Spices

Bubbling up through Québécois gastronomy and into the brite tanks of craft brewers, this foraged spice is gaining wider fame and winning fans—and it grows freely across much of Canada and the northern United States.

Some beers win so many medals that they become institutions—and with three World Beer Cup gold medals in five years, COVA’s Aloha State of Mind is making its claim. Brewmaster Matt Topping shares his secrets.

Scratch in Ava, Illinois, has won a national reputation for its combination of foraging and flavor finesse. Here’s how the brewery’s duo ended up putting 131 different botanical ingredients into one (very tasty) beer.

Looking for some new creative avenues to explore, or want to try something special for your next holiday seasonal? Randy Mosher shares some insights into why botanicals have always been important to beer—plus, strategies to help you use them successfully, today.

From layering malts to selecting and infusing adjuncts, Third Eye co-owner and head brewer Kelly Montgomery lays out their medal-winning approach to planning and brewing rich, flavorful stouts.

In this clip from his video course, Phase Three cofounder and head brewer Shaun Berns lays out how they use cinnamon in their big stouts and barrel-aged beers—including a very unscientific way to measure it.

From various fruits to coconut and cacao nibs, Phase Three in Lake Zurich, Illinois, takes a pragmatic approach to using a wide range of flavor adjuncts. Here, cofounder and head brewer Shaun Berns goes into deep detail on their philosophy and process, ingredient by ingredient.

Hops can smell like other foods because they share many of the same aroma compounds. Here is Randy Mosher on how to boost your IPAs with ingredients that have those sought-after traits.

This distinctively spicy folk ingredient has a long tradition of going into American drinks, including beer—though it comes with a few disclaimers. Ready to forage?

It’s a nutty spice, but it comes from a fruit. Popular as a baking ingredient in the Middle East, the dried seeds of St. Lucie cherries can also work really nicely, as it turns out, in beer.

Brewing recipes often do not scale up or down in a linear fashion—especially when spices are involved. Stuart Keating of Earthbound Beer explains the pitfalls.

Ginger aroma is notoriously unstable in beer, tending to diminish with time. Stuart Keating, cofounder of Earthbound Beer in St. Louis, Missouri, shares a trick on preserving that ginger impression by adding bird's eye chilies.

Pick them in the spring (watch for ticks), steep them to make a big tea, then use that as your mash water... Here, Stuart Keating, cofounder of Earthbound Beer in St. Louis, Missouri, describes a method of brewing with oak leaves.

Stuart Keating, cofounder and head brewer of Earthbound Beer in St. Louis, Missouri, shares what he's learned from years of getting evocative (often beery) flavors out of a range of unusual (often un-beery) ingredients.

The heads of brewing and quality for Hardywood Park in Richmond, Virginia, explore the challenges of brewing their flagship Gingerbread Stout, Pils, Richmond Lager, hazy IPAs, and more.

Burial Beer Cofounder + Brewer Tim Gormley shares lessons learned from more than 10 years of commercial brewing experience, covering everything from getting to know your ingredients to achieving balance with them.