Category Archives: brewing

Brew Year’s Resolutions 2026

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I’m pretty satisfied with my brewing at the moment, which makes sense after nearly 20 years in the hobby! 2026 will be a year of small goals–but I do think it’s important to set some.

  • Submit something for publication about AquiloPils. It’s a cool story, there’s a cool label, and I have had intentions of writing it up, but just never made the time.
  • Improve my pH management. I’ve never really stepped up to serious pH measurement, mainly because good equipment is fairly expensive and finicky. In the past, I used cheap pH meters, but they’re not built to last. A few projects–such as Salty One Gose–would benefit from more precise pH data, so 2026 is the year to do this.
  • Rebrew Salty One Gose. Related to the goal above, this recipe ended up pretty good but I think will be stellar once I dial in the appropriate level of sour.
  • Embrace dry hopping for pale lagers and similar beers. I have avoided this due to concerns about haze, but I feel that I am missing an opportunity to get a subtle “pop” of hop aroma and flavor in my German pils and kölsch recipes. During the past year or two, I’ve been focusing on late kettle additions, and they have sometimes done well, but I feel like I’m often missing something. I aim to try this with a batch or two and see what happens.
Beer in stock photos always seems to be leaving a mess on the table. Why is spilled beer a trope? Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

2025’s Homebrew Highlights

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2025 was a decent year for brewing; I focused in part on perfecting classic styles, in addition to returning to a few standby recipes. I feel that I know my brewing system pretty well and have been learning the mash and recipe formulation techniques to get to my destination. Interestingly, I was at nearly 100 percent dry yeast during the past year–I might try one or two liquid yeast varieties for particular batches, but in the end the variety and convenience of dry yeast can’t be beat.

  • Favorite Batch(es)
    • Mountain Town Stout was phenomenal, and (surprisingly) my first American stout.
    • AquiloPils was supremely enjoyable, probably in large part because of the story behind it.
  • Least Favorite Batch
  • Experimental Recipe With Most Potential
  • Most Fun New Style/Recipe to Try
    • Salty One Gose was amazing, and I think it will be even better when I dial it in more.
  • Upcoming Beer With Most Potential
    • Six-Shooter Abbey Singel is a Belgian ale clocking in around 6.7% abv; it’s still conditioning, but I’ll put it on tap soon!
  • Best Ingredient/Technique Added to Repertoire
    • This was the year of small batches, following my “Brew Year’s Resolution” of doing more small batch beers. This was greatly facilitated by adding an Anvil Foundry 6.5 to my equipment range. This smaller Foundry makes it so easy to do <5 gallon batches, which in turn has encouraged me to brew more often on this system. I’ve really enjoyed trying a bigger spectrum of styles; in many cases, 2.5 gallons is the absolutely perfect quantity.
    • Isaria 1924 malt was super fun to try, and I like how it tasted. I’ll be doing more with this!
  • Favorite Books / Publications
    • This year I started a subscription to Craft Beer & Brewing, and it has been a fantastic addition to my homebrew reading routine. The articles tend to focus a bit more on the commercial brewing side, but there are also tons of interesting style profiles. They also highlight lots of interesting homebrew scale recipes, and I’ve enjoyed brewing several. I still love Zymurgy and BYO (now sadly only in online form), but Craft Beer & Brewing brings something different.
  • Overall Stats
    • 24 batches
      • 8 were “half batches” (between 2.5 and 3 gallons)
      • I feel like I did a really good job of branching out into new styles, or styles I haven’t brewed much previously; this includes gose, American brown ale, American stout, Belgian single, and others.

Brew Year’s Resolutions 2025

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It has been three years since I last did one of these posts, but I figured I would give it a go in 2025. I usually only somewhat loosely adhere to these resolutions, but they can be fun ways to frame the year.

  • More Small Batches.
    • I enjoy brewing, and sometimes it’s more about the brew day than consuming the final product. One way to get around an occasional backlog in beer (and to have more variety) is to brew smaller batches. So, I’m going to aim to do a greater percentage of 3 gallon brews this year. Although I anticipate continuing with 5 gallon batches as the bulk of my brewing (especially for favorites like German pils), I hope to work more 3 gallon batches into the rotation, especially for new-to-me styles.
  • Conditioning Time.
    • Somewhat paradoxically relative to the item above, some of my beers would benefit from a longer conditioning or lagering time before serving. For instance, my märzen was on tap within 6 weeks after kegging, but a minimum of 8 weeks and preferably 10 would have been ideal to hit the point of brilliance for this particular recipe. A German pils (not yet posted) is at 6 weeks and is now brilliant and ready to serve; I often have these beers on around 2 weeks after kegging. Beyond simple discipline, I think the key to achieving this goal is brewing frequently enough that I can afford to let a keg sit for longer lagering.
  • New Styles.
    • I have explored a good chunk of the styles out there, but there are still more to do. In the most recent Zymurgy issue that highlights the winners of the 2024 NHC, there was a really intriguing gose recipe. Sour beers aren’t my usual favorite, quick sour methods are sometimes a bit one dimensional or not advised for many styles, and the possibility of contamination always gives me second thoughts. But, this particular “Salty One” by gold medal winner Jonathan Hernandez relies on a blending technique that avoids souring on the cold side, and allows some complexity on the hot side. Basically, you make a fraction of the batch as sauergut, and then adding this to the rest of the wort at the boil. I’m going to give it a try!

