Conditioning and Aging Beer
Join Water co-author Colin Kaminski for a discussion of conditioning and aging beer, including when and how to rack, when and how to use finings, how to carbonate and measure, and steps to improve flavors and minimize problems from the brewhouse.
Debunking the Detested Decoction
Ever heard someone say, “You never need to do a decoction?” Today we might say, “You may never absolutely need to do a decoction, but you should embrace it as another available technique.” Join us as we take a fresh look at the decoction process, including tips for making this…
Draft System Design and Maintenance
You’ve got your beer in a keg, but how do you get it out? Learn how to design and balance your draft system for the perfect pour of your beer, cider and mead. We’ll also talk about how and why to clean the lines, finding CO2 leaks (and avoiding them…
Effects of Hot Side Aeration of Wort, Mash & Sparge Water
Ever wonder if you’re ruining your beer because of splashing your wort, over mixing your mash or aggressively sparging? This presentation is the results of an AHA Research & Education Fund project. It will share the results of an experiment designed to test these concepts and may give you guidance…
Evaluating and Judging Beer
Jamie will begin this seminar by teaching the sensory technique for evaluation that is used in sensory labs as well as for judging. He will then discuss sensory evaluation in the commercial brewery and at home, and finish with a discussion of judging homebrew competitions. If you have ever wanted…
Experimental Brewing
Drew Beechum and Denny Conn discuss concepts from their upcoming book, Experimental Homebrewing. They'll cover why you should experiment and how to set up and evaluate your experiments, as well as give tips on equipment, recipes and ingredients for fruitful experimentation.
Farm to Glass: Brewing with Local Ingredients
Have you ever considered sourcing your malt, hops or even yeast locally? Join Michigan homebrewer Nick Rodammer, hop grower Brian Tennis and malt producer Erik May as they discuss the emerging trend of sourcing locally grown and produced brewing ingredients.
From Five Gallons to Fifteen Barrels
Adam Mills, head brewer at Cranker's Brewery in Big Rapids, Mich. will discuss the transition from homebrewing to brewing on a professional scale. He will address recipe scale-up, yeast handling and hopping rates with a special focus on whirlpool and dry hopping. Adam will pour samples of his Professor IPA.
Herbs, Spices & Other Botanical Ingredients in Today’s Beer Recipes
Follow along with this video and learn how to utilize unique herbs, spices, and other botanicals in your homebrew recipes.
Homebrew Competitions: How to Run One & How to Enter One
Homebrew competitions involve more than just collecting and judging entries and handing out medals. To be successful, they require some vision and strong planning ahead of the judging date. From the entrant’s perspective, there are multiple competitions to choose from. They are a great way to gain feedback and tips…
How Good is Your Grist?
The American Society of Brewing Chemists coordinated a collaborative test with 12 breweries on a method to check the coarseness of milling with sieves. This method can also be useful to homebrewers, because a correct mill setting greatly impacts the efficiency of extracting fermentable sugars. We will discuss the method,…
How to Manage Yeast for the Home Brewery
How were brewing strains chosen to make beer? Douglas will provide Information every homebrewer can use to ensure their beer is properly fermented and does not contain off flavors associated with bad fermentation. We’ll discuss picking proper yeast strains, reusing yeast for multiple batches and storing cultures for future use,…
Ice Cider
Twenty years ago, a genuinely new kind of apple cider appeared in Quebec: cidre de glace, or ice cider. Made from frozen apples or juice, ice cider is a wine-strength, sweet drink that showcases the true character of apples. Learn about the brief history of ice cider, commercial production and…
Improving Clarity for Homebrewers
Cloudy beer got you down? Brad Smith, author and podcast host, presents the causes and solutions for this problem. We’ll discuss the many potential contributors to cloudiness in beer including proteins, polyphenols, tannins and yeast. Brad will also explain the full range of products and techniques to improve clarity and…
Keeping it Safe! The Home Brewery’s Safety Plan
It starts with a recipe and a dream of an award-winning homebrew; it ends with a trip to the emergency room and your spouse selling off all of your brewing equipment. Join Sean Wolfe, homebrewer and senior safety analyst for Lockheed Martin, as we work though some common safety concerns…
Keeping It Simple: What Monks Can Teach Us About Brewing
When Brother Antoine was in charge of brewing at Rochefort, he said: "Two of the pale malts, two of the sugars, two hop varieties, two yeast strains . . . two of this and two of that . . . we like to keep it simple." That approach produces amazingly…
Kosmicki Spills the Secrets
How does Founders continue to invent new and exciting beers? Jeremy Kosmicki will discuss recipe formulation, unique ingredients and processes, and how the brewery pushes the boundaries of their beer while still maintaining a delicious balance of flavors.
