Beer and Wine Journal Turns Three

BWJlogo

Grapes?

Beer and Wine Journal is now 3 years old. James Spencer — host of Basic Brewing Radio and Video — and I (Chris Colby) launched this site in late June 2013 and since then, we’ve posted over 540 articles on beer, mead, and wine. (If you read our site, you know it’s like 99% beer, 1% mead and there was a wine article once. Plus, there’s the occasional food article.) In 2016, we’ve been hovering around 20,000 readers a month and this number continues to trend upwards. 

If you enjoy Beer and Wine Journal, there are lots of ways you can show your support. Just checking in on regular basis and reading new posts helps our readership. If you see something you enjoy, and think other brewers might as well, sharing our posts on social media helps us attract new readers. And if you’d like, you can ask questions on any article in the comments section. I will answer you. [Or James will. If you have a specific brewing question, email me at chris at beerandwinejournal dot com; I’ll give you an answer if I know it, and I may sometimes collect these and post as a Q and A.] 

Clicking on our sponsors’ ads when you’re shopping also helps us. However, the best way of supporting this page is to do so directly by “subscribing” through the buttons on the right. At most brewpubs these days, a pint costs about $5. For less than that, you can support this page and allow me (Chris) to spend more time on Beer and Wine Journal and less time on other projects. (And I want to being posting here more often, not less often.)

bookcoverSpeaking of outside projects, I wrote a book recently. It’s a collection of 101 homebrew recipes, most with supplemental information on the process or ingredients that will help you brew the best batch possible. Many of the recipes also mention common variants on a style. It’s coming out September 20th, and it’s pre-order price at Amazon is currently $15.74 — $9.25 less than the book will cost when it’s released.

In our next year, I hope to focus on bringing more useful brewing information to our readers. For now, here’s two top 10 lists — our top 10 articles of all-time and our top 10 articles this past year (excluding those on the all-time list). 

Top 10 Beer and Wine Journal Articles (2013–2016)

No, IPAs Are Not Giving You Man Boobs — My response to a shoddy article on another web site.  

Two Quick Water Guides — How to build your brewing liquor for pale ales and IPAs from distilled water and minerals. (See also the newer series of water guides.) 

What Temperature Should Your Sparge Water Be? — It’s likely not 170 °F (77 °C). 

Chloride to Sulfate Ratios in Hoppy Beers — How your water chemistry can accentuate your hop bitterness in a pale ale or IPA. 

Simple 3-Gallon All-Grain Brewing — How to turn a 5.0-gallon (19-L) extract brewery into a 3.0-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewery with an unmodified beverage cooler as a mash tun. 

Staggered Nutrient Additions — One of our two advanced mead making articles. The other being this article on potassium and pH

PET bottles — Is it ever OK to use plastic soda bottles for storing beer? 

Hop Amounts for Hoppy Ales — How much hops do you need for 5.0 gallons (19 L) of pale ale? IPA? Double IPA? 

German Wheat Beer (Mashing and the Ferulic Acid Rest) — How to alter your mash to increase or decrease the amount of clove in the German wheat beers. 

Malts for Hoppy Beers — The best malts and grain bills for hoppy beers. 

Tips for Cold Weather Brewing — The weather outside may be frightful; but your fermentation can still be delightful. 

IMG_1955

His name is Robert Paulson.

Top 10 Articles in the Recent Year (Excluding Those Listed Above) 

Session IPA — What it is. How to brew it. 

How Long Should You Mash? — The title says it all. 

High Temperature Yeast Strains — Summer is here. There are some yeast strains that can take the heat. 

Should You Acidify Your Sparge Water? — A little knowledge of chemistry will help you decide. 

Stuck Fermentations II — The sequel to Stuck Fermentations I

Hitting the Proper Boil pH — The easy way to get your boil pH right every time. 

The Easy Way Fly Sparge — Get all the benefits of fly sparging using a simplified approach. 

Basic Lambic Recipe — Enjoy this sour beer on it’s own, or use it for your fruit lambics or blended gueuze. 

Conditioning a Russian Imperial Stout — It’s a big beer; treat it right once primary fermentation is over. 

Homemade Hop Aroma Extract — Supercharge your hoppy beers with your own hop oil extract. 

Related Article 

Beer and Wine Journal Turns Two

Comments

  1. Jürgen Defurne says

    I really hope you get a ‘pint’ for 5$!

  2. During the wine blog search, I your blog. I hope you will get a pint for 5 Dollars.

  3. Thank you so much for the post you do. I like your post and all you share with us is up to date and quite informative, i would like to bookmark the page so i can come here again to read you, as you have done a wonderful job.

  4. Great post i must say and thanks for the information. Education is definitely a sticky subject. However, is still among the leading topics of our time.

Leave a Reply to Chris Colby Cancel reply

*