Josh Weikert

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

Rich and bready but never sweet and hot, the English Barleywine is the beer-drinking equivalent of eating warm biscuits straight out of the oven. Here’s how to brew your best one.

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

You can't make great beer without being a great beer evaluator. Join Josh Weikert as he shows you how to become the best judge you can be

• Video
• Full Video
• Evaluating Beer

Here we’ve used Amarillo, Chinook, and Nugget to create an American saison with a bright pineapple and blackberry flavor and a distinct resiny Nugget aroma.

• Beer Recipe
• Saison Recipe

ESB is distinctly English, with significant malt complexity (though usually of the lower-Lovibond variety), a fairly high IBU-to-gravity ratio, and English flavor/aroma hops and yeast strains. Here’s how to make your best one.

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

Adding raspberries to your porter is a fantastic way to expand your flavor options and test your creativity. Josh Weikert shows you how to make three adjustments to your recipe to account for the additional tartness/astringency from the raspberries.

• Beer Recipe
• All Grain Recipe
• Porter Recipe

Bring out the Oatmeal Stout when you want a beer that’s not bone dry, not intensely roasty, not saccharine-sweet, and not overly alcoholic—but still clearly a stout. Here’s how to make your best.

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