american homebrew association living lager

#AMERICAN HOMEBREW ASSOCIATION LIVING LAGER FULL#

“The cooler out there-that has the beers for drinking. “These are the collectibles,” he said, dragging his finger over the bottles that lined the shelves. “But it’s a version of the same set-up I’ve always used. “People expect some sort of high-tech lab,” Papazian says. With biology, with chemistry! With life itself! Take yeast, for example: Depending on temperature, pressure, motion, it gives off different compounds. “That’s because the enzymes in your mouth are breaking down the starches.” He went on, “Now look, I don’t want to get too Zen-like, but what I’ve always loved about brewing is that you’re dealing with organisms. “You’ll notice that the longer you chew, the sweeter the barley gets,” he said. He encouraged me to taste a small handful of the grain. Smooth and not overly assertive.”Ĭrossing the garage, he found the barley he’d used for a different batch. “It’s got a porter-like quality to it, doesn’t it?” he asked. It tasted soft each sip melted on the tongue, like chocolate. “As a hello, or as a thank-you.” He offered me a pour of a recent concoction: a dark lager made with hops he’d grown in the field behind the garage. “I go to visit a buddy, or I give a talk, and I bring some beer,” he explained. He does not sell it, preferring to dole out samples to friends. These days, Papazian brews a five-gallon batch of beer about once a month-typically a lager or an ale. Right, Papazian has kept detailed notes about his yeasty adventures in journals stretching back decades.

#AMERICAN HOMEBREW ASSOCIATION LIVING LAGER FULL#

He left the original workbench and a few lockers and added several sets of shelves to stow the essentials: buckets of malted barley, rice, and yeast cultures, glass carboys for fermenting the beer, serpentine coils of tubing and strainers for trapping the errant grain, and a freezer full of hops. Papazian installed a glass-walled cooler, plus a custom- built, walk-in fridge with six-inch-thick foam-insulated walls he’d reclaimed from a defunct turkey farm.

American homebrew association living lager