Josh Weikert

As a Specialty style, Fruit Beer is necessarily broad (or, more accurately, user- and declared-style-defined). The overarching theme of the style is “balance,” though, with a beer that’s still recognizable as “beer” but also with “evident” fruit character.

• Make Your Best
• Fruit Beer

Smart and effective hops pairing is a front-end, preproduction skill that every brewer should work to develop because pairing, blending, and mixing hops increases the odds of getting what you want out of your recipes and beers.

• Hops
• IPA
• Brewing Technique

Far from being just the “middle child” of the British Pale Ale family, the Best Bitter should be one of your favorites because it combines the lightness of the Ordinary Bitter with the more flavor-forward nature of the ESB.

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• Premium Bitter

Kellerbier merges the best of British cask ale with German malts and hops in a unique lager style. It has an atypical flavor profile that, depending on your finishing steps, can represent itself as a kind of German ESB or a Continental IPA.

• Homebrewing
• Make Your Best
• Homebrew recipe

There’s a simple pleasure to this style that makes it a joy to drink, with the added bonus of being a beer that you can enjoy a full dimpled mug of and still follow the action on the pitch.

• Make Your Best
• Ordinary Bitter

The robust porter (sometimes called American porter) because it can showcase almost any set of flavors you want. Brew one up now, and it’ll be perfect for your winter social events!

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• All Grain Recipe
• Homebrew Recipe

This is a beer you’ll like, that can serve a big (and mixed-palate) crowd, with a hops blend that should intrigue the beer geeks, and has enough punch and interest to stand out on the competition table. Not bad for a boring fizzy yellow lager, eh?

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• International Pale Lager

While many variations exist, the recipe that follows takes a solid amber-brown ale and adds in both the real (pumpkin) and “evocative” (pumpkin pie spice) ingredients necessary to call to mind falling leaves and football (European or American).

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• Autumn Seasonal

Knowing how to build a recipe for fractional distillation (and, of course, how to use the process) and making a style an "Ice Whatever" is a great club to have in your bag.

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• Porter
• Ice beer

This is a fun and easy beer. It has easily-recognizable flavors, can mask minor faults, and is easy to get right. Brew it up just before the holidays, enjoy through the snowy winter months, and share with your homebrew and craft beer skeptic friends!

• Beer Recipe
• American Stout
• Homebrew Recipe

Thinking about getting into brewing or making your beer a little better? Join Josh Weikert as he takes you through the fundamentals of making beer, equipment you'll need, and building recipes.

• Video
• Full Video
• Introduction to Brewing

In the dog days of summer it's a great time to brew up a large batch of what can conventionally be referred to not by its proper BJCP Style Guidelines name (Czech Pale Lager) but instead by a more descriptively-accurate name: Session Pilsner.

• Make Your Best
• Czech Pale Lager
• Session Lager