sylunt1

There is a lot of info on brewing, getting started, and even quite a few recipes at brew-monkey.com Cheers and beers...

Wow - after reading that I just had to write my own I thought a different perpective was in order. http://www.intrepidmedia.com/column.asp?id=2380

Typically, seasonal beers are beers brewed for the season. Winter beers, summer beers, Octoberfests and the like. Generally it has nothing to do with ale vs lager. Ales are fermented at warmer temps than lagers and thus have some aromas and flavors that you won't get with the cooler fermented, crisp and clean lagers. If you want the whys I can go into details, but I'll spare you the techie stuff for now. I have tried a number of seasonal beers, mostly due to having to rate them and such. Rough job They tend to change annually. I can say I am not a fan of pumpkin beers at all - don't like pumpkin anything. I will try them, but tend to give the same reaction each time. The Holiday/Christmas/Winter beers typically (there are exceptions) are somewhat darker, heavier, chewier (more caramel malts), higher octane (alcohol), low hopped, spiced brews - sometimes called winter warmers. They can range from spruce tip beers to whatever is in the spice cabinet - although nutmeg, clove, and similar holiday spices are the majority of what's there. I am sure each region has its own offerings, being in CA I get the PNW type things. Another idea for holiday brews is a nice warmed, mead with mulling spices... quite tasty indeed. Cheers! Chris

The dogfish 120 is excellent as is their world wide stout. The highest on record is Sam Adams Utopia weighing in at 24%. Unibroue from Canada makes some excellent beers as well. For the most part the high gravity/alcohol beers you want to serve warmer than you would a "regular" beer. Some would do well in a brandy snifter served warm and sipped like a cognac. The strong Belgians pair excellently with cheeses as well. As far as how they are made... a few ways... 1. Add 2-3 times the amount of malt to the mash to get the needed sugars. 2. Add normal amounts of malt, but boil it away so you are left with more or less a reduction. 3. Ice beer - make your wort then freeze it and remove the ice - you will have a less watered down brew - this being stronger. You will also need some really good or special high gravity yeast. This and a lot of oxygen during fermentation will help you achieve the high alcohol content. Hope this helps some. Cheers, Chris

Well, let's see... Friday was my Imperial Red, followed by my blonde ale.... followed by Anchor Summer... Saturday was just Anchor Summer. Tonight has been my blonde followed by my schwarzbier - not a very common style, but excellent. Needless-to-say I have a stash of brews going and I must get to them before they start going south. It's good to see some excellent choices of beers being had here :) Cheers

I have found, that holding a beer tasting event is a good idea. I have done this as well as taught some beer classes and had very good results. Go to a homebrew store and talk to the people there. Get a package of hops and ask to see/smell/taste the different grains. A lot of people that like beer - don't know what they like about it. After a class they can better say what they like and what they don't like. During a class or a tasting event, you can have each person bring a different style of beer - this way you get to try a lot of things and not have to worry about buying a 6 pack and not liking it. Suggestions for less "bitter" beers: Belgian dubbel, tripel, wit, German wheat/weisse beer. Feel free to contact me for a more in depth conversation if you wish. If you want to get into beer/food pairings, I suggest starting here. Good luck and I hope this helps. Chris

Might I suggest a beer tasting event? Get a couple people together and have them bring a 6 pack or a few bigger bottles of different things. This way you can try a bunch of things without feeling too bad if you don't like it (oh man I just spent $7.00 on something I don't like). I do this often for my beer newbie friends :) Another good thing to do is go to a local brew pub and order the beer sampler - they will bring out a tray with usually 5-7 different smaller samples of what they make. It is a good way to find a style you may enjoy. Hope this helps.

Sounds like a good idea... As a guide you can use the BCJP scoresheets that judges (yes, I am one) use to score homebrew contests - just don't put a number score to it. If you go to http://bjcp.org there are a lot of good references there including what each style of beer should be like - it is very helpful to help figure out what you may be tasting.

Here are 2 quizzes - the 1st one is fun - the 2nd is serious and quite hard but interesting. http://www.chilliman.com/beer_labels_frame.htm http://www.tastybrew.com/bjcp/test.html

If anyone is interested in mead or making mead there is a knowledgable mead maker who is very helpful in a mead forum here

It can match very nicely with chocolate as well... and well oatmeal stout for breakfast - there ya go. Actually you can replace the water in pancakes with beer - just for a change of pace.

Yeah it's still around - we have it in CA. Not a huge seller, I can say that. JAZ - sorry to bring that back to memory - somethings just should be forgotten :) They paid money to develop that? It wasn't an oops? "Oh man who poured their sprite in my corona..." Sorry - had to say it...

You didnt give that impression at all :) I would suspect that most bars/restaurants do not stick to the guidelines. I would find it hard to believe that most places would have that strong a customer base interested in this type of serving style to warrant that kind of storage space. I would love to see a beer bar - you know, as there are wine bars. A quiet dimly lit, comfortable, place for conversation, relaxation and to enjoy the different beers properly - that would be a very good thing. A pipe dream? I hope not. Personally, I do not use a thermometer, nor do I have a cellar (or something that keeps the beer at cellar temp). I keep them in the fridge, but tend to drink them slowly so I enjoy them at a range of temps - and I find it interesting to see what flavors emerge when. But then again, I am a bit odd :)

Well actually... yes - a number of beers do have serving temps on them. As the craft brew industry picks up - it seems to be moving more towards the wine type sector (more beer snobs :) Not that there is anything wrong with that at all - I myself am kind of a beer snob. The belgian beers (and New Belgium Brewery) tend to have serving guidelines. This is done as different beers are better at different temps (and in different glasses) - the lighter the beer typically the colder is is to be served. I wrote an article about this sort of thing awhile back. I think the temp thing is something you will see more of in the future - at least I hope so. Brewers take a lot of time and a lot of pride in brewing their beer - so why not enjoy them as they were meant to be (and how they taste best) Cheers.

Didn't they try that with a thing called Tequiza? It tasted like corona and sprite...