No Rests for the Wicked

Every brewer should have a house beer they use to get better—the one you could brew in your sleep to fine-tune your process, get to know your ingredients intimately, and dial in flavor and quality. For Annie Johnson, that beer is her throwback American amber ale.

Infusing beer with fruit and other flavors between the tap and the glass isn’t just a relic of a time when craft beer was less mainstream—and, often, more fun. It’s also something you can do at home, today. Ready to get acquainted?

Sometimes known as “kettle caramelization,” the Maillard richness of a boil reduction can add deeper malt flavor to any beer you brew—even if it’s not Scottish.

Pro brewers these days are learning about how best to take advantage of cold-side aroma extracts and other advanced hop products. Why shouldn’t you?

You don’t need an industrial Japanese brewery—nor even an all-grain homebrew system—to make a clean, light-bodied, refreshing rice lager ideal for sushi and summertime.

Die-hards will say you need to go all-grain to brew a great pilsner. They’ll also say you need strict temperature control. That’s fine—we don’t have to share our beer or our tricks with them.

With saison’s high attenuation, delicate body, fermentation-driven complexities, and lasting foam, it would be easy to assume that extract brewers are at a disadvantage. Not necessarily, as Annie Johnson explains.

In further exploring how to squeeze the most character out of extract brewing, Jester Goldman turns his attention to kettle sours.