James!: I have a coffee chocolate stout that should be ready to drink tomorrow.

Just finished a Whiskey Stout. We soaked wood chips from a used whiskey cask in it for a week and added a touch of cinnamon (for that holiday essence).

Loki009: Communist_Manifesto: poorjon: I love me some brewing, but fall is for cider! Once you've made your first batch, you'll never stop. No boiling, just add the yeast and go. Opened the apple pie cider a little while ago and it is awesome. Also have a bourbon barrel cider getting ready for aging.

This seems relevant to my interests. You have a link to a recipe that's really good? This apple pie cider sounds great
This thread is quite good for a first time cider. This is the one i am making. Its quite easy.

Nice, but I don't have the gear for that much brewing. I can do 1.5 gallons in 16 oz bottles. I'll have to cut that down a bit, but caramel apple cider sounds awesome.

Loki009: Communist_Manifesto: poorjon: I love me some brewing, but fall is for cider! Once you've made your first batch, you'll never stop. No boiling, just add the yeast and go. Opened the apple pie cider a little while ago and it is awesome. Also have a bourbon barrel cider getting ready for aging.

This seems relevant to my interests. You have a link to a recipe that's really good? This apple pie cider sounds great
This thread is quite good for a first time cider. This is the one i am making. Its quite easy.

Aww homebrewtalk, is there anything you can't do? I think tomorrow might be a good day for this.

Not that anyone cares, but this is the best beer/recipe I've come up with myself: Link

I like to use the ringwood ale yeast because it ferments faster than any other yeast I've ever seen and it adds some good fruity esters. You have to let it sit for at least 2 weeks in primary as ringwood requires a diacetyl rest. It got pretty high marks at the denver county fair homebrew competition but didn't win.

Communist_Manifesto: Not that anyone cares, but this is the best beer/recipe I've come up with myself: Link

That one sounds fun. Time to bottle my British Brown Ale, clear out a carboy and get some ingredients.

MoronLessOff: Loki009: Communist_Manifesto: poorjon: I love me some brewing, but fall is for cider! Once you've made your first batch, you'll never stop. No boiling, just add the yeast and go. Opened the apple pie cider a little while ago and it is awesome. Also have a bourbon barrel cider getting ready for aging.

This seems relevant to my interests. You have a link to a recipe that's really good? This apple pie cider sounds great
This thread is quite good for a first time cider. This is the one i am making. Its quite easy.

Nice, but I don't have the gear for that much brewing. I can do 1.5 gallons in 16 oz bottles. I'll have to cut that down a bit, but caramel apple cider sounds awesome.

I didnt either, however the equipment isnt expensive or hard to get. My local brew supply house sells 6.5 gallon PET carboys for $25. Other than that you only really need a siphon and something to bottle into.

violentsalvation: GreenAdder: That's great.
Really.
Only problem is, why would I spend all my time making beer when Bud Light and Corona are already perfect?
Leave beer-making to the big boys, people.
Leave it to people with centuries of brewing experience.

0/10

I'd give it a 1/10, because it made me laugh.

Communist_Manifesto: I had a minor failure of a wee heavy I made. Stupid me got distracted watching the bronco game and let my sparge water get too hot extracting some tannins and too many non-fermentable sugars. It's the worst beer I've made, but it's still better than bud light.

I've got an ambitious project for a snickers stout that i want to make. I just need to get around to ordering the powdered peanut butter.

Won't the oil in the peanut butter screw up your head retention? And the salt in the peanut butter...I admit to the curiosity, here.

GreenAdder: Modguy: violentsalvation: GreenAdder: That's great.
Really.
Only problem is, why would I spend all my time making beer when Bud Light and Corona are already perfect?
Leave beer-making to the big boys, people.
Leave it to people with centuries of brewing experience.

0/10

I'd give it a 1/10, because it made me laugh.

It takes on a new meaning if you just look at the first letter of each line.

HA! Excellent.

Loki009: MoronLessOff: Loki009: Communist_Manifesto: poorjon: I love me some brewing, but fall is for cider! Once you've made your first batch, you'll never stop. No boiling, just add the yeast and go. Opened the apple pie cider a little while ago and it is awesome. Also have a bourbon barrel cider getting ready for aging.

This seems relevant to my interests. You have a link to a recipe that's really good? This apple pie cider sounds great
This thread is quite good for a first time cider. This is the one i am making. Its quite easy.

Nice, but I don't have the gear for that much brewing. I can do 1.5 gallons in 16 oz bottles. I'll have to cut that down a bit, but caramel apple cider sounds awesome.

I didnt either, however the equipment isnt expensive or hard to get. My local brew supply house sells 6.5 gallon PET carboys for $25. Other than that you only really need a siphon and something to bottle into.


