Jay's Brewing Blog

Nielsen: Mainstream Domestic, Imported Beer Sales Remain Sluggish While Crafts Soar December 8, 2011 The U.S. beer market continues to struggle, according to the latest numbers from Nielsen. Off-premise volumes declined 1.9% in the most recent 52-week period (ending November 12) to 1.38 billion cases. The outlook appeared brighter on a value basis, as dollar sales […]

SRM? It stands for Standard Research Method.  Now that we have that cleared up and that means nothing to most people, what is it? It’s a scale for color.   Europe has one that is called EBC but we’re not even getting into that.  It’s so rare to see recipes with an EBC but if […]

You know you’re dating a homebrewer when the Pale Ale has priority in the front seat.

The biggest thing that separates extract with specialty grain brewers to all-grain brewers is that with all-grain brewers you need a vessel called a, “Mash-Tun”.  You can buy these online but honestly I don’t see the point.  You can make them for a fraction of the cost and you don’t need any special tools. But before I […]

Oh how I love to make wine.  I find myself making wine when I get bored making beer.  If I end up getting in a stump on what recipe I should make next, usually I’ll turn my attention to making a batch of country wine. Making wine in general is pretty easy.  In a lot […]

We all brew beer but it’s done in different ways.   I hear a ton of different approaches.  Usually people will fall into one of the following personalities when brewing. My Garage Is A Tool Shop Brewer These homebrewers will make everything themselves.  Name a tool that you need, they have two of them.  Most […]

There is one phrase that is commonly said in homebrewing, “99% of brewing is cleaning, 1% is following directions.” So what is clean? Well there is really 3 levels of cleanliness in my opinion. Taking a quick look at what it takes to clean and sanitize to make sure that you beer turns out the […]

There are a few tips and tricks make you tilt your head and say, “Ah yes, time to share this one and look really smart.”  Well this is one of those. Fairly frequently, I hear about extract brewers getting darker color beers then what was intended.  I still hold the notorious, “tang” flavor as a […]