10th Dec 2024
By Greig McGill If base malts ( discussed in part one here) are the solid foundation of brewing, specialty malts are the creative spark that transforms beer from basic to extraordinary. While I am…
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19th Nov 2024
By Greig McGill You’ve probably heard it said that malt is the soul of a beer. Hops might get all the glory, but without malted barley, beer wouldn’t be beer. It provides sweetness to balance the ho…
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31st Oct 2024
LalBrew Pomona™ is a hybrid yeast that was selected for flavour and fermentation performance in hoppy beers. Named after the goddess of fruit trees, LalBrew Pomona™ produces a unique an…
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18th Sep 2024
By Greig McGill It’s that time of year when we all wish we were in Munich, and so it seemed like a good time to talk about the most well-known festival in the world, the beer styles it has spawned,…
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19th Aug 2024
By Greig McGill Back in the mists of time, a long-running and fun podcast called Craft Beer Radio (now CBR and a lot more casual) wrote a parody sketch (warning, some humour hasn’t aged well, but…
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25th Jun 2024
By Greig McGill Beer and brewing is a funny old world. Everything old is constantly new again, as we rediscover old beer styles, brewing methods, and even semi-forgotten scientific knowledge (hop-cr…
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21st May 2024
By Greig McGill I have always “blamed” the late, great Michael Jackson (the beer writer, not the one with the glove and the predilection for… controversy) for the origin of the term “session beer”.…
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8th May 2024
Craft beer and brewing enthusiasts around the world are always looking for unique and refreshing brews, and one style that continues to get a lot of attention is our very own New Zealand Pilsner (N…
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9th Apr 2024
By Greig McGill Americans, eh? They really can drive innovation, can’t they? In the relatively short space of 35ish years, the world has moved from mocking beer from the USA with the famous “making…
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12th Mar 2024
By Greig McGill As I mentioned in my last article, one of the benefits of starting or joining a brewing club is holding beer competitions. These are about so much more than just winning. They are an…
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29th Feb 2024
Check You Are Pitching Enough Yeast Use an online tool to check how much yeast you need to use. You’ll be surprised, it’s probably more than you think. Under-pitching yeast will create yeast stress…
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12th Feb 2024
By Greig McGill I was listening to a podcast while cleaning in the brewery the other day, and a question from a New Zealand listener came in asking about, or rather bemoaning the lack of, homebrew…
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