In this episode, we have special guests and friends of TBI, Ryan Deyo and Mike Goldfuss of The Collective Brewing Project in the Come and Brew It studio. They started their brewpub off St. Louis street on the Near Southside part of Fort Worth just over a year ago and have been going strong since then. From their beginning they’ve been able to try out new brews and add to their core lineup, including a chance to give a special emphasis to brewing sours and--more recently--barrel aging. They were the first in Fort Worth to package beers-to-go with a crowler machine and they are well known for their Mustache Rye’d Porter, Tropic Thunder green tea saison, Pale Galaxy session IPA, and especially, their Petite Golden Sour. Plus, they recently began packaging special releases with their American Sour Red. Here, we discuss where The Collective began, where it’s going, their experience in the FTW craft scene, and their plans for tackling more extensive sour aging in the future. - See more at: http://www.txbrewing.com/storeblog/
In this first (of hopefully many) Holidaze Specials, we wanted to give you something special sauce special, so we dive into discussion about the time of year when brewers get all the best new toys AND get to drink the best of homebrew and commercial beers with good friends and family. Plus, we enjoy some tasty beverages Brandon brought in from Tallgrass Brewing out of Kansas and freshly bottled Bourbon Barrel Aged Winter Warmer from Rahr and Sons courtesy of Rahr Brewer Austin Heisch. He came to sit in with his wife Cristall and we had a great time talking brewing gear and Christmas wish lists. - See more at: http://www.txbrewing.com/storeblog/
In this episode, we’ll discuss reasons to transfer to a secondary fermenter and the many ways you can modify your base beer using that secondary. This may actually be the first of several episodes related to this subject because we could easily dive in deeper into many of the ideas we cover. Use of a secondary goes well beyond simple clarification. And this episode goes further into the many reasons you’d use a secondary (or tertiary) fermenter to modify your fermented base beer before bottling or kegging. We also discuss a few of the things you need to think about when using another vessel than the primary fermenter. - See more at: http://www.txbrewing.com/storeblog/
In this episode, we follow up on our recipe formulation episode with a discussion about selecting the best yeast for the job. At Texas Brewing Inc. we regularly preach that the yeast are the most important ingredient in the process because when you make your recipe and it yields wort, it's the yeast that actually makes the beer. Which means that there are several factors to take into account when you select the yeast for your latest brew like attenuation, alcohol tolerance, ester and phenol production, flocculation, and more. - See more at: http://www.txbrewing.com/storeblog/
In this episode, Fritz Rahr, CEO and Co-Founder of Rahr and Sons Brewing Company and member of the Rahr malting family joined us to discuss a little bit about malts and the malting process AND all the badass progress they’ve made at his brewery over the last few years. Maltsters are an important part of the brewing process because they’re the ones who have developed the vast variety of malts you use to homebrew. And that variety has only grown over the last decades to the point that home and pro brewers have more well-modified malt now than ever. Plus, Fritz tells us the history of Rahr and Sons, THE leader of the current craft beer revolution in Fort Worth, TX. - See more at: http://www.txbrewing.com/storeblog/
In this episode, we had our friend and international craft and home brewer Doug Zent come in to sit down and discuss his unique situation. You see, Doug loves to brew and he travels often for work. One of the main places he’s spent the most time on his work trips was Russia. Do you know what he found there? A growing craft beer and homebrew scene that gave him an opportunity to form a partnership with a group of local brewers to help open a brewery on the outskirts of Moscow called Victory Art Brew.
In this episode, we discuss brewing for winter when you need great styles for the winter months of the year. Or of course, Fall, depending on where you live. Either way, we’re talking about big beers, malty beers, spiced holiday beers, and often enough, beers with hefty amounts of roasted malts. The kind of beverages that you want to curl up next to a fire with on a cozy, cold night. Or if you’re in Texas, those days that everything freezes over and the cities shut down. - See more at: http://www.txbrewing.com/storeblog/?p=1447&preview=true#sthash.DX41XhWL.dpuf
In this episode, we want to begin a discussion about sour beer brewing in an effort to answer some of the questions we regularly receive about brewing and fermenting sour beers. Because these days, sour styles are very popular and show no signs of slowing down. Especially American style wild ales. But what’s interesting is that souring isn’t anything new. In fact, beers have been brewed with both wild yeast and bacteria for centuries. Since the first brewers started brewing actually, considering sanitation wasn’t a familiar concept for them.
