What’s New?

August 5, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2015-08-05 at 5.45.52 PMSo you started brewing awhile ago, and you’ve gotten pretty good at it. You’ve brewed some ales, and some more ales. You’ve added more hops, and even more hops, to some of your beers and they were great. But maybe you’ve been noticing a certain sameness creeping into your brewdays and want to try something new — but what is there?

For intermediate brewers, there are a ton of “new” things you can try. Few of these are new to brewing as a whole, but most are underappreciated in the homebrewing community and mostly attempted only by advanced homebrewers. If you’re looking to try something new to you, consider the following options. [Read more…]

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Open Fermentation and Top Cropping at Arcadia Brewing

June 24, 2014 by 1 Comment
Arcadia Brewing Manager Vaughn Stewart next to an open fermenter

Arcadia Brewing Manager Vaughn Stewart next to an open fermenter

Steve Wilkes, Andy Sparks, and I headed north to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to attend the National Homebrewers Conference. On the Wednesday before the conference, we took a side trip to Kalamazoo for a bit of beer exploration.

The Kalamazoo location of Arcadia Brewing has only been open since early May. The parent brewery is in Battle Creek and has been in operation for 18 years. In addition to the tasty English-style-based beers, the dining area features a meat counter, where the similarly intoxicating aromas of smoked meat filled the room.

As we were sampling a flight (or two) of ales, Brewing Manager Vaughn Stewart joined us and then treated us to a tour of his facility. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beer, Brewing Equipment, Brewing Techniques Tagged With: , ,