In Search of the Haze: Adjuncts, Malts & Hazy IPAs
Malt is the soul of beer, crafted by transforming barley into packages of starch that enzymes can convert to yeast-fermentable sugars. While new varieties of barley are formulated, tested, and approved every year, malting companies continue to innovate beyond that by developing new techniques for extracting unique flavor profiles that…
International Homebrewer Panel
Homebrewing is popular around the world! Join this panel discussion as international homebrewers share their experiences and help Homebrew Con attendees learn more about homebrewing scenes beyond the United States.
Kimchi for the Homebrewer
Learn how to make kimchi at home. It’s easy and delicious! Kimchi can easily be customized to your personal preferences, too. Many of the principles involved with kimchi can also be applied to other fermented foods.
Kombucha: Ancient History, Current Impact, and Future Potential
Our panel of experts will explore the history of kombucha from its earliest documented existence to its evolution into a commercially significant product. We will explore the intriguing and complex microbiology that underlies this mixed fermentation and culminates in the physical development of the symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast…
Late Hopping versus Dry Hopping: Tailoring Hop Aroma Expression and Character by Choosing the Right Addition Timing
Have you ever wondered why your Simcoe hop addition is fruity when added as a late-kettle addition but “catty” as a dry hop? If you want your Hallertau to express more spice notes than vegetal character, should you add it late in the boil or dry hop with it? Join…
Macbeth! The Brutal Truth about Scottish Beer
Join beer historian Ronald Pattinson as he highlights the last two centuries of Scottish beer history and debunks many myths that have sprung up around Scottish brewing. Ron will discuss ingredients, brewing techniques, beers styles, and how each of these has developed and evolved over the years.
Making Extract Beer That Rivals All-Grain Brewing
Learn how to use extracts and specialty grains to brew beer that rivals all-grain brewing. We’ll cover recipe formulation and techniques that enable homebrewers to make superior beers with basic equipment and good planning.
Mastering Cider: Tips for Making Better Cider from Master Cidermakers
Join this panel of experienced home cidermakers to have your burning questions about cider answered. Each panelist will offer in-depth tips on how to improve as a cidermaker. Come with an open mind and an inquisitive palate.
Mastering Mead Making
Learn how time, temperature, nutrients, honey source & age, and your water source all affect the quality of mead.
Maximizing Variety with a Single Brew Day: How to Get Four Distinct Beer Styles from a Single Five-Hour Brew Session
You used to brew a few times a month and keep a variety of styles on tap. But now you have a child, and suddenly your significant other isn’t cool with your leaving him or her to be a single parent every other weekend. I am here to share what…
Mead from 70 to 1750 CE: Inspirations and Lessons from 2,000 Recipes on Ingredients, Methods, and Styles
Using a proprietary catalog of more than 2,000 recipes drawn from primary sources, this presentation gives an overview of ingredients, methods, and styles for historical meads from before 1750. The focus is on overall trends in meads and interesting outliers covering styles, strength, ingredients (from almost 300 identified herbs, spices,…
Mead Magic: Tips from Master Meadmakers
So, you want to make great mead, but you’re running into issues or need advice? Look no further! The master meadmakers are here to help. We’ll serve some mead and answer your questions to get your mead to the next level.
Medieval Gruit Ales Reconstructed: New Theories about Old Beverages
Gruit as a product changed throughout its history. From a beer additive revered for its fermenting powers, it evolved into a beer with a reputation for powerful headache-causing herbals. The exact nature of gruit was once thought to be lost, but available sources paint an interesting picture of gruit, not…
More Smoked Beer! Using Oak-Smoked Wheat Malt for More Than Grätzer
Do you enjoy smoked beer? Have you tried smoked beer? In this session, you’ll try five different beers brewed with oak-smoked wheat malt. Sample a saison, an oaked English pale ale, an American barleywine, a doppelbock, and a peach Berliner weisse, all brewed with oak-smoked wheat malt. This malt is…
Often Overlooked in New Brewery Ventures: Quality, Safety, and Sustainability beyond the Garage
Things change when you scale up from a homebrew batch to your first commercial brewery, and we aren’t just talking recipe dynamics. Energy supplies and waste production increase substantially. Quality issues can cost real money and break reputations when batches are bigger. And the increased power of commercial brewery chemicals…
Oxidation Effects in Beer
There are hundreds of compounds in beer that change as it oxidizes. Simple sensory descriptions of oxidation often focus on a limited set of effects, particularly those common to pale lagers. However, oxidation effects over time are much wider in the full range of beer styles. Grandmaster beer judge Gordon…
Physiology of Alternative Yeasts and Bacteria: How to Use Unique Organisms to Emphasize Flavors in Beer
Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces create more than just ethanol and carbon dioxide during fermentation. Metabolic compounds can enhance beer flavor (e.g. fruitiness, spiciness) or detract from it (e.g. vegetal, fusel). Additional organisms can complicate these profiles. Fermenting with Kluyveromyces, Zygosaccharomyces, Torulaspora, Pichia, Metschnikowia, Hanseniaspora, and Zymomonas can create complicated interactions between…
Practical Beekeeping for the Homebrewer and Meadmaker (or How to Justify Another Hobby)
Many of us have tried our hands at growing hops, capturing local yeast, and malting our own grains to craft ultra-local artisan beers. But have you considered harvesting your own honey for beer and mead? The best honey you’ll ever taste is from your own hive, and it’s easier to…
Put It on Nitro! The Science and Methods of Beer Nitrogenation
Cascading bubbles, dense foam, and smooth mouthfeel—join Michael as he teaches you how to achieve the hallmarks of nitro beer in your own homebrew. We’ll go over the history, science, and methods of beer nitrogenation and cover the equipment needed for the perfect nitro pour.
Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a Homebrew…then, Start a Revolution
Brewers Association Diversity Ambassador “Dr. J” Jackson-Beckham shares current trends that are changing the craft brewing landscape, highlighting the important role that diversity and inclusion must play in the future growth and sustainability of the industry. In this seminar, she spotlights the unique role of the homebrewing community as the…
Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus: The Story of a Contaminant Yeast That Shook the Brewing World
Yeast that can referment beer poses a great risk to commercial brewers and homebrewers. Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus is a close relative to brewer’s yeast that can excrete glucoamylase enzymes that metabolize starches. Scientific understanding of this contaminant is lacking, and better identification procedures need to be developed. In light…
So, You Want to Be a Pro Brewer: Are You Crazy?
Come learn all the reasons you shouldn’t, all the reasons you should, and, most of all, what you need to do to be successful with such a crazy idea. With more than 9,500 breweries in the United States, are we reaching a saturation point? In some places we probably have,…
The Deductive Beer Tasting Method: A Method to the Sensory Madness
Learn more from tasting the beer you brew! Join Rich Higgins, Master Cicerone and former brewmaster, to learn a method that lets you “look under the hood” and understand every beer you taste. Rich’s Deductive Beer Tasting Method builds upon the framework of aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression…
The Little Things
Ninkasi Award winners Nick McCoy and Jeff Poirot share “The Little Things” you can do to take your homebrewing to the next level. This seminar will cover tips and tricks in all areas of brewing and recipe creation.
The Most Neutral Lager Strain? Effect of Pitching Rate and Fermentation Temperature on Strain Weihenstephan 34/70
In this seminar you will virtually enter the R&D department of a yeast manufacturer and learn the steps and methodology of fermentation trials to demonstrate the neutrality in flavors and aromas, under several fermentation conditions, of a lager yeast strain. Attendees will learn what makes this yeast strain so popular…
Using Raw Ingredients: Cereal Mashing Explained
Open a whole new world of brewing opportunity with raw grains! Accessible from your own backyard or the local grocery aisle, unmalted grains have been used in brewing since the beginning of time. From amaranth to wheat, we’ll look at what grains are available to use in the brewing process.
Using Tannic Acid to Clarify and Stabilize Your Brew
Mentioning the word tannin to a brewer usually brings up negative connotations of haze, astringency, and flawed processes. In fact, the world of tannins is a large and complex one, and certain citizens of this world can deliver positive attributes to your brew. We will discuss how to use tannic…
Why You Do What You Do: Avoiding Common Off Flavors
The basics of brewing are well documented and generally understood by homebrewers: proper cleaning and sanitation, a vigorous boil, fast hot and cold break, healthy yeast, and temperature control, to name a few. However, brewers often don’t realize why each step is so crucial for a desired flavor…
Would I Lie to You? Homebrewing Advice Demystified as Legit or Myth!
Pro brewers don’t want you to know this. Number 7 will surprise you! You won’t believe what happens next! Forgo the clickbait and join this seminar to get the real story on whether the common (and not-so-common) homebrewing advice you’ve heard is legit or myth. A seasoned panel of experienced…
Yeast Harvesting, Banking, and Quality Control
Years ago, I started a thread on HomebrewTalk.com to share my techniques for banking yeast at home easily and inexpensively using slants. Little did I expect that the thread would go on to become one of the longest and most read threads on the world’s largest homebrew forum. It is…
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