Jon Griffin’s Blog

I just wrote an article for http://hubpages.com/hub/Ale-and-Lager about beer. It discusses ales, lagers, classic beer styles, flaws, history of brewing and has some great videos. Also it discusses beer myths.

Brewery: Fischers - Erding Germany

Reviewed By: Jon Griffin

All beers are judged according to the Beer Judge Certification Program Guidelines (2004).

Score 32/50

Style: 1D Munich Helles

Aroma

Heavy pilsner malt with no hop aroma. Lots of…

Recipe by Jon Griffin
Makes 5 Gallons

This is an award winning homebrew recipe. This beer has a big, creamy mouthfeel, lots of spicy notes from the rye and fruity esters from the…

Brewery: Schlossbrauerei Mariabrunn

This is a good Munich dunkel I tasted at the Munich airport after a long flight.

Reviewed By: Jon Griffin

All beers are judged according to the Beer Judge Certification Program Guidelines (2004).

Score…

These instructions take into account your boil size. Since most new brewers only have small pots to boil in, it is important to take into account the specific gravity of your wort….

By Jon Griffin

This is a quick bread that doesn’t require rising and is mellowed by the yeast addition. It is the perfect way to use your spent grains. This doesn’t work with grains that are…

Recipe by Jon Griffin

Makes 5 Gallons
A spicy, fruity moderate strength English Style Xmas Ale. This is based on an English bitter base. I would advise not increasing the spice amounts. People that have tried that have found the flavor to be to overbearing. You can also change the fruit additions. I have used mango and peach in the secondary with no apple, and it is also wonderful.

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By Jon Griffin

Mashing is simply the conversion of complex sugars, which are developed during malting, into simpler sugars that yeast can metabolize.
There are 5 main types of mashing, but we are interested in only 4 of them in this class. They originated in different areas and helped create the classic beer styles of the world. Mashing techniques evolved based on climate and malting technique. In Europe most of the Maltsters, made under modified malt, whereas in the British Isles they used fully modified malts.

Historically the Picts created alcoholic beverages in 6500 BC, although no one really knows what they would have tasted like. The Vikings passed down brewing sticks for generations and yeast evolved on them to create ancestors to the very yeast used today for brewing. Belgians have always used wild yeasts and bacteria in their beers, and it wasn’t until the mid 1800’s that the Germans and French determined what yeast really were. By the late 1800’s a chemist a Carlsburg brewery isolated the yeast strain that made lagers and modern yeast knowledge was vastly …

I love making beers that are hard to get in Las Vegas. This Schwarzbier (Black Beer), falls into category 4C of the BJCP. This recipe is an awesome example of this style. Plenty of roasted malt aroma, beautiful ruby highlights and a nice dry finish. It also has good hints of unsweetened chocolate, a subtle hint of noble hop flavor from the Hallertauer hops and of course the clean pallete of a German Lager.

This style comes from Thuringia which borders on the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria and Hesse.

I will give two examples, my original all grain recipe, and an extract version for those who aren’t into all grain yet. Both of these use the special Zurich Lager platinum strain from White Labs which is available only in November and December. …

Malta is a non-alcoholic beverage common in the the Caribbean and Latin America. It is basically unfermented wort. Traditionally, since this was treated as a foodstuff, no adjuncts were added. However, all commercial examples I…