craft ales – Clive and Eva La Pensée

Are German beer purity laws a hindrance?

Time to let go! Remove the ball and chain from your leg, brewers! German beer purity laws date from the 16th century, and were needed to stop the worst abuses by brewers, who added everything in the garden and beyond, in order to get the drinkers happy, but it came with a price to drinkers’Continue reading “Are German beer purity laws a hindrance?”

Breweries, Supermarket Shelves and Marketing Deception?

Lift the fog of deception This is quite a controversial title, but I don’t expect to get sued. I’ve just seen an advert on Instagram for an IPA (India pale ale), which showed a picture of a brown beer. I’ve seen a stout with an OG of 1040. I have bought a porter, so sweetContinue reading “Breweries, Supermarket Shelves and Marketing Deception?”

Malt like an Egyptian. Get a craftbrew buzz.

‘History is more or less, bunk,’ claimed Henry Ford. ‘We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present.’ We all have an agenda, and Henry Ford’s was not to go back to the horse and cart. As brewers, we might want to see things differently. The best beers ever were brewed 200 yearsContinue reading “Malt like an Egyptian. Get a craftbrew buzz.”

Clive’s Beer Blog – DIY Beer Brewing

Why call it a macrobrewery? Large commercial breweries give their annual production figures in millions of hectolitres, microbreweries probably talk in thousands and I don’t quite manage 4 hectolitres or 90 gallons per year. But that serves me and the immediate family and friends.

Know Someone Who Loves Beer? – Brew a Perfect Christmas Present

For the unique Christmas present, brew them a unique beer. Fully revised, no more soggy pages and a fraction of the price of the old paper version from 1990.

Farrenbacher Weissbier

A blast from the past – Baltimore 1995 – AHA annual bash. I was the principle speaker on the history of brewing. The handwritten copy of my talk is languishing in a filing box somewhere and I am not going to seek it out, so if you were there, Baltimore – June 14th 1995, andContinue reading “Farrenbacher Weissbier”