In this episode, we begin a discussion we're sure to continue through multiple episodes about how experimenting with small changes can lead to better beers. For this episode, we had the 2014 Bluebonnet Homebrew Team of the Year and Cap and Hare Homebrew Club members, Mike Treadway and Sean Vreeland, come in to share some of their practices. Why? Because they often use multiple micro-variations in flavor additions to dial in the exact flavors they are looking for in their award winning beers.
In this episode, we’ll continue our discussion of the restructured 2015 BJCP guidelines with the help of our local expert and Grand Master BJCP judge James Lallande and certified BJCP judge Brandon Martin so we can sort through the changes and hopefully help your understanding as well as our own. They’ve revised the categories, added styles, and divided other styles out, so there was plenty to discuss!
In this episode, we discuss the mash and different approaches you can take to brew a better beer. There’s definitely more to mashing your grains than simply throwing them in hot water and waiting. Numerous variables lead to many different results and you need to think about how to combine those variables for the best results. For example, different temperatures can change the profile of your fermentables. The water profile can drastically change the flavors and pH of the wort. The crush of your grains affects the extraction. The thickness of the mash can affect your end product. And the time you allow your mash to remain at temp can make a difference on your conversion efficiency. In fact, to prove that final point we’ve invited everyone’s favorite grumpy old man from the TBI staff, Johnnie “Red” Latham, to help us discuss the mash and give us a few details about his overnight mash method that’s helped him win a few awards.
In this episode, we have our friend and new TBI staff member Nigel Curtis sitting in with us to discuss English beer styles and sample a few beers he recently brought back from a trip to his old stomping grounds in Peterborough, England. If you check the new 2015 BJCP guidelines, you’ll find that numerous styles were born in England like British Bitters, Pale Commonwealth Beers, Brown British Beers, Dark British Beers, and Strong British Ales. And that doesn’t even include the near cousins, Scottish Ale and Irish Beer. So, we're talking about a large contribution to beer and brewing.
In this episode, we talk about the experiences we’ve had with our new GigaYeast double pitch packs and have a short phone call with GigaYeast founder, Jim Withee. We haven’t had their products for very long, but we like what we’ve tried so far and we have a handful of beers we’ve brewed with them that we sample and discuss. We also have a split batch that we’ve used other yeast on to help us compare the differences. And who brought that split batch to help us out? Our friend Brandon Martin, who is joining us in the discussion.
In this longer than usual episode, we’ve invited our friend Kevin Lane from Fermentis back into the studio to join us in a discussion about the basics of recipe formulation. Hopefully, to help clarify the process for those of you that are still looking for answers. And later in the episode, we also had a surprise guest stop in to contribute to the show because James Lallande came by to add his thoughts on recipe development.
In this episode, we’ll discuss the process of getting started with kegging--from post fermentation practices like clarification through carbonation. We'll even cover some bottling. We almost always recommend that our customers move to kegging as soon as they have the space for a temperature controlled chest freezer or a standing refrigerator. We know that it’s an investment, but there hasn’t been a brewer yet to tell us that they regretted their decision to replace bottle conditioning with keg serving and storage. In fact, it often opens up a whole new avenue in the hobby of homebrewing, by allowing homebrewers a coordinated setup to play with, where they can start collecting things like tap handles or maybe even turn their chest freezer into a piece of fine beer filled furniture that fits in any room of their home.
