Covers weren’t always colorful but they have certainly been playful. From bathtub-bound Colonels to beachwear supermodels, Zymurgy covers have chronicled homebrewing in every walk of life.

The first issue of Zymurgy rolled off the presses shortly after President Carter signed the law legalizing homebrewing in 1978. If you missed that first 12-page issue, we show you the actual first two pages with complete text of the articles they introduced.

When Charlite Papazian was still drinking cream soda, Fred Eckhardt was already well familiar with what was then a wretched world of homebrewing. Starting “before the beginning”, he tells us how that all changed.

Funny stories, odd items and just plain “back then” reminisciences from the days of homebrews past.

This special installment of Winners Circle includes the recipe for every Homebrewer of Year beer from the founding of the National Homebrew Competition in 1979 to the present.

In all respects, beer color is a slippery thing. Brewers quantify it with a single number and yet not all 10 SRM beers look the same. And just how do you get from malt color to beer color in some meaningful way? Our man of beer arts and sciences has the answers.

American craft beers often display a bit of haze and may look downright muddy. But as homebrewers, we want our friends and fellow brewers to be impressed with our beers, and a nasty haze can make a bad first impression. Here’s the lowdown on clarifying the situation.

Man, oh man, did we have fun. Read, check out the photos and mark your calendars for enxt year’s shindig.

From neighborhood punters to worldly beer judges, people drink with their eyes. A veteran judge and brewer examines the link between beer appearance and flavor with thoughts about what drinking eyes may perceive.

We had so many recipes from top brewers to cram into our July-August issue that we ran out of room. Here’s another dozen taste treats from that ruffian of the Pacific Northwest.