El Segundo Brewing has another new festbier season beer out with home brewer extraordinaire, John Palmer. This time a Czech Dark Lager. I will be on the lookout for it.
Czech Day – El Segundo
El Dunkel
Yes, El Segundo is first and foremost an IPA or even better thought at DIPA or TIPA house but underneath are some exceptions to the rule and this Oktoberfest, ESBC has paired with noted home brewer John Palmer for a Dunkel Bock. This will be great to taste alongside their returning festbier.
How to Brew – Revised
When I think of home brewing gurus. Three names leap to mind. Charlie Papazian of course. Drew Beechum of Maltose Falcons fame and then John Palmer who literally wrote the book How to Brew.
And now he has gone an updated it. Subtitled Everything You Need to Know to Brew Great Beer Every Time was last revised in 2006. Extra emphasis has been placed on “Palmer’s Top 5 Brewing Priorities” and five brand new chapters have been added covering malting, adjusting wate for style as well as brewing strong beers, fruit beers and sours.
Head over to the Brewers Publications wing of the Brewers Association to order your copy.
h2o
If you have the hops book (which I do) and the malt book (which I don’t) then you might want to complete the set with Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers, by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski, “which will help brewers who have long been flummoxed by the liquid’s complex chemistry.”
Yup, this book from the Brewers Publications’ Brewing Elements series is “solely devoted to the use and treatment of water throughout the brewing process. From an overview on sources, quality and geography, the book shows brewers how to read water reports, understand flavor contributions, and adjust the chemistry of brewing water. A discussion of adapting water to styles of beer, residual alkalinity, malt acidity, mash pH, brewery process water and wastewater treatment is included.”
It’s gonna get technical but if you have an interest in diving deeper into beer then this book will give you some key information because….
“If you don’t get the water right, neither will you succeed with the beer,” said Charlie Bamforth, professor of malting and brewing sciences at the University of California in a review on the book.