Entries by Beoir Admin

Calcium

Continuing with a technical theme, Thom outlines the importance of calcium to the brewing process and how to calculate appropriate additions. Calcium is essential to every step in the brewing process. Most water supplies used in brewing are deficient in calcium and additions of salts are required to increase calcium to a more suitable level. […]

A-Z of Beer and Brewing

As home brewing becomes ever more popular in Ireland we’ve had increasing numbers of requests for a glossary of brewing. Many of the more technical activities in brewing are described by terms we tend not to see elsewhere in ordinary life, and several others have a meaning in brewing quite distinct from what we’re used […]

Brewing: How do I Start?

Brewing beer at home can be done using one of three methods, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Whether kit brewing, extract brewing or all grain brewing suits you best,depends on how much you are willing to put into the process, what you are willing to spend on equipment and what kind of results […]

Pimp my kettle

Over Easter I decided to break out the brewing equipment and brew a pale ale. As usual getting my 25 litres up to boil was long and arduous… Never really making it to a decent rolling boil. I decided I needed to add some power. After a bit of googling I found a comment on […]

Low-tech All Grain Brewing

  I have been brewing all grain for a few years now and have managed to produce all manner of beers with my simple, low tech system. It involves mashing and boiling in an electrim bin and has elements in common with the “brew in a bag” system recently pioneered by Australian brewers, but it […]

Any idiot can brew

Brewing isn’t hard. If you can cook you can brew, people just like to make it sound more complicated than it is. So in this spirit I decided to make the simplest brew possible with the least possible equipment. I got my friend Colum over whose only knowledge of brewing was that it produced alcohol […]

Cantillon Brewery, Brussels – A taste of the wild?

  The Cantillon brewery stands in one of the less salubrious parts of the city of Brussels. I approached it from the city centre along run-down streets and through a pretty ethnically diverse part of the city. It sits opposite a disused lot where I guess once stood warehouses or apartments but now is home […]

Water water everywhere and lots of beer to drink

Every brewer knows that the quality of the water used in the production of beer is of paramount importance. Water can provide direct flavour effects and also indirect effects upon mash, wort boiling and fermentation. The water we use for brewing is a mix of various inorganic ions which stem from the environment the water […]

Yeast Propagation

When I spend the extra few quid on liquid yeast I like to think I get a little more for my money and hope that I coax the best from the yeast during the propagation stage. There is much debate about the merits of various forms of yeast and what they bring to a beer, […]