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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