Beyond Beer: Hard Seltzer, Hard Kombucha, and More (Apr-May 2021)

From our Love Handles department for beer bars we love: In Japan’s eclectic and hectic drinking scene, Watering Hole remains a Tokyo craft-beer pioneer.

Levi Funk of Untitled Art and Funk Factory Geuzeria discusses the challenges smaller breweries and homebrewers face in packing real-fruit flavors—safely—into their hard seltzers and other beverages.

This throwback American black ale goes for ample hops and rich malt, without overdoing it on the roast.

From our Love Handles files on beer bars we love: Near the harbor, this locus of Maine’s bustling brewing scene specializes in a variety of sausages paired with local beers.

Is the future of Berliner weisse to be found in the past? These five mixed-fermentation versions offer a glimpse of what was and what remains possible.

Time for Sunday brunch with American pale ale. In this dish, a splash of beer adds brightness to the Mediterranean flavors of shakshuka.

Ready to make some booch? This recipe comes courtesy of Mary Izett, co-owner of Fifth Hammer Brewing in New York and author of “Speed Brewing."

Here we celebrate American craft beer’s most important style (pale ale) with the most important meal of the weekend (brunch).

Saison may bring to mind thirsty farmers in amber waves of grain—or it may remind you of intricate, multistep mash regimes aimed at high attenuation. However, there’s no reason extract brewers can’t take a crack at it. Here’s a recipe.

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.

One of the world’s most interesting fermented drinks is well within the homebrewing wheelhouse. Drew Beechum breaks it down, from SCOBY-hunting to flavors and alcohol-boosting. Have you checked your chakras lately?

Green Cheek head brewer Evan Price calls this 2018 GABF bronze-medal winner a “clear IPA, brewed without crystal malt, to keep the color light and malt flavor low—and to allow those Simcoe and Citra hops to shine through like crazy. Clean. Bitter. Hoppy.”

Evan Price, cofounder and head brewer at Green Cheek, is winning medals and brewing the kinds of IPAs he enjoys most, applying a skill set that he’s picked up the hard way.

Named for the creek on the edge of our Missouri farm, this straightforward recipe is a recent iteration of the type of saison I like to brew often: light, dry, and smoothly bitter, with plenty of herbal hop flavor to balance the yeast-driven spice.

American craft beer’s most important style—the American pale ale—is versatile for any occasion. Likewise, its approachability makes it an easy fit as an ingredient. Here we celebrate this bright, balanced beer with the most important meal of the weekend.

Hard seltzers and similar flavored beverages have never been so popular. It’s worth taking a clear-eyed look at the processes and flavorings upon which they rely. Randy Mosher takes us behind the curtain.

From malt-forward bières de garde to New World hoppy takes dripping in fruits from the bine, the approaches are myriad and the influences widespread. But which do brewers themselves love? We asked five for their favorites.

Brewmaster Phil Markowski of Connecticut’s Two Roads is known for a methodical approach to wild and sour beers—but he’s embraced hard seltzer as a drink that has its time and place. Here, he discusses the development of their H2Roads hard seltzer.

This is a homebrew-scale recipe for Schell’s base Berliner weisse recipe, a traditionally brewed, mixed-culture take on the style.

The traditional white beer from Berlin has had many guises over the centuries, from simpler Lacto sours to fruit-packed smoothies, via enigmatic, mixed-fermentation constructions more closely aligned with its history.

Even in 20th century Belgium, “saison” was interpreted in different ways. Those interpretations continue to branch off into myriad ways today.

Longtime pro brewer Jeremy Myers shares this homebrew recipe for a throwback American pale ale inspired by a true classic.

Yvan De Baets, cofounder and head brewer at the Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels, has been researching (and brewing) saison for more than two decades. He has argued that “yeast is the biggest myth about saison.” We asked him to elaborate.

Based on some details shared by Pierre-Alex Carlier, here is a homebrew recipe inspired by the world-classic Saison d’Epeautre.

Saison is a dynamic creature—ever-evolving, open to interpretation, and grounded in a myth that is basically true. It chafes at hermetically sealed definitions and style guidelines. Plot twist: You get to write its next chapter.

From our Love Handles department for great beer bars: Check out this labor of love from longtime beer geek (and rocker) Keri Kelli, in the thick of Sin City.

In this edition of Pick Six, Scratch Brewing cofounder Marika Josephson thoughtfully selects a sixer of beers that inspired and informed the creation of their rustic, forage-focused brewery in southern Illinois.

Here is a homebrew-scale recipe for Wren House’s best-selling beer—the same that won gold in the most competitive category of the 2020 Great American Beer Festival awards: Juicy/Hazy IPA.

With freshly minted GABF gold for Spellbinder IPA, Phoenix’s Wren House hopes its new production facility can finally keep up with demand for its hazies and barrel-aged knockouts.

The foundational style of independent American brewing is still rooted in its bedrock, even as today’s brewers riff on it in new ways. Whatever take on pale ale you fancy, Josh Weikert explains why you should always order one.

With the Continental Army at Valley Forge in mind, Josh Weikert brews this historically reimagined stock ale with molasses, spruce tips, and a portion of smoked malt.

This “bread IPA,” with a profile like a big, bitter British ESB, gets extra character and body from the addition of crusty, unsold loaves from Brussels supermarkets—promoting a less wasteful economy while suggesting new avenues for flavor experimentation.

The rising interest in hard seltzer and other not-so-beery beverages has led to new looks at existing gear in the brewhouse—as well as investments in equipment or partnerships that could have wider benefits.

Don’t let that extra loaf go to waste—try throwing it into your mash tun. Here, Sam Fleet of Brussels Beer Project breaks down the unexpected benefits of brewing with bread.

We missed traveling, we missed going to bars, and we missed going to the movies. We even missed traveling to bars to watch screenings of geeky beer-documentary movies that really don’t speak to anyone else except those of us who already love those things.

As growers look to meet demand from brewers, here‘s a look at how the most-grown hops in the Pacific Northwest have changed in recent years.