Brewery Name: The Rare Barrel Location: Berkley, CA Famous Beers: Egregious, Map of the Sun, Cosmic Dust, Sourtooth Tiger (and more) Overall Impression These guys make some amazing beers. They are practically impossible to get a hold of, so if you want to taste one, you’ve got to go to the taproom. It’s a […]
April 14, 2015
How To Reuse Yeast In Your Homebrew
For the first year of brewing, I always bought yeast packets every time brewed a new batch. But I recently brewed 4 beers in the same month and realized that they were all using Wyeast 1056 and decided to look into how to reuse yeast in my homebrew. I was a little scared at first […]
April 11, 2015
Off Flavor Taste Test #3: Benzaldehyde
Today is the off flavor taste test for benzaldehyde, colloquially known as “almond”, although I don’t really think that’s a good descriptor of it. The almost I know is a earthy, crunchy, dry, and nutty flavor. Although I understand now that they mean more of a ‘candied almond paste’ effect, like marzipan, calling it almost […]
April 7, 2015
Off Flavor Taste Test #2: Acetic Acid
As a continuation of my comprehensive taste test kit I bought from Siebel Institute, last weekend I conducted off flavor taste test #2 and #3. If you missed #1, acetyldehyde, think…raw pumpkin and fresh cut grass. But today we are going to be talking about acetic acid, which is probably much more easily identifiable, but harder […]
March 27, 2015
Off-Flavor Taste Test #1 : Acetyldehyde
About two weeks ago I decided to bite the bullet and purchase Siebel Institute’s Comprehensive Sensory Training Kit to improve my craft beer tasting skills. It was pricey at $250, but because I’ll be using it myself I can get a few tests out of each flavor. Each vial is enough to dose 1L of […]