Posts by Tara Nurin
Category Controversy: What a Hybrid Beer Is … And Isn’t
Understand what a hybrid beer is and why it is different. Dig into the yeast types and fermentation process that makes these beers unique.
Read MoreFrom Kettle To Barrel: How To Brew a Fruited Sour Beer
From Kölsch to cold IPA, American brewers, scientists, and aficionados are viewing the old ale-lager dichotomy as increasingly misleading—and what matters, in the end, is what we taste in the glass.
Read MoreWater Chemistry for Brewers: Creating Classic European Beer Styles
Want to brew classic European styles of beer? This article explores matching the water in the Old World capitals that invented them. Great information for creating classic pale ale, pils or dry Irish stout.
Read MoreWater Chemistry: What Every Commercial Brewer Needs to Know
One water supplier can draw from many sources, from wells to rivers to springs, and every fount may vary in its chemical composition. Even a single source can fluctuate when it rains or snows. So imagine the variety between geographic locations. This article explores how water chemistry affects commercial brewing.
Read MoreHop Creep: Causes, Effects and Prevention
Hop creep refers to the overattenuation of dry-hopped beer. One might otherwise describe it as a sneaky, unwanted secondary fermentation that can lower gravity, provoke a diacetyl spike, and create excess alcohol and CO2. This article explores hop creep in depth: causes, effects and things you can do to prevent it.
Read MoreProtein Haze: How Understanding pH Will Help You Brew Intentionally Unclear Beer
Have you caught the haze craze? Until the last decade, hazy beers tended to show up primarily as mistakes or unfiltered styles like Belgian and German wheats. There are many ways to create protein haze in beer and more ways to avoid it. This article explores the role pH plays in crafting successfully murky beers.
Read MoreHow Yeast Pitching Rates Affect Beer Fermentation
Does pitch rate matter? Though not everyone agrees, prevailing wisdom strongly suggests that brewers who prioritize accurate flavors and/or consistency should absolutely pay attention to their yeast counts. The various factors required to calculate a target pitch rate for beer can make figuring out the formula quite complicated. In this article, we deconstruct the topic and find some easy ways to do it.
Read MoreFerment Hot, Fast, and Clean Beer with Kveik Norweigan Farmhouse Yeast Strains
There’s a trending not-so-new category of super-yeasts in town and if you haven’t tasted or brewed with them yet, you likely will soon. Called kveik (kuh-vike) yeasts, they hail from Norway, and their fans say that almost anything your yeast can do, kveik yeast can probably do better.
Read MoreYeast Harvesting: Best (& Worst) Practices and How to Know When It’s Time to Pitch Fresh Yeast
Brewers commonly repitch yeast to ferment batch after batch to save money and coax out the complex flavors and higher flocculation rates that Saccharomyces yeast can develop over multiple generations, particularly from the second to the third. But in order to maximize yeast function and longevity, it’s important to be strategic and maintain consistency when…
Read More5 Ways to Maximize Your Brewery’s Potential During Coronavirus
Now that most states are mandating social distancing measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, it can be extremely difficult to know how to adjust production schedules to match unpredictable demand over an impossible-to-predict timeline. Though business may be slow, many breweries are experimenting with new ideas and approaches, both to give their customers…
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