By Randy Mosher
Published March 2008, Volume 29, Number 1
What’s black and white and beer all over? It could only be a dark witbier. It’s a lip-smacking sundae of a drink: soft and creamy, overlain by a gentle cocoa roastiness, topped off with the fruity complexity of a Belgian yeast strain. It is profound and fascinating, but at around 6.5 percent alcohol, it won’t knock you over, important if you’re interested in a second one. If you’re not yet familiar with this style, you’re missing out.
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By Randy Mosher
Published November 2006, Volume 27, Number 5
Food magazines must love this time of year. Throngs of unconfident cooks, dreading the duty of roasting the ceremonial family bird, look to the latest issue of Bon Vivant for step-by-step directions that will produce the plump, caramelized icon on the cover. Great, problem solved. But what to drink?
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By Randy Mosher
Published September 2006, Volume 27, Number 4
As homebrewers, we are often called upon to brew something special to celebrate a milestone: a wedding, a graduation, or just surviving another year in the cubicle. When the audience is entirely beer-maniacal, anything goes. But the real test of a brewer is to please those used to cold, chilly and canned, while upholding your homebrew oath to always brew something interesting. It’s a balancing act that requires the brewer to deconstruct the beer preferences of his or her audience and assemble a subtle, but compelling, recipe.
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By Randy Mosher
Published July 2006, Volume 27, Number 3
As a visual artist, I have always been excited by color. And even though the computer has mostly replaced physical media, I often make a wistful detour through the paint aisle in the art store on my way to buy the boring pads of paper and pencil leads I actually use to do my work. In the homebrew shop, however, there’s no wistfulness, and no need to hold back in the malt aisle. There I see a rainbow of possibilities, and fill my cart accordingly—until it groans.
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Brewing up a MHB (Massively Hoppy Beer)
By Randy Mosher
Published May 2006, Volume 27, Number 2
We new brewers love hops. Sticky, resiny, pungent, citrus-drenched hops.
It began as a reaction to the dumbing-down of mainstream beers, whose alpha acid levels are now about level with the human threshold, which is about 6 IBU (International Bittering Units). Like the recently starved, we eat our fill…then keep going. I used to think we’d get over it, but people often have trouble giving up their obsessions. In other words, massively hoppy beers (MHBs) are here to stay.
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By Randy Mosher
Published January 2006, Volume 26, Number 6
Porter is likely the world’s most confusing beer style. Attempting to unravel its inner secrets through diligent scholarship is futile: the more you study it, the more incomprehensible it becomes. A true shape-shifter of a beer, porter changes continually, generation after generation. In trying to decide what a porter should be today, the would-be porter brewer has to take an educated stab—then shut up and brew.
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