Josh Weikert

Haze in beer, in and of itself, is not something to be praised or condemned. It can be desirable and helpful in a number of styles, but it can also signal a serious problem. Here's where it comes from, how you can create it, and how you can avoid it.

• Brewing Techniques and Advice
• Craft Beer Scene

This recipe from Josh Weikert will help you make your best English IPA.

• Beer Recipe
• All Grain Recipe
• IPA Recipe

Some people look at the style description of American lagers with their “strong flavors are a fault” language and simply decide not to make them. You should, though. Despite their limited range of flavor, these are still great beers!

• Making Beer
• Brewing Techniques and Advice

With one base recipe, you can create many distinct saisons just by manipulating the hopping. Here we’ve used Fuggle and Styrian Goldings to create a saison with a gentle floral, earthy, and spicy hops flavor and aroma.

• Making Beer
• Brewing Techniques and Advice

Brewing your best Weissbier includes a series of don’ts: don’t forget the rice hulls, don’t grow up a yeast starter, don’t oxygenate the wort, don’t cold crash. Here’s what to do for a crowd-pleaser of a beer for these dog days of summer.

• Making Beer
• Brewing Techniques and Advice
• Make Your Best

Josh Weikert takes a relatively straightforward style—Helles—and “upscales” it into a double/imperial version, so that you can get a sense of the kinds of considerations in play and an approach to dealing with them.

• Making Beer
• Brewing Techniques and Advice
• Make Your Best

Festbier, the beer actually served at Munich’s Oktoberfest, is related to Oktoberfest but a definitely distinct style. It’s a pale lager with a clear Pilsner malt biscuit bent, with some additional toasted malt flavors in support. Here’s how to brew one.

• Making Beer
• Brewing Techniques and Advice
• Make Your Best

Bohemian Pilsner has a restrained fermentation character and a clean but complex biscuity maltiness with an absolute avalanche of hops without harsh bitterness. Brewing one is easier and harder than people think. Here’s how.

• Making Beer
• Brewing Techniques and Advice
• Make Your Best

Here’s a recipe for a brown ale that’s obviously a brown ale, but also obviously not just another English Brown or Mild. It will have much more interest on the palate, especially if you take the more adventurous Rauchmalt route!

• Beer Recipe
• Porter Recipe
• All Grain Recipe

Belgian pale ale is a great entry-level Belgian beer for those who are a little overwhelmed by the more common Dubbels and Tripels out there, and it’s the style I recommend when people tell me they “don’t like Belgians.”

• Beer Recipe
• All Grain Recipe
• Belgian Pale Ale Recipe

Belgian witbier is a fantastic beer style, especially for the summer-to-fall transition, but you need to resist the impulse to overload it with spices and fruit! Here’s how to brew one you can drink by the liter instead of making wheat-based perfume.

• Making Beer
• Brewing Techniques and Advice
• Make Your Best

This beer is inspired by Mike Todd, a fellow member of the Stoney Creek Homebrewers, who brought a SMaSH version to a recent meeting. We were all blown away by the clarion blackberry/black currant/plum notes that the Bramling Cross hops pumped out!

• Beer Recipe
• Pale Ale Recipe
• All Grain Recipe