Beer Brewing

Galaxy is the Australian hop that I consider the most versatile high-intensity tropical variety available.

Amarillo is the orange-citrus hop that I use when I want something more rounded than grapefruit-forward Cascade or Centennial.

I’ve used AI to generate beer recipes a dozen times in the past year, and my honest assessment is that the results range from genuinely useful starting points to algorithmically competent but uninspired formulas.

Running out of CO2 mid-fermentation or mid-keg is an avoidable problem that still catches homebrewers off guard more than it should.

Homebrewing communities online taught me more in the first year of brewing than any book I read. When a batch went wrong, someone on HomebrewTalk had encountered the same problem and documented the diagnosis and fix.

The brewing AI startup space has grown considerably since 2022, with companies tackling everything from recipe generation to fermentation optimization to supply chain analytics.

Crystal is the American noble-style hop that surprised me the first time I used it — I expected something generic from a Hallertau cross, but Crystal has more character than its breeding description suggests.

Willamette is the American hop I use most often when I want earthy, traditional hop character without importing from England.

Perle is the German dual-purpose hop I reach for when a recipe needs a clean, herbal hop for both bittering and finishing in German or continental-style beers.

Styrian Goldings is the hop that sits between English and continental brewing in my recipe formulation — it’s a Fuggle strain cultivated in Slovenia, and the terroir difference from UK Fuggle produces a hop that’s earthy and spicy but with …