2024’s Homebrew Highlights

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2024 was a decent year for brewing; I focused in part on perfecting classic styles, in addition to returning to a few standby recipes. I feel that I know my brewing system pretty well and have been learning the mash and recipe formulation techniques to get to my destination. Interestingly, I think I was at 100 percent dry yeast during the past year–I might try one or two liquid yeast varieties for particular batches, but in the end the variety and convenience of dry yeast can’t be beat.

  • Favorite Batch(es)
    • Bear Butte Porter is on tap right now, and it hits every note that I love about classic American craft beer styles. It’s rich without being cloying, malty while still being drinkable, and low enough abv that I can enjoy a glass or two without getting knocked out. American porters are a style I keep enjoying, especially because they’re relatively scarce nowadays in a sea of IPAs.
    • I have been chasing the ideal hefeweizen for years, and finally hit that with Humboldt’s Hefeweizen 2024. I made some adjustments to technique, especially in the mash program, and the results paid off handsomely.
  • Least Favorite Batch
    • Snowdrop Kölsch 2024 Attempt 1 (not blogged) got infected; this was a disappointment, and led me to add Iodophor semi-regularly into my cleaning rotation. Thankfully my second attempt at this recipe went much more smoothly.
  • Experimental Recipe With Most Potential
    • Session Saison got soooo close to perfection, and I’m looking forward to dialing in this recipe.
  • Most Fun New Style/Recipe to Try
    • Levitation Ale Homage was a super tasty session ale, and I still remember the hop flavor on this one. It had so much going on for a lower alcohol beer, and I absolutely love that!
  • Upcoming Beer With Most Potential
    • I have a Belgian blond ale conditioning in the keg right now, for a recipe I’ve called “Unruly Gnome Belgian Blond Ale.” It’s intended to be an approximation of La Chouffe, which is one of my favorite beers.
    • My first rauchbier is lagering right now; it will go on tap once I have space in my keezer. Initial samplings have been very tasty!
  • Best Ingredient/Technique Added to Repertoire
    • Feijoa (Pineapple Guava): This unusual (to me) fruit has a unique taste and is perfectly suited for a sour. So, my Rated “PG” for Pineapple Guava recipe was born.
    • Mash schedules: I used my Anvil Foundry to its full potential this year, by adjusting mash schedules to achieve desired fermentation results. Exemplar number 1 is my hefeweizen–I added a ferrulic acid rest, which I am fairly sure tipped the beer’s character into perfection. Similarly, I used a long and low saccharification rest on my session saison, which finally got me the dryness I want and need on that style.
  • Favorite Books
    • No new books jumped out at me this year, which may be just as much a factor of me reading other things versus a dearth of interesting content. A new-to-me book that I greatly enjoyed was Experimental Homebrewing: Mad Science in the Pursuit of Great Beer Mad Science in the Pursuit of Great Beer by Denny Conn and Drew Beechum, published a full 10 years ago. It’s a time capsule in many ways, from a simpler era when the overlap between homebrewers and commercial brewers was blurrier, and it felt like the homebrewing scene was on an eternally upward trajectory. I like the approach they take to recipes, with an emphasis on thinking through the ingredient inputs needed for sensory outputs. This is not unique to them, but their way of relating it is quite approachable and fun to read.
  • Overall Stats

10 Years of All-Grain Brewing

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Looking back through old blog posts, I realized that my first all-grain beer was just over 10 years ago! It was a little intimidating to get started–those days were before the now ubiquitous all-in-one systems, back when the most visible mode of brewing was a shiny (and expensive, and space-hogging) three-tier system. Thankfully, I discovered batch sparging, and this tipped the scales enough for me to try at all-grain.

I have learned a ton since then, so wanted to jot down some of the lessons for posterity. Here we go!

  • Crush is probably the most important factor for me. It can be make-or-break, especially when first learning process, and it has been so worth it to get a mill of my own so that I can dial in this variable. This has made my extraction efficiency quite predictable!
  • For those going into all-grain brewing nowadays, I would suggest either brew-in-a-bag (especially for smaller batches or smaller budgets), or an all-in-one. The Anvil Foundry has been a great investment, and makes my brew sessions all the more enjoyable. A three-tier system just isn’t worth it for me, and I would say even batch sparging is not a good route if you have the cash for all-in-one or brew-in-a-bag.
  • Mash temperature matters, but not as much as I thought. I used to obsess over being within a fraction of a degree, and that was not mental energy well spent. If you are 5 or 10 degrees off — sure, that’s going to affect your intended results. But if you are within 1 or 2 degrees, it’s almost certainly not going to be noticeable.
  • It’s worth having a stash of bulk base malts. At one point, I had three or four bags on-hand, and now I’m down to 2-row and pilsner as my usuals. Perhaps I should pick up a bag of Maris Otter and/or Vienna, but I just don’t brew enough for styles that require them. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten Munich in bulk, but it’s so strong as a flavor that I don’t use it much.
  • Decoctions can be fun. It’s worth giving a try sometime. Same for cereal mashes. But, you can make great beer without them.
  • The biggest benefit of all-grain brewing for me? I get endless recipe control, and it opens up a ton of (grain) ingredients and styles that would be hard to do otherwise.
  • All-grain brewing is no substitute for good temperature control.
  • Sometime soon, I need to do an extract batch. Just for fun, and to see if what I have learned will generate something awesome.

Above: A series of images over the years showing my evolution of all-grain brewing. From left to right, top row: my first mash tun; an early decoction effort; second row: grains ready for a brew; a full sack of malt; a very full mash tun for a high gravity beer; third row: checking temperature; the Anvil Foundry in an early brew.