In this episode, we invited our friends Amy Jones and Steve and Vicki Brown to sit in and talk with us about winemaking from ingredient kits and wine made from scratch using hand picked fruit (for example, mustang grapes). With a kit you can have a 5 to 6 gallon batch prepped and in a fermenter in around 30 minutes. Then, about a month later you’ll have 30 bottles ready to drink or lay down. While wine from scratch can take a little more time and effort. But your reward is that it’s your creation. And you can apply that knowledge to more than just grapes. Hopefully our discussion helps you take that first step into new territory.
Episode 17 is all about the regular and imperial version of the standard English and American IPA. We cover some of the history and dive into some of the things you need to think about during recipe development to hit those target flavors you’re looking for in all three versions. Also, we have somelocal friends stop by who are working on their own podcast, Brew Styles.
In this episode, we have a discussion about the various techniques you might consider for chilling your wort after your boil and we also mention a few ways you can keep your fermenting beer temperature controlled. These are two areas that can and do make a large difference on your beer quality. We focus mostly on wort chilling and the ways you can accomplish the task. Ice bath chilling, immersion chillers, counterflow chillers, plate chillers, HERMS systems where the HLT is filled with ice water around the coil, we even hit no chill brewing and more! Hopefully everything you can think of as far as getting your boiled beer down to the proper pitching temps.
This episode covers several things, including why kettles are generally better than keggles for brewing, the good times we recently had in New Braunfels, TX at Guadalupe Brewing Co's third anniversary party, and a subject that many homebrewers are not aware of--keg and tap handle theft and the impact it has on the craft brewing industry.
This year's National Homebrewers Conference was in somewhat sunny San Diego and we were there! In this episode, we recap some of our experience and present a couple of interviews from the conference with Jim Ladd of the Cascade Beer Candi company and Denny Conn and Drew Beechum, authors of Experimental Homebrewing. Overall, we had a great time and met lots of great people in San Diego and wanted to share a few of the details.
In this episode, we talk to JB Flowers, head distiller and production manager, for The Acre Distillery LLC that is aiming for a grand opening this August in downtown Fort Worth. JB and other distillers are leading the way in a wave of craft distilled liquor that is growing as as fast as craft beer has for the last several years. So to all you appreciators of quality distilled spirits, keep your eyes open. Your selection is about to dramatically increase because they’ll have a full line up of spirits of all types, including specialties and bitters!
In this episode, we welcome the crew from The Best Little Brewfest in Texas, the only pro-brewers competition and 100% charity craft beer fest in the state of Texas. Every June, their goal is to impress you with over 80 breweries and 200+ craft brews--many of which are from Texas. In addition to that, you’ll also find craft ciders, Texas wines, and distilled spirits for sampling. All done with a focus on craft beer and making a difference. As far as details and tickets go, you can check out Bestlittlebrewfestintexas.com.
In this episode, we sit down with Kevin Lane--the technical sales manager of the United States and Canada for Fermentis--to discuss yeast and the misunderstandings many brewers have about attenuation and flocculation. Fermentis is the supplier of many of your favorite dry yeasts, including Safale US-05 and S-04. Two of the most commonly used yeasts in homebrewing. And Kevin is a product expert. In fact, he will be presenting a seminar at the upcoming National Homebrewers Conference in San Diego entitled Selecting Yeast Based on Strain Characteristics and Applying Environmental Conditions to Promote Flavor and Aroma Production. So, if you’re going to the 2015 NHC, be sure to check him out and ask the questions you need answered.
In this episode we discuss a recent brewstand build that Derek and Pete recently completed. We also branch out a little and talk about some of the thoughts behind brewstand builds and the various things you should be thinking about if you are thinking of building your own stand.
We hope you enjoy! Thanks for listening!
In this episode, we welcome our friend--and previous TBI employee--Brandon Martin to sit in with us as we discuss the steps, stages, and gear changes you need to move from extract brewer to all grain brewer. Brandon is a devout homebrewer and certified BJCP judge who has a special interest in helping brewers make that transition from basic to advanced. And you already know we all want you to be a better brewer.
Hope y'all enjoy! And be sure to contact us with feedback or show ideas!