point? Well, wait, I’ll save it for when I actually post about that. Today, however, I must send in my paper, plus it’s beer-makin’ day. So… more on both those films …

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