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Trying to explain how the term ‘wine’ is used in the alcohol industry... and then spend the next 5 minutes elaborating how a mead (honey-wine) or sake (rice-wine) doesn’t actually have grapes in it... SMH

Agreed, but wouldn’t this be something to be added under the Historical Beer category? Plus the beers in this category are more based on interpretation rather than a strict set of stats and ingredients. After all, these are beers we are just trying to recreate based on limited knowledge of...

Totally agree with a lot of this. Style guidelines shouldn’t be so strict but when so many new variations of beer styles emerging, you can’t just throw ‘IPA’ in the title for whatever has a lot of hops in it. It depends HOW the hops are used! Even though you may technically have a high IBU...

Not gonna lie, my first batch also didn’t carb up because I didn’t add yeast at bottling. Definitely should’ve adding some simple dried champagne yeast. That was one of my biggest takeaways from my first sour bottling. But most sours are supposed to be above 3 vol CO2, according to many of...

Ki-ri-n, Would strongly advise against the regular 12oz bottles where only a cap is used. The cork and cage are quite necessary for good carbonation, in my opinion. My first sour (a delicious Flanders red), I tried using regular 12 oz cap-n-go bottles, along with a more moderate carbonation...

I normally use the “standard” 25oz (750mL) cork n’ cage Belgian bottles. Champagne bottles also work.

That’s a great idea Ayerate. Honestly though, depending how long it takes you sanitize the bottles, bottling a sour beer doesn’t take very long. With a buddy it’s faster than a standard 5 gal batch because there’s only 20-24 bottles to fill. If planned well, you could do it in 2 hours. But it...

I find that I wouldn’t ever try to keep my bottled beer that’s below 7% for more than 6-8 months (except for sours). Perhaps I’m getting too much yeast in the transfer to the bottling bucket (hardly any, but still). I find it gets too oxidized, slightly over-carbonated. Drinkable, but not truly...

Thanks for the advise friarsmith, been thinking of using this in a rye Kentucky common. Been looking for something similar to a noble hop but with a little something more. Do you have a preference over either?

It's best to leave the pellicle undisturbed. It serves at the microbes' barrier against oxygen. You can easily look this up in some other threads, but oxygen is the mortal enemy of sour beer and can cause some funky off-flavors, depending. Best to leave the pellicle as is, unless you have to...

What's your next sour beer? Let us know what style, what you're adding, and maybe how long you plan to age it. Cheers and happy aging!

That's about the same ratio I used. If I remember correctly I used about 12oz tequila (Espolon blanco) and 4 limes. But I had to slice off the rind with a very thin knife, the skin was just too thin to use a grater/peeler. Got VERY little white pith but I think I let it condition for about 3...

But back to MARGARITA GOSE! my most recent batch was a success but I feel like the tequila-lime extract has this overly fruit-loopy sweetness to it. Does anyone have tips for a good extract? # limes / (X) vol of tequila? Zested/shaved vs sliced tequila rind? How long do you let it sit? Or...

This is one of my biggest pet-peeves when I share beer. I always say to pour it out and when they ask why, I simply say, "it's just the chemistry." Have had to explain this so many times that I just avoid the long-winded rant. Trust is, most people don't care about drinking something properly...

Another frequent exchange- Them: "How do you drink it? Like a from a big keg and tap?" Me: "No, I bottle it." This is where their mind does mental flips to conceive of how one puts liquid into a sealed glass vessel. It's funny to watch people's faces contort with grappling with the idea of...

The "is it legal?" question comes up a lot but then once they try the beer they ask if I sell it and distribute. Me: "No my friend, THAT is illegal!" I think I've had to explain this concept to nearly every single one of my friends that I share beer with.... multiple times! That's why so...

Sadly I'm not yet able to cold crash my beers. It was my assumption that it was the fruit cap was so dense it was just being floated by pockets of CO2. Actually got a bit worried about it but it seems to have worked out. The fruit is added AFTER the wine addition. Personally, this could great...

After about 3 weeks in the bottle, the sangria is incredible! It may be the best beer I've ever made! It went down to 1.012, making it 10.2%. As the Belgians would say, it's "digestible", meaning it's more quaffable for such a high ABV. The wine was an incredible addition to the beer, really...

My aren't you ambitious! What yeast are using for the cider? A tip from my first cider batch, don't let it sit for too long and let it ferment totally dry to 1.000. Test your gravity every day after 2 days and rack to secondary to get it off the yeast when it's at your high range for...

I know quite a few guys who just use straight RO water, no added salts/minerals. And a lot of them have won awards. You don't need a specific water profile for any style of beer.