Come And Brew It Radio

In this episode, we go back to “re-do” our Belgian Dark Strong/Quad episode because our last episode got a little out of hand and completely unintelligible at times. In fact, it was the first time we got the suggestion to add a bouncer for the show! Well, we just wanted to go over the style again and we even have Shawn Kidwell from Cowtown Brewing back in studio to help. Also, to go with the subject, we’re also going to discuss cellaring your beer to keep it at it’s best and what might happen if your storage methods aren't tip top.

In this episode, we start some new short segments, get into our second Malt-o-Rama topic with a focus on wheat malts--because there’s often some confusion between what’s available, what’s in a recipe, and what people really want when using wheat. Then we continue our Making Plans for Nigel discussion by answering more of the questions we had on our list from the last time. 

In this episode, we’re going back to another segment of our Making Plans for Nigel discussion where we cover more of the questions we had leftover from our first round. All aimed at answering the questions of newer and intermediate brewers. We had a good response to what we discussed last time and could have easily filled up a few more hours on most of the questions, so here we are again!

In this episode, we have Ross Hughes the Brewing Sales Executive for the US midwest region for Muntons malting company. Most of you know Muntons, but for those who don’t they are a leading global player in the supply of malts, malt extracts, flours, flakes, and many other malted ingredients relevant to the food and drink industry. After our discussion with Ross, we open up a few of our bottle conditioned Omega Yeast Brett blend saisons from Learn to Homebrew Day. We try the Saisonstein's Monster, the American Farmhouse, Where Da Funk, and Bring Da Funk. 

In this episode, our resident Brit Nigel brought back a haul of beer brewed in England including a series of Golden Ales, Milds, Christmas Ales, and Winter Warmers. Last week we learned a lot focusing on the Golden Ales and Milds, but tonight we are going to give our focus to the second half of that haul and talk about the English Christmas Ales and Winter Warmers that fall under BJCP categories 30C Winter Seasonal Beer, 17A British Strong Ale, and 17B Old Ale. So again, we want to give a big thanks to Nigel for all the effort he went to bringing home a set of beers from the source so we could help educate you about the styles.

In this episode, our resident Brit Nigel brought back a haul of beer brewed in England including a series of Golden Ales, Milds, Christmas Ales, and Winter Warmers. Tonight we focus on half of that haul and talk about BJCP category 12A British Golden Ale and the far too uncommon category 13A - Dark Mild. Plus, we also had our local BJCP Grandmaster Judge, James Lallande, back in studio to help! So, we want to give a big thanks to Nigel for all the effort he went to bringing home a set of beers from the source so we could help educate you about the styles.

In this episode, we have Kevin Lane from Fermentis back in studio with us to tell us about some of the newer Fermentis products and have a discussion about getting higher attenuation out of your fermentations. He has some new things to tell us about and at least one of them (HA-18) is a serious weapon as far as getting an incredible amount of attenuation out of your higher ABV brews, so hopefully you’ll see it as a new option for your brewing toolbox soon!

In this episode, we cover some previous territory and revisit the basics of packaging and priming to fill in some listener requests. We know that many of you have questions about the best methods and especially, how you might--and we stress might--be able to save something that didn’t turn out as planned. Plus, we also get into a new segment describing a few details about malts and the differences between some of what’s available that we will call Malt-o-Rama. Other than that, the usual shenanigans and arseholery that you all know and love us for.

In this episode, we address several questions we recently received from listeners, and dive back into water and water treatments. Water treatments can help bring out a variety of different flavors in your beer and Nigel and Mikey recently did an experiment with one of Nigel’s favorite clone recipes to find out if they could get the hop flavor to match the original beer from across the pond. We then discuss how different crystal malt additions effect that beer as well. And speaking of well, we look at a water report from the well water at Brandon’s new house and address a listener question about working with well water. 

In this episode, we wanted to introduce another new segment for beginning and intermediate brewers coming from the point of view of our resident Brit called Making Plans for Nigel. Perhaps some of you recognize the song reference. Basically, Nigel comes at us with a list of questions that he had as a beginning brewer through to his current practices. It's a broad range of subject matter to cover, so we're sure to revisit his questions again in the future! After that, we also hit our 4th installment of Hop-o-Rama!

In this episode, we discuss a variety of topics that have been on our minds the last few weeks. First off, we missed out on our holiday beers episode, but we did brew a spiced dark holiday ale for our Patron James Castellano on Learn to Homebrew Day--so we wanted to talk a little about recipe dev and the best yeast choices for a beer like that. Especially considering everyone loves around this time of year. (Well, everyone but Stubby) But we also wanted to talk about an interesting little project Chris cooked up for outings that he’s calling his camp kegerator. It rolls. It has taps. It fits three kegs. It stands up to the elements to give you beer where you need it. And last but not least, we did some BIAB experiments recently and wanted to discuss some our findings about efficiency and overall process timing.

