Cider and Perry Make Me Merry
Last weekend, we drove out to Fieldstone Enterprises in Overbrook, KS and bought 15 gallons of apple juice & 10 of pear. The apple blend we got was made from four varietals: Spitzenburg, Seek No Further, Neuho, and Bramly. The pear juice is made from four varieties of Asian pears.With our 25 gallons now in our possession, we dug out 5 ferment

More use for Spent Grain
One of the byproducts of brewing all-grain batches is, of course, the spent grain. And lots of it. You can do quite a bit with it - dog biscuits, cookies, bread, pretzels, and so on. I've done both cookies and bread (I thought I posted about that... can't find it), and for the last brew day I thought I'd use some spent grain from a recent Pale Ale to make crackers. I tried two recipes: one from homebrewtalk.com, the other from

Beer Tasting Tonight in Shawnee
I got an email from KC Hopps last night about an O'Fallon tasting at the Barley's Brewhaus Shawnee location. A little advance notice would have been nice, but if you don't have plans tonight and love making last-minute arrangements, here's a suggestion. They still appear to have space remaining (I can offer a guess as to why...)The items offered with food pairings are:-  Pumpkin Ale-

Beer of the Week: Cider
Yeah, I know cider isn't beer. I debated naming this "style of the week" but didn't want to limit myself to BJCP styles (or have to dump a bunch of stuff into category 23). And now here I am thinking I should have gone with Style. Oh well. Anyway. Now that our bizarre warm weather appears to be behind us, it definitely feels like the time of year for those comfy winter drinks. Winter Warmers, mulled wine, hot toddys, hot buttered rum -

On Tap Around Town
Sure are a lot of new beers going on tap lately.Barley's out in Shawnee has had some rare Bear Republic kegs on tap the past few weeks. If you haven't had Racer X or Mach 10, they're a (west coast) hoppy treat - and they probably won't be around much longer.McCoy's in Westport just put on a keg of their Imperial Steam Beer. I haven't had any yet but am looking forward to trying it. I'll be curious to see what an Imperial steam beer is like... I'm guessing lots of sweet & bready flavor with a bit more fruity esters. Most people are probably familiar with