Amarillo Slim

In case you haven't heard, there is a bit of a hop shortage going on for some of the most popular American varieties. Some of the newer varieties that craft breweries and homebrewers love so much, like Amarillo, Simcoe, Ahtanum, and Citra, simply didn't have enough acreage to meet demand this year. Here at Northern Brewer we decided to look into an alternate source of hoppy goodness: Amarillo HopShots.

Yeast (the book)

Yeast! It's wonderful, and now it's available in dry form, liquid, and paperback. The new book version by Chris White (of White Labs) and Jamil Zainasheff (of homebrewing) is out now. I recently gave it a read and was very pleased.

Product Review: Cellarmanship

I was glad to put my hands on a copy of Patrick O'Neill's Cellarmanship. It's distributed by CAMRA. I've been trying to get a copy for some time but it's been difficult to find any where in the US for some reason. Until now! NB now has them in stock.

Be Cool

Ladies & gentlemen brewers...

This is your mail order captain speaking. Northern Brewer has a brief announcement concerning today's flight through our yeast section.

Brewer's log: Floor Malt Experiment #3: Parti-gyle 140 Shilling and a “Halvsy”

I too had the opportunity to experiment with the Warminster floor-malted Maris Otter. My goal was two worts from one mash: a Scottish 140/- ale, and a second "small beer" (we'll call it the Halvsy). In total the grist was about 24 lbs for a 5 gallon batch of each of the two beers.

Brewer's log: Floor Malt Experiment #2

MD had his fun, now's my time.

I got my hands on several pounds of Warminster floor-malted Maris Otter. Last Saturday found me without the fiancee for the afternoon. So I rolled out of bed, made up the sanitizer, gathered the ingredients & lit up the hot liquor on the stove...

All Grain Simplicity: Easy Batch Sparging

The leap from extract to all-grain... Like graduating from Velveeta to Wisconsin Cheddar; steel frame bicycle to alloy; Guitar Hero to guitar lessons...

Summit India Style Rye Ale

Last weekend I picked up Summit's new India-Style Rye Ale (IRA) and have to say that I'm impressed.

My Favorite Brewing Sites: Brewing Calculators

On-line brewing calculators can help you figure out questions as simple as what you should expect as a final gravity, or as complicated as what color beer you will get with which grains. Here are a few that I use on a weekly - if not daily - basis:

The toy you'll inevitably need

Three reasons to own a handheld CO2 keg charger:

WLP037: Parting is such sweet wort

Know what sucks about Limited Edition/Platinum/Private Collection series yeast strains? They're here long enough for you to learn to love them, then they're gone. Out of your life. Pffft.