Let’s Brew Small
There are several advantages to brewing smaller batches. This seminar will take a look at the reasons to go small, the equipment needed for smaller brews, sample recipes that have been proven on the small scale, and how to scale up (or down) recipes once they are successful.
Long Live Lagers
This seminar will present an overview of brewing lager styles, from light and crisp to dark and heavy. It will take professional lager brewing practices and translate them into practical methods for the average homebrewer. Lagers, more than any other beer style, require the brewer to pay attention to the…
Making the Jump to All-Grain
Are you on the fence about making the jump to all-grain brewing? Come get the push you've always wanted as Scott explains the basic knowledge, costs, time requirements and techniques needed to brew your first all-grain batch.
Mead: Past & Present
Berniece Van Der Berg of Moonlight Meadery reflects on the history of mead, the ancestor of fermented beverages, as well as modern mead-making practices. Berniece will discuss honey, plus a variety of current professional practices and innovations.
Navigating the Complexities of Making Great Hard Cider at Home
The seminar will explore various ways of making hard cider, from simple processes to the more complex, and will dive into how procedures, ingredient selection, creativity, time and patience will prove that you have control over the final outcome. The sky is the limit when it comes to making great…
No Boil Hop Beer
Brewing a balanced beer with no boil hops—is it possible? As part of the AHA's Research & Education Fund, a unique method of using hops in the brewing process was utilized to add clean bitterness to beer. Matthew Brown will describe the history of the idea and how the beer…
Obscure and Ancient Beers
Do you want to know what Finnish Sahti is and how it is made? Are you familiar with Steinbeer, a German method of brewing beer with heated stones? Join homebrewers Geoff Groff and Mark Pangle as they discuss some of the more obscure as well as older beer styles and…
Pair Like A Pro-Palate Trips and Pairing Practices
Homebrewers are not just into beer, you’re also into food! Fellow foodies unite in this seminar breaking down the complex topic of pairing. We’ll talk about beer and food pairing principles, along with palate tricks and tips garnered through years of tasty research.
Practical Brewing for Better Beer
Excellent beer can be made by beginner homebrewers with simple equipment and 10 simple steps to making better beer. By avoiding the most common faults in homebrewing, homebrewers using extract malts on their kitchen stoves can produce high-quality beer. This seminar’s tips will enable beginner to intermediate homebrewer to improve…
Putting Some Numbers on First Wort & Mash Hop Additions
First wort hopping is a method many homebrewers use with the idea that it adds a smoother bitterness and a unique flavor contribution to their beer. Mash hopping is avoided by many brewers because it is commonly thought to be a waste of good hops. David Curtis of Bell's Brewery's…
Really Understanding Honey
Honey is a remarkable substance: it's hygroscopic, has intense osmotic pressure, weighs in at a specific gravity of 1.425, and can remain edible for centuries without preservative measures. This seminar explores honey's composition, varieties, key flavor and aroma elements, handling, acquisition, and the metabolic details of honey fermentation. It addresses…
S. eubayanus: Practical Brewing Knowledge with the Father of Lager Yeast
Have you ever wondered, like many homebrewers, where lager yeast originated and if it can be used to make good beer? Join Bret Baker as we delve into a recent discovery made in Patagonia by Diego Libkind for a lesson in biology, history and practical brewing applications with the father…
Scaling Hops: A Comparison of Homebrew & Commercial Utilization
This talk will compare both the technical and perceived differences between homebrew and commercial hop utilization, hop flavor and aromas. We’ll look at several beers made both commercially and homebrewed using the same wort and hops, varying the hop additions. Lab comparisons documenting the bittering units will be presented along…
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