Homebrew Talk Podcasts

In this episode, forget the seltzer, we give you a season pass to the HBT Cider House where tour guide, special guest, and multi-BOS cider winner Dan Short schools us with his alchemy so we can all brew a tasty batch and find a way to earn easy bling with hard cider. Plus, a small bonus tribute to a percussionist icon any homebrew/Rush fan will dig. How do you like them apples?

A perfect episode as we travel to the land of the midnight sun where Hogtown's own Joe Gullett guides us to discover the secrets of Kveik, that hot and fast Norwegian yeast sensation you can pitch warm and complete fermentation within mere days (somtimes 24 hours!) and get a clean beer with no off-flavors. Super! Plus, some quirky beer news and another round of salty untappd reviews. I rate this description a 10!

Marking the 9th year of our podcast schtick, we have a mix of eclectic topics including tips on Brew-in-a-Bag (using a sous vide), some lessons learned at Homebrew Con, tricks for getting multiple batches out of one brew day, plus we're going to debunk a few interesting home brew myths. Not stopping there, we'll also walk through the glory of pastry stouts, and get the best ideas for blending after barrel aging or other treatments. But wait wait, you also get a heads up on the next big thing in hard beverages to hit your shelf. And finally, we top it off with a few salty untappd reviews. My name is Sous, how do you do!

We don our lab coats as Hogtown's own Food-Science-FM-Lead-Brewer-Guy Eric Dryer takes us down the science rabbit hole and discusses how to max your chance for a successful fermentation by looking at case studies of different fermentations w/respect to oxygenation, gravity, yeast strain, handling, the whole deal. Then, he scales it all down for practical use by the homebrewer. Safety goggles on!

We pick up our buzzer, and a pint, and with the help of Hogtown-Trivia-Master Terrie Vasilopoulos, we go behind the scenes of the game show Jeopardy, which helps us segue into a round of beer trivia for all to play. Then, we check out the current state of diversity in the brewing world while we go over a recipe that placed in the Best of Show top 3 at a recent female only competition. We top that all off with weird beer news and some fan favorite salty Untappd reviews. The answer is: of all the homebrew podcasts out there, this is one of them.

Saturday mornings taught us pronouns, interjections, how a bill becomes a law, and the function of conjunction junction, so we're letting it further inspire us with some Brewhouse Rock to organize a variety of classes and labs. This includes adjusting your mead (post-fermentation) for sweetness and acidity, calibration of homebrew tools, kegging & bottling, and a number of entertaining blind tasting labs to show off your palate. All this, plus more salty Untappd reviews. Hogtown's own National-Dr-Other-Biologist-Guy Matt Neilson (along with Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla) joins us.

We're doing the European thing by bringing in Hogtown-Bandit Kevin True and discuss recipe formulation that went into some actual award winning Belgian and English brews that have recently been winning at area Florida competitions. Then, we give a trip report from a recent holiday in Munich where we got to bask in amazing German beer culture. Finally, we finish it all off with some salty Untappd reviews. Bleedin' Watneys Red Barrel not included.

We take out our school box and learn some lessons from our trip to Homebrew Con recently held in Portland. Hogtown-Heavy-Lifter Chris Lever rejoins us to recount the experience. Lessons include flavor pairings, alt fermentation, brewing courage, spot on mead tips and more. We also throw in an extra lesson on expanding the number of styles & capacity of your brew kettle when doing a single batch. Plus, glorious Adambier! A forgotten style you'll get eager to check out. Smart stuff! You'll feel your brew IQ bump up a standard deviation!

There's a swagger in today's episode because we've got the back story of two spectacular brews that medaled bigly at the World Beer Cup. With an assist from Infinite-Head-Brewer-Guy Craig Birkmaier, we start off with a tasty robust smoked porter from Swamp Head, then pivot to a refreshing American blonde ale from First Magnitude. Both big medal winners, both brewed locally, and you get the recipe. No floppers in this episode, just World Beer Cup goodness.