Plus spigot, tubing and bottle filler. Unfortunately, the spigot is at about the half gallon mark, so when it gets that low, I have to use my funnels.

I also have these beauties: 

Since people are interested, here's the cider. My recipes are all for 5 gallon batches, so if you want to do it smaller you'll have to adapt.

Materials:
5 gallons fresh apple cider. Make sure it says "UV pasteurized" or "preservative free" on the label. Chemical preservatives will kill your yeast.
5 Campden tablets: Ask your nearest homebrew store
1 tbsp yeast nutrient: see above
2 lbs dark brown sugar
1 vial cider yeast. Cote des Blanc wine yeast also works well. I've started avoiding champagne yeast because it adds too much of its own flavor.

Method:
Add the cider to your fermenter. Crush up the Campden tablets between 2 spoons. Add the Campden powder and yeast nutrient. Seal up fermenter with airlock, wait approximately 24 hours and add your yeast.

Warning: cider smells AWFUL while its fermenting, so keep it in the basement or garage if you can.

Once fermentation has slowed (1 bubble every 30 sec or so from the airlock), heat up a quart of water and dissolve the brown sugar. Once its cooled to room tempish, add the syrup to the fermenter. If you really want to, you can add the sugar initially with the Campden and yeast nutriet, but I like to add it second because the second wave of fermentation seems to blow out any remaining sulfur-y gasses and produce a better product.

After fermentation has ceased again, you can transfer it to a secondary fermenter if you have one, or let it sit a week longer and get ready to bottle.

For the apple pie, I use 1 jar of cinnamon sticks, a few dozen cloves, and about two ounces of fresh ginger grated up. If you like other spices in your pie, throw 'em in! Simmer the spices in a pint of water (or infuse them for a week in a bottle of vodka). I like to add my spices to the bottling bucket at bottling time. That way your volatile essential oils don't get blown away during fermentation, and you have better control over dosing. Trust me, too much cinnamon or cloves will ruin a good cider so its nice to be able to dose it in slowly.

Prime with half a cup of white sugar dissolved in 1 cup of boiling water, bottle, cap, and condition.

mainsail: Communist_Manifesto: I had a minor failure of a wee heavy I made. Stupid me got distracted watching the bronco game and let my sparge water get too hot extracting some tannins and too many non-fermentable sugars. It's the worst beer I've made, but it's still better than bud light.

I've got an ambitious project for a snickers stout that i want to make. I just need to get around to ordering the powdered peanut butter.

Won't the oil in the peanut butter screw up your head retention? And the salt in the peanut butter...I admit to the curiosity, here.

The oil in normal peanut butter will destroy head retention. However! There is a company that de-oils the peanut butter and turns it into powder. The product is called PB2 and can be bought online so no salt or oil to worry about. I did a mock up of the recipe, but I was really stoned so now that I'm looking at it I'm second guessing the amount of honey malt I used but if you want to look at it here's a link

poorjon: Since people are interested, here's the cider

It may sound like a lot of work, but its seriously only a couple of hours spaced over a few weeks.

I am picking up almost 100 pounds of grain tomorrow morning. It should be enough to get me through most of the year-55 lbs of 2-row, 30 pound of Maris Otter, and 17 pounds of Crystal II. First up is an English barleywine and and bitter from the same mash...then probably an IPA or a pale. Took part in a group buy-we bought over 9000 pounds of grain from County Malt Group.

I will be spending the afternoon on a road trip to 3 Floyd's though so no brewing for me until Sunday.

Tonight we are gonna check out the new Half Acre tap room in Chicago.

Late to the party but I am:
1. Bottling our Bourbon Stout
2. Moving our Spiced Winter into secondary (Biofine FTW)
3. Starting on our Raspberry Chocolate Stout

Also making my Stir Plate

For the minimalist home brewer.

/a jar of juice and this thing
/it's sort of like cloudy champagne mixed with fruit juice...a poor man's Bellini

right on!

The Stealth Hippopotamus: [img841.imageshack.us image 478x640]

Should be bottled on Sunday. But I could do it on Saturday in order to honor HomeBrewing day. It's my tradition to do all my brewing related activities on Sunday.

Hey, you have your religion, I have mine.

Wtf is in the carboy on the left? Are you making orange wine or something?

poorjon: Since people are interested, here's the cider. My recipes are all for 5 gallon batches, so if you want to do it smaller you'll have to adapt.

