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This article on bokashi grains is the You Can Ferment That! column from the May/June 2023 Zymurgy magazine.

By Amahl Turczyn

This installment of You Can Ferment That! is a slight departure—bokashi is not a fermented food product, but rather a method of fermenting compost. With spring in the air, there’s no better time to start composting food, your brewery waste, and food scraps. The ancient Japanese technique of bokashi diverts all kinds of organic waste from the landfill and into fertile soil for gardens, yards, or potted plants.… Read the rest “How to Make Bokashi Grains”

What’s the appeal of a brewery? Of course, the easy answer is the beer. But that’s just one component of the sum of a brewery’s parts. When you go to enjoy that beer or seltzer, have you taken the time to look at your surroundings? What, if anything, makes this place unique?

These five U.S. breweries all make good beer. But for folks who have been there, they know that they’re in for an experience that doesn’t just stop there. There are stories behind each one, and they go beyond the beverages they serve.… Read the rest “Five Unique Places to Drink a Beer”

There’s nothing quite like a hoppy India pale ale (IPA)! It’s one of the most popular beer styles out there, with seemingly every craft brewery having an example ready on tap.

We’ve compiled 15 commercially-brewed IPA recipes from across the United States that have been scaled down so we can brew them at home!

Note: some of these beer recipes were submitted directly from the breweries while others are interpretations created by homebrewers.

1. Deschutes Brewery Chainbreaker

• Style: White IPA
• Brewery: Deschutes Brewery (Bend, OR)

Chainbreaker White IPA marries the best of American IPA hop profile with the spices and yeast character of Belgian witbier.… Read the rest “15 IPA Recipes from Craft Breweries”

This article is from the May/June 2023 Zymurgy magazine. AHA members can instantly access an archive back through the year 2000 with Zymurgy Online.

By Julia Herz, American Homebrewers Association Executive Director

If asked to count the number of days I’ve homebrewed alone versus with somebody else, I’m not sure which number would be higher. I can say the number of days I’ve transferred or bottled has been more solo. Regardless, when people ask about my preferred way to brew or package beer, the answer easily is “I prefer to brew with others.”… Read the rest “Team Homebrewing Ups Your Game”

Sourdough refers to a natural fermentation process that involves undomesticated bacteria and yeast. Instead of using packaged baker’s yeast, a fermenting mixture of flour and water containing wild yeast and bacteria is used to make the dough rise. This mixture is referred to as a “starter” and sometimes lovingly as the “mother.”

Naturally occurring wild yeasts tend to create more complex flavors than their commercially available counterparts. Lactobacillus–the tangy bacteria found in sour beers and yogurts–creates lactic acid during fermentation, which gives sourdough its signature tartness.

The four sourdough recipes below are perfect introductions to another realm of fermentation for homebrewers to explore.… Read the rest “4 Sourdough Recipes: Pizza Dough, Popovers, Bread, & Pancakes”

Imagine a backyard barbeque in Northern California in the 1990s. Kids in sun-worn fluorescent bathing suits cannonball into the deep end of the pool. Adults grill hot dogs and chat. A woman sits in a flimsy, plastic chair, her curly, jet-black hair surrounding her head like a halo. When she opens her mouth to laugh, red lipstick yields to an orange-slice smile with a charming front-tooth gap. She’s got a cigarette in one hand and a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in the other, nestled inside a chunky foam koozie. That’s my mom, and the bright green of that label of my youth stays with me today.… Read the rest “Cheers to Our Beer-Drinking Moms”

A (not so) long time ago in a homebrewery far, far away… an idea was born! Let’s tell the tale of the original Star Wars trilogy (IV, V, VI) with beer recipes.

This brilliant plan came from Andrew Sanders, Tyler Maybee, and Paul Crowther. The triumphant trio cohosts the Pop Culture Brews podcast, developing beer recipes inspired by their favorite movies and other pop culture media. Check out these 4 Beer Recipes Inspired By Movies.

The Pop Culture Brews crew used the same pale ale beer base for this intergalactic adventure.… Read the rest “May the Wort Be With You: Star Wars-inspired Beer Recipes”

Jerry Franck, an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker from Luxembourg, grew up near the country’s border with Belgium, but only rarely visited. Decades later, Belgium became the backdrop for one of his most ambitious projects: investigating the evolution of the centuries-old lambic brewing tradition.

At the start of the 20th century, there were more than 70 brewers of lambic ale in the city of Brussels, but by the1960s, only five or six remained. Bottle Conditioned, which contemporaneously premiered at the Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF) in California and DOCVILLE International Documentary Film Festival in Belgium in March, and played at the American Documentary Film Festival in April, is an aggregation of four years of footage, analogous to the brewing and blending culture of lambics.… Read the rest “The Coolship Has Landed: Film Elevates the Art of Lambic Brewing”