If you've ever questioned the nature of your brewing reality, we're going to help you brew some violent delights. That's a promise. In fact, that's a golden promise. With the help of that Hogtown History Guy, the Minister-of-Memories, Dr. Allen, we're going to demystify that under rated malt known as Golden Promise. We'll then use it in a tasty multi-award winning British Golden ale recipe. Finally, as a bonus, we'll give you the secret to making your own homemade PBW cleaning powder. Freeze all motor functions and pay attention to that voice in your bicameral mind, we're brewing in Westworld!

If you've been homebrewing awhile, you find you start to collect a lot of stuff, including some toys for use after brew day for fermentation and conditioning. We bring in Hogtown-Heavy-Lifter Chris Lever to help us check out a few of those toys, including spunding valves and the Brew Jacket. We then throw in one mighty tasty and award winning recipe for that smokey style marzen called Rauchbier. Plus, an alternative method for warm dry hopping in the keg. Yeah, this is my stuff!

There's a great homebrew batch waiting around the corner to be brewed by you. We just gotta put the right ingredients and process together. The art of recipe formulation is one of the keys, so we brought in special guest National-Dr-Other-Biologist-Guy Matt for a round table chat to help unlock those secrets so your best batch is always your next one. Additional Calgon not required.

Water slow to heat up? We speed that up by getting hooked up with a tankless heater thanks to advice from First-Mag-Sciencey-Biologist-Guy Arthur Rudolph. Next, you'll need all fingers and toes because we're going to check our yeast by counting cells (yea, homebrewers can do that!), and we'll do it in the most sciencey way possible of course. One Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell...Two Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell...Ah Ah Ah!

Oh my god! We're taking out the spatula and slinging some patties on the grill at Bob's Burgers where we muse about the right way to give out our homebrew (not straightforward as one would think). Then we brew up a batch of award winning creme ale to pair with the burger of the day on our plate, plus give some commentary when small independent burger gets bought out by Big Burger. Uh-huh. All that and a bonus barleywine experiment. All riiight!

This episode will bring a tear to your eye (and clear up your sinuses) as we take our favorite species of nightshade, aka chili peppers, and swirl them around in our homebrew (including mead and a spicy beer with chocolate and cinnamon known as a mole'). We'll come out with something a little more intense, but definitely extra tasty. Hot stuff coming through! Glass of milk not included.

We're back with a sequel to our Jan 2013 episode "Brewing Jujitsu" where we learned to gracefully recover from brewing trouble and side step mediocrity with some clever fixes for you to MacGyver. We've got some new moves to show you, so grab your gi, we're heading back to the homebrew dojo. Not just Phooey, it's Penrific!

Put away the Clairol Nice n' Easy, we're going blonde with our brewing. To make that happen, we travel across the pond and dissect a terrific process for homebrewing our own tasty Belgian Blonde. Then we stay at home and do it west coast style with lessons from reformulating the hops in a favored local blonde brew. And for no extra charge, we even include a Nobel winning rock poet laureate's Blonde on Blonde prose in this podcast that has more fun.

We're all trying to be good homebrew soldiers by taking good notes and good measurements. But there can be a frustration factor when your tools and instruments either aren't giving you a straight answer or a wrong answer, and that is mucking up your brew day. First, we correct ourselves and do the actual proper procedure to measure the pH of brew day liquids. Then we grab the rest of our measuring devices and get them calibrated the right way. Life is better when brew tools tell the truth!

The men of the square table never tried our fruit beer. Throw away the garnish and incorporate these botanical wonders into your brewing process to tap into a world of new flavors. That includes not only wheat beers, but also the salty goodness of other fruit friendly styles such as gose. We bring in special guest I-Fruit-My-Beer-And-You'll-Like-It-Hogtown-Nurse Jackie Rothberg to school us on the process, techniques and award winning recipes so you can make a proud tasty batch. Fruit and salt in your ingredient list? Yep. Homebrew Law!

We unload in the white zone and hop on an Airplane, but stay away from the fish, and head on a journey to Baltimore to seek wisdom at the National Homebrewers Conference. For our trip report, we unleash some of the wisdom learned from the many mead seminars, plus give out little gems of knowledge from some of the others. Also, special Hogtown guest Courtney gazes at the wide wonder of some fancy new brew equipment featured at the expo. We've got clearance Clarence, roger Roger.