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For tonight’s beer review, I bring you my first beer from Cica’s Blue Frog Grog and Grill - Red Frog Ale:

The bottle says “A generous addition of hops late in the boil and after fermentation help balance this beer’s malty profile”. These would be flavor and aroma hops, not bittering hops. This suits […]

Once again, I finished brewing well after my bedtime last night. The way the weekends have been these days, I can’t get started until around 7:00 at night. With roughly a 5 - 5.5 hour brewing session, that leads to a late night.
This brew is a Goulash Amber Ale. Basically, I […]

To the homebrewer, there is nothing worse than popping the cap off a fresh bottle of beer only to find it’s a screw cap.  The bottle is unusable.  This is a travesty, and the brewer should know better.  After all, they probably started out as a homebrewer scavenging for bottles.
From now on, screw caps will […]

It’s been far too long since my last beer review. Enough goofing around! Tonight I have the pleasure of introducing the 2006 Smoked Porter from Alaskan Brewing Co.:

The temperature outside, and the fact that I turned the thermostat controller from air conditioning to heat the other night, tells me it is time to […]

Funny, a frequent referral to my blog is a search for “stopping the setting sun” on the new Stella Artois site.  Sorry, folks, I’m not sure I’m at liberty to give away trade secrets!  Now if somebody would like to trade information on those damn rain gods……..
Oh, and I still keep shoving that poor hops picker off […]

…and I find it very well done.
The site centers around a short film with some dude running out into the streets, putting himself in various “iffy” situations with a bottle in his pocket (or is he just happy to see me?). Along the way, the film stops in several places at which […]

Well, I decided to brew the IPA.  While at the brew supply store buying grains, the owner asked sort of off-hand if I wanted the whatever brand it was that’s cheap for my 2 row pale malt.  I said that would be fine.  I still haven’t figured out the differences in taste or performance between […]

I found a good use for the bottle from that horrible Big Ass Beer. It makes a decent yeast starter container:

I’ve got an IPA planned to start at a gravity of 1.073. I don’t want to just pitch my vial of WLP001 - it might not be enough. Even it it […]

The bubbling finally slowed way down on the American Amber and I was able to rack it to my clearing tank (ok, fine. It’s a carboy) on Tuesday night. The gravity had not moved off of 1.013 as I feared it might. It’s now sitting silently, clearing up and maturing into a […]

Stella Artois is launching a “cinematic website” on Sept. 18. I had no idea what that meant until tonight. I popped onto their site and see they now have a trailer up. You can see it below. For more, check out the Stella Artois Blog:

It looks pretty cool to me. […]

Tonight, from Big Sky Brewing Co. of Missoula, Montana, I bring you Moose Drool:

Moose Drool is a brown ale. I’m reviewing this tonight in order to be fair and balanced. You see, Missoula is home of the University of Montana and the stinkin’ Grizzlies. The Grizz are the in-state rivals of my […]

Well, there wasn’t much brewing done last night, but I had three separate very successful taste tests. I was in a very good mood.
1) I chilled and popped open a bottle of the ESB - my first all grain brew. It was FREAKING AWESOME!! It still tasted a bit on the […]

Tonight I bring to you a Rogue Chocolate Stout from Oregon Brewing Company (Rogue Ales? Which is the official name?):

I need to add more dark beers to the Brew Brain roster. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll enjoy flavored dark beers a lot more than flavored light beers. It’s just […]

Tonight I bring you Poleeko Gold Pale Ale from Anderson Valley Brewing:

Anderson Valley’s Boont Amber Ale is still one of my very favorite beers. It’s just solid, and from everything I read about that particular brewery, there is lots of gold to be mined yet. I’m really hoping this is a bit of […]

I’ve been enjoying a few good beers lately, but with the scheduling of things, I’ve got paper notes and that’s about it.  I’m (I think) four reviews behind.  I’ll get caught up by the weekend.  I’m two deep into the Belgian beers so far, and let me tell you, if they keep going this way […]

I stopped by BevMo on my way home tonight to pick up some Belgian beers.  I’ve been wanting to sample the different varieties of Belgian beers for quite a while, but I just never got around to it.  The recent passing of Michael Jackson got me thinking about them once more.  I don’t pretend to […]

Sunday night I brewed up my first all grain original recipe. It’s an American Amber and I can’t wait to taste it. It’s my fourth AG beer, but in many ways, I feel like it’s my first since I didn’t follow anybody else’s recipe. The brew went very well and I pretty […]