I am finally on the grand adventure of making sake. Before you can get into the fermentation process you need to prepare the koji. Koji is the enzyme that does the work of breaking down the rice (similar to the enzymes that break down malt during saccryfication). In the case of sake, though, it is…
Once a year my father’s church has a pretty huge get together to celebrate hunting and share the bounty from the year. In Michigan this generally means venison, but sometimes there is an opportunity to taste even more exotic game. This year there was some wild boar, kangaroo, and rabbit added into the mix. The…
What kind of name is Right Brain for a brewery? Seems crazy, but then when you are talking Michigan beer, crazy is a good thing. I think this story from Russ one of the owners of Right Brain sums it up quite well. I got the name during my senior year in high school. Miss Carter, the…
Brewing sake takes a level of dedication that makes all grain brewing seem like child’s play. It isn’t that the process is hard, it is the time you need to devote to it. For traditional sake, you need to set aside two weeks with additions going into the mass twice a day. It is a…
This is the second samping of sour beers for the month of sours. This time we stay a bit closer to home. Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales is based in Dexter Michigan. The beer I am sampling tonight is their Bam Biere which they are calling a farmhouse ale. As we have found earlier this month,…
As part of the month of sours I will be sampling a couple sours, one from Belgium and one from the US. The sample tonight is the Belgian Lambic Cuvee Rene from Brouwerij Lindemans out of Veezenbeek Belgium. The version I am drinking is the Grand Cru Cuvee Rene. This is a traditional gueuze that…
Stolen from the UC Davis Website For quite some time there have been only 2 official brewing schools in the United States; the Siebel Institute in Chicago and UC Davis in California. Though this might seem obvious, UC Davis has been the only program run through a major university. There are some popping up in…
Brewer’s Publications printed three books that essentially form a series a while back. Each of these books deals with the varied types of beers that are brewed in Belgium. The obvious book to talk about right now would be the book Wild Brews, but I am leaving that for another day. Today we will explore…
While reading up on souring bacteria I ran across an article from 2005, written by Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey Brewing. You can find the article here, it is well worth your time to read it. The title of the article is “A Perspective on Bacteria and Wild Yeast.” He mentions the different wild yeast…
It seems to come up more and more about barrel aged this and barrel aged that. Barrel aging is the new IPA of late (That sounds horrible doesn’t it?). Usually when you hear about barrel aged something it pertains to some over the top stout that a brewery thought needed something even more, so why…
