Whazup.com

By Amahl Turczyn

As a follow-up to the kombucha article that appeared in the September/October 2021 issue of Zymurgy magazine, we now turn to fermenting kombucha with a higher level of alcohol. These hard beverages are becoming popular with craft breweries and dedicated “kombucheries” alike, as they present a blank canvas on which a limitless number of flavors and colors can be painted.

The basic kombucha process is the same: brew up a batch of tea, sweeten it, introduce it to your symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY), and the microbes will do the rest.… Read the rest “How to Make Hard Kombucha”

Barrel-aged beers are almost a subculture when it comes to the craft beer world. Commonly bold and intense, these beers command attention with their complexity, robust taste, and often high alcohol content.

When envisioning a beer that’s been aged in a barrel or inspired by another non-beer beverage, initial thoughts usually turn to bourbon or whiskey. But there are plenty of beers on the market that have been carefully aged in rum barrels, brewed with the addition of wine grape must, boosted from spending time in a tequila barrel, or even inspired by the ancient Japanese beverage sake.… Read the rest “Beyond Bourbon: Wine and Spirit-Inspired Beers”

According to the Urban Dictionary Wassup is the short form of “what’s up,” a form of greeting, as in “hi.”

The first Wassup Anheuser-Busch Budweiser beer ad aired during Monday Night Football on December 20, 1999. The Budweiser commercials were based on a short film called True, written and directed by Charles Stone III. Stone appeared in the commercial and is the man who answers the phone at the start.

The Wassup signature catch phrase became a sensation and was talked about on talk shows, parodied in films and TV shows, and made a lyric for songs.… Read the rest “The Origin of the Wassup? Ad Campaign”

At a community center in the industrial city of Orange, N.J., Joe Mettle and Roger Apollon, Jr. proudly stand in front of an arched stained-glass window before class starts. The two former New Jersey charter school teachers and craft beer connoisseurs are the founders of EEB, which stands for Entrepreneurship and Equity in Brewing, a 10-week training program that provides Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), and other underrepresented individuals in craft brewing an opportunity to learn how to brew, and in turn, run a business.

This inaugural semester of EEB offers classes in brewing history as well as tasting and evaluating beer (and the necessary vocabulary).… Read the rest “EEB: Opening Doors to a More Inclusive Brewing Community”

When Bhavik Modi walked into his first ever sales meeting for his new craft beer line, he wasn’t alone. Tiffany Wooten, a veteran sales representative from brewery incubator Pilot Project Brewing, was by his side, convincing the team at high-end contemporary Indian restaurant ROOH Chicago to serve Azadi Brewing’s cardamom golden ale and Kesar mango IPA.

“I was confident in our recipe and the quality of the beer,” Modi says. “But I was nervous about the mechanics of beer sales, like the terms, how these tastings typically go, and other logistical details.… Read the rest “Pilot Project: Launching Brands and Lowering Barriers in Craft Beer”

“The adventure offered by following the guidance of medicine men and women, ancient homebrewers, and our farming ancestors—all the while taking divergent paths to find surprising new flavors—is the intoxicating heart of why we make beer.”—Scratch Brewing Company, The Homebrewer’s Almanac

Nearly 10 years ago, Scratch Brewing Company set out to make beer with ingredients from the land in a way that modern American craft brewing hadn’t seen much of before: locally sourced not as a limited offering, but as principle. “Carrying on the heritage of ancient traditions brings us closer to the long life cycle of the plants we briefly live with side by side,” the Scratch team declared in The Homebrewer’s Almanac.… Read the rest “The Localization of Beer Marches On”

His recent published study on hop terroir backs up what brewers have known anecdotally—that where a hop is grown can have significant impact in flavor and aroma. But just how much impact is possible, and what causes it?

Tom Shellhammer’s research has been crucial for helping brewers, as well as barley and hop growers, gain deeper understanding of brewing ingredients and how they actually work. As a food science professor at Oregon State University, he’s led critical studies, including a well-known study on hop creep. His latest project is a wide-ranging, multiyear study to understand the impact of terroir on hops, and the results of the first year of the study have just become available.… Read the rest “Podcast Episode 258: Tom Shellhammer of Oregon State Finds Fertile Ground…”

Making beer at home is a fast growing hobby as people discover how easy it is and inexpensive to get started. And who doesn’t want to impress their friends with their own great tasting home brewed beer? Your friends will swear it’s as good as their normal brand.

Here are three reasons why you should start brewing your own beer at home:

1. Getting started is easy. Making beer may sound intimidating but it isn’t. The ingredients, recipes and equipment you’ll need are linked from this Website. You’ll find books, DVD’s and beer brewing kits.