For those of you that are condemning him have you tried his method and have found that it makes bad beer? Or is it that with all your knowledge you just know that it cannot be good.
I always find it incredibly snobby when people start ripping into Alton Brown for this episode, when it has done far more for the hobby and getting it out there than any of us here. It sucks that he catches so much crap from people in the homebrew community, and I am embarrassed by the flack he gets.
+1 on both these satements. He's done a lot for getting people into the hobby, just like the mr beer keg...He and the little brown keg are gateways....SO they deserve respect...Yes there are better ways to make beer BUT following either Alton's or the Mr Beer keg instructions will still MAKE BEER.
Think about this, plenty of people on here have f@#ked up much worse on their first batch then Alton did, and it still came out pretty tasty, and they learned from their mistake.
And there are plenty of people around who haven't learned al the proper brewing terms yet either, and still manage to make beer...
He did pretty well for a PRESENTER going from a staff writer's script (who probably had no exeperience with making beer either, and probably got some of the info from some dodgy source material as well.) Having worked in television and radio, when you are churn out a daily or even a weekly show, you don't get the opportunity to sit down and become an expert, or even read an entire book on the topic at hand. You're usually trying to put together multiple shows at the same time....
Besides dissing like this really goes contrary to the ethos of the homebrewer...
I betcha papa charlie was pretty happy to see the hobby he practically invented given such props on a major tv show...whether the info was accurate or not.
Papa Charlie says Relax....
Revvy says STFU on this topic....it's been done to death, and if the OP had used the search function he would have known this...