Materials:
5 gallons fresh apple cider. Make sure it says "UV pasteurized" or "preservative free" on the label. Chemical preservatives will kill your yeast.
5 Campden tablets: Ask your nearest homebrew store
1 tbsp yeast nutrient: see above
2 lbs dark brown sugar
1 vial cider yeast. Cote des Blanc wine yeast also works well. I've started avoiding champagne yeast because it adds too much of its own flavor.

Method:
Add the cider to your fermenter. Crush up the Campden tablets between 2 spoons. Add the Campden powder and yeast nutrient. Seal up fermenter with airlock, wait approximately 24 hours and add your yeast.

Warning: cider smells AWFUL while its fermenting, so keep it in the basement or garage if you can.

Once fermentation has slowed (1 bubble every 30 sec or so from the airlock), heat up a quart of water and dissolve the brown sugar. Once its cooled to room tempish, add the syrup to the fermenter. If you really want to, you can add the sugar initially with the Campden and yeast nutriet, but I like to add it second because the second wave of fermentation seems to blow out any remaining sulfur-y gasses and produce a better product.

After fermentation has ceased again, you can transfer it to a secondary fermenter if you have one, or let it sit a week longer and get ready to bottle.

For the apple pie, I use 1 jar of cinnamon sticks, a few dozen cloves, and about two ounces of fresh ginger grated up. If you like other spices in your pie, throw 'em in! Simmer the spices in a pint of water (or infuse them for a week in a bottle of vodka). I like to add my spices to the bottling bucket at bottling time. That way your volatile essential oils don't get blown away during fermentation, and you have better control over dosing. Trust me, too much cinnamon or cloves will ruin a good cider so its nice to be able to dose it in slowl ...

Ive done this for year except

5 gal Apple juice (motts)
2 lbs corn sugar
1 packet Montrachet

Mix(everything sanatized with Sanstar)- ferment- wait till it clears. Bottle with carb drops. Wait 3 weeks. Fridge enjoy.

Never had an issue and always turns out epic.

Here in Alabamastan, it is still illegal to brew your own (but it's okay to make your own wine- go figure).
However, I just tapped my keg of this year's pumpkin ale (Papazian's recipe) this afternoon. Not as good as I'd hoped, but not terrible, either. Force carbed for just 24 hours, so maybe it'll settle down. Could also have been the recipe. Either way, I've had much better pumpkin ales.
American brown goes to secondary tomorrow. Primary will be replaced with a Dale's Pale clone while watching the Tide. Central Alabama garages are at perfect ale temps right now.
Happy brewing, everyone!

Last time I tried to make some wine, I had a cloud of grey mold growing in the airlock, which was filled with sani-clean or whatever the fk it is called.

Then I looked at the bottle of liquid sani-clean I had mixed up from the crystal powder packet, and it too had mold growing in it.

What the fk is that stuffs job???!!! 3 days and it grew mold.

Next time I'll use Vodka.

newton: Last time I tried to make some wine, I had a cloud of grey mold growing in the airlock, which was filled with sani-clean or whatever the fk it is called.

Then I looked at the bottle of liquid sani-clean I had mixed up from the crystal powder packet, and it too had mold growing in it.

What the fk is that stuffs job???!!! 3 days and it grew mold.

Next time I'll use Vodka.

I don't think vodak is the proper medium for growing mold.

Honest Bender: Seems there are a lot of homebrew farkers around. Maybe one of you can answer my question:

I've often heard that it's illegal to brew moonshine but I know plenty of people brew their own beer. What gives? Does it become illegal to brew alcohol over a certain proof? Is it a state by state thing? Please help! I'm far FAR too lazy to copy paste this post into Google and click the first link.

/Thanks in advance.

You dont "brew" moonshine. You distill it. The reason they have it illegal is you can possibly make it posionus either using lead solder or pipes, using methanol fermenting ingredients.

It can be dangerous- stills can generat some pressure. Add a leak and an open flame- they can explode.

What it comes down to is avoiding taxes on one of the most highly taxed items you can buy

moonshine is Grain fermented- Distilled- drank cut or uncut. Thats it.

If anyone is in Toronto, Amsterdam Brewing is hosting a learn to brew. Even if you already know how to brew, it is a good excuse to come meet lots of fellow brewers.

An-Unnecessarily-Long-Name: Honest Bender: Seems there are a lot of homebrew farkers around. Maybe one of you can answer my question:

I've often heard that it's illegal to brew moonshine but I know plenty of people brew their own beer. What gives? Does it become illegal to brew alcohol over a certain proof? Is it a state by state thing? Please help! I'm far FAR too lazy to copy paste this post into Google and click the first link.

/Thanks in advance.

You dont "brew" moonshine. You distill it. The reason they have it illegal is you can possibly make it posionus either using lead solder or pipes, using methanol fermenting ingredients.