In this episode, our 100th episode, we wanted to take a look back at what we managed to do over the last 99 episodes since starting in 2015. Surprising as it might be, many of you are still listening to us and even more have begun. So, here we will take a quick look back at some good times and highlight moments of the show since we began. We hope you enjoy and that we can give you another 100 that are even better than the last.

In this episode, we hit up some more discussion of basics with our first Yeast-o-Rama segment, where we discuss the characteristics of several different yeasts. The yeasts include American, English, Belgian, and German strains. Then we continue our Belgian style coverage with BJCP category 24A, Belgian Witbier. Blue Moon wants to claim to be one, but if you want to try the real deal, look into our Whitetail Wit kit or pick up a six pack of Celis. You’ll get the refreshing character you’re supposed to get.

In this episode, Stubby is back from his two week trip to Belgium and Germany full of beer adventures and attending the largest beverage related conference in the world, Drinktec. He went with Fritz and Wil Rahr and they spent the bulk of their trip hitting up well established breweries and cities that were the sources of some of the world’s favorite styles. So, he tells us about what they were up to and how the Drinktec conference was and then we dive into a discussion of some of those styles based on the beers he brought back from Europe for sampling (thanks Stubby!). But we especially wanted to discuss the Dusseldorf Altbier style as he visited the city with sampling the real thing in mind while he was there. It doesn’t sit in a category of its own anymore--which is unfortunate--but it does still stand apart from its Northern German counterpart that could also qualify as an amber ale.

In this episode, we revisit high gravity brewing techniques while also discussing the best brewing methods for the Belgian Dark Strong style. Plus, we were lucky to have Shawn Kidwell of Cowtown Brewing Co available to come in with an example of their Dark Strong. We definitely cover the range of needs for bigger beers and the best ways to approach the BDS itself and we have plenty of samples. Plus, Pete was back in the house for the first time in a few months and we broke him a little (beware the last few minutes). 

In this episode, we go over a recent listener request--washing yeast for future use, then we dive into our next Belgian style, category 25C Belgian Golden Strong. To start, yeast washing is an area we get questions about fairly often and surprisingly we find that the concept is new to many long-time homebrewers. Basically, why not take that fresh yeast cake from a recent batch and save all those viable cells to use in a next or a far future batch. Because not only is what you collect generally in better shape than what you originally bought, it will make for a much easier starter when you need it. Plus, you can always keep a preserved batch of something special for later use. After that, we dive into our next Belgian style segment. This time covering the popular Belgian Golden Strong. And along the way, shenanigans. So, hopefully you enjoy!

In this episode, we cover the finings for beer clarity that we missed out on in the last episode. Plus, we’ll dig into our next Belgian style by discussing Category 25A the Belgian Blond and Category 26A the Abbey Single style of beer.

In this episode, we invited Barrett Tillman--head of brewing operations at Deep Ellum Brewing Co. in Dallas--in the studio to tell us about some of the things DEBC has recently been up to and their 6th year of the Labor of Love homebrewing competition. Then we continue our Belgian beer discussion by diving into BJCP category 26C, the Tripel style. Plus, we also talk about how you can measure your ABV using your refractometer and an app or online calculator. 

In this episode, we discuss a subject many of y’all have asked about since we started the show, brewing a lighter lager. Not specifically a ‘Light American Lager’ or ‘International Pale Lager’ as the name might suggest, but instead the less malty, lighter bodied and colored lagers that many of us enjoy in summer. Those crisp, refreshing, easy-to-drink-a-case-on-the-lake type of lagers. And to help us discuss this topic, we have Matt Morriss and Tom Anderson of Rabbit Hole Brewing back in studio--as they recently released their Mexican-style lager, El Canejo. Plus, they’ve had a few changes and made a few new plans out at the brewery that we wanted to catch up with them about. So, let’s tap into some brewing knowledge and see if we can help you brew some of those lighter range lagers!

In this episode, we started a discussion of one of brewing’s more complex subjects: water profiles and adjustments. All brewers know that water is a main ingredient in brewing, but many don’t know just how important water can be to your end results. It can be as simple as bad unfiltered water leading to bad beer with an extract or as complicated as modifying sulfate and bicarbonate additions to distilled water to make a Helles like they would in Munich with an all grain brew.