Experimental Homebrewing: Mad Science in the Pursuit of Great Beer

Take your brewing to the next level. They say that a meal tastes better if you make it yourself—that you can taste the preparation, labor, and care put into the final dish. It’s often the same for home-brewed beer; perhaps nothing on this earth tastes more sublime than that first victorious sip of basement ale. But eventually, as your skills improve and the difficult becomes easy, something nasty happens: you get bored. Luckily, if you’re a bored brewer, Experimental Homebrewing was written for you. Inside, authors and brewmasters Drew Beechum and Denny Conn don’t waste their time describing what malted barley is or how to use a hydrometer. Instead, they demonstrate how the scientific method can empower you to break the established rules of homebrewing in order to create new, unique beers all your own, using cheap and common equipment to your advantage. In addition to explaining special considerations for experimental homebrewing (such as recipe design and small-batch brewing), Beechum and Conn guide you through your first experiments before delving into ways you can deviate from the norm during boiling, fermentation, bottling, and kegging—and even in the glass. Of course, the book wouldn’t be complete without a rundown of unconventional ingredients, including flowers, cacao nibs, chili, seaweed, chicory, peppermint, and more. So whether you’re into IPAs, Belgians, porters, stouts, wheats, or all of the above, Experimental Homebrewing enables you to venture forth into a world of homebrewing possibilities you never thought possible.