Beer Brewing

Irish Dry Stout is one of the most technically specific styles in homebrewing — not because the recipe is complex, but because the character that defines it (dry, roasty, with a smooth rather than harsh bitterness) depends on getting a …

I’ve brewed both American IPAs and West Coast IPAs for years, and the distinction between them became genuinely meaningful to me only after the West Coast IPA was codified as its own BJCP subcategory in 2021.

Märzen was the first lager I brewed, and it taught me more about fermentation temperature control than any ale I’d made.

Czech Pilsner is the most technically demanding style I’ve brewed consistently. The soft Bohemian water profile, the specific character of Saaz hops at high rates, and the clean lager fermentation all have to come together for the beer to resemble …

The “AI brewer” framing gets oversold in marketing copy and undersold in serious technical discussion.

I’ve used brewing cost calculators since my fourth or fifth batch, when I realized I had no idea whether homebrewing was actually saving money compared to buying equivalent beer.

YouTube taught me more about all-grain brewing in six months than any book did in two years. Not because the videos were inherently better than books, but because watching someone manage a stuck sparge or explain why their efficiency dropped …

Scaling from 5-gallon homebrewing to 10- or 15-gallon batches was one of the hardest transitions I made as a brewer.

Predictive fermentation analysis using AI is an area where the gap between commercial brewery capability and homebrewing accessibility has narrowed significantly in the past two years.

Recipe cloud syncing seems like a minor convenience until you’ve been mid-brew-day, standing at the kettle with a question about the recipe, and realized the version on your phone is six months old and doesn’t have the water chemistry notes …