Basic Brewing Radio

We travel to Fort Collins, Colorado to speak with Eric Salazar and Peter Bouckaert of New Belgium Brewing.

Thanks to a demonstration hosted by the Brewers Association, we see what happens behind the scenes in the judging of the Great American Beer Festival competition.

We cover two homebrewing competitions in connection with the Great American Beer Festival: the GABF Pro Am and the Long Shot competition from the Boston Beer Company.

We join homebrew guru Charlie Papazian near a beautiful stream at his house to share his homebrew and his thoughts about the hobby.

Randy Mosher, author of Radical Brewing, talks to us about fruit beers and getting the most out of them. Randy also gives us his favorite approach to pumpkin beers.

Ben Watson, author of Cider, Hard and Sweet: History, Traditions, and Making Your Own, introduces us to the world of homemade ciders. Also, Chris Colby of Brew Your Own magazine lets us in on his method of partial mashing using an unmodified two-gallon drink cooler.

Andy Sparks and Steve Wilkes join James to taste the results of homebrewer Michael Tonsmeire's single-hop small batch experiment.

Homebrewer Raj Apte lets us in on the long-lost process of brewing with the Ginger Beer plant. This way of brewing soft drinks at home was commonplace decades ago.

Bob Hansen, technical services manager of Briess Malt and Ingredients Company, shares thoughts on his presentation from NHC on making big beers.

Chris Colby of Brew Your Own magazine joins us to share his favorite strategies for getting the best beer out of a split-boil extract brewing session.