It can be dangerous- stills can generat some pressure. Add a leak and an open flame- they can explode.

What it comes down to is avoiding taxes on one of the most highly taxed items you can buy

moonshine is Grain fermented- Distilled- drank cut or uncut. Thats it.

distillation is still illegal less for safety reasons(they sell cigarettes, after all), and more for taxation reasons. you can make a LOT of money selling a little whiskey. the man's got to have his cut.

poorjon: Since people are interested, here's the cider. My recipes are all for 5 gallon batches, so if you want to do it smaller you'll have to adapt.

Materials:
5 gallons fresh apple cider. Make sure it says "UV pasteurized" or "preservative free" on the label. Chemical preservatives will kill your yeast.
5 Campden tablets: Ask your nearest homebrew store
1 tbsp yeast nutrient: see above
2 lbs dark brown sugar
1 vial cider yeast. Cote des Blanc wine yeast also works well. I've started avoiding champagne yeast because it adds too much of its own flavor.

Method:
Add the cider to your fermenter. Crush up the Campden tablets between 2 spoons. Add the Campden powder and yeast nutrient. Seal up fermenter with airlock, wait approximately 24 hours and add your yeast.

Warning: cider smells AWFUL while its fermenting, so keep it in the basement or garage if you can.

Once fermentation has slowed (1 bubble every 30 sec or so from the airlock), heat up a quart of water and dissolve the brown sugar. Once its cooled to room tempish, add the syrup to the fermenter. If you really want to, you can add the sugar initially with the Campden and yeast nutriet, but I like to add it second because the second wave of fermentation seems to blow out any remaining sulfur-y gasses and produce a better product.

After fermentation has ceased again, you can transfer it to a secondary fermenter if you have one, or let it sit a week longer and get ready to bottle.

For the apple pie, I use 1 jar of cinnamon sticks, a few dozen cloves, and about two ounces of fresh ginger grated up. If you like other spices in your pie, throw 'em in! Simmer the spices in a pint of water (or infuse them for a week in a bottle of vodka). I like to add my spices to the bottling bucket at bottling time. That way your volatile essential oils don't get blown away during fermentation, and you have better control over dosing. Trust me, too much cinnamon or cloves will ruin a good cider so its nice to be able to dose it in slowly.

Prime with half a cup of white sugar dissolved in 1 cup of boiling water, bottle, cap, and condition.

The reason that it smells is likely that you aren't using enough nutrient for the yeast. It's normally .5 to 1 tsp per gallon if I recall correctly. The sulfur smell is from when yeast is in a low nutrient environment from my research.

American amber ale of my own concoction is on deck for tomorrow.

MoronLessOff: Loki009: MoronLessOff: Loki009: Communist_Manifesto: poorjon: I love me some brewing, but fall is for cider! Once you've made your first batch, you'll never stop. No boiling, just add the yeast and go. Opened the apple pie cider a little while ago and it is awesome. Also have a bourbon barrel cider getting ready for aging.

This seems relevant to my interests. You have a link to a recipe that's really good? This apple pie cider sounds great
This thread is quite good for a first time cider. This is the one i am making. Its quite easy.

Nice, but I don't have the gear for that much brewing. I can do 1.5 gallons in 16 oz bottles. I'll have to cut that down a bit, but caramel apple cider sounds awesome.

I didnt either, however the equipment isnt expensive or hard to get. My local brew supply house sells 6.5 gallon PET carboys for $25. Other than that you only really need a siphon and something to bottle into.


Plus spigot, tubing and bottle filler. Unfortunately, the spigot is at about the half gallon mark, so when it gets that low, I have to use my funnels.

I also have these beauties: 

Then you have pretty much what you need. Just get a hydrometer to take gravity readings and you are set

Well that's a coincidence. Doing my first brew tomorrow.

This weekend is a wash.

Next weekend though I've got a Belgian Pale Ale and then every weekend after that I've got a schedule to keep until December.

Loki009: The reason that it smells is likely that you aren't using enough nutrient for the yeast. It's normally .5 to 1 tsp per gallon if I recall correctly. The sulfur smell is from when yeast is in a low nutrient environment from my research.

I'm using slightly higher than that ratio. At first I thought it was sulfur from the campden, but I've fermented a batch without campden and it still stank. At this point I'm just working on the hypothesis that apple juice has a lot of sulfur bound up in it in a way which is normally unoffensive to our senses and yeast knows how to release it. A lot of beer yeasts also generate a fair amount of sulfur during fermentation, and wort is far more nutritious than cider.

poorjon: Loki009: The reason that it smells is likely that you aren't using enough nutrient for the yeast. It's normally .5 to 1 tsp per gallon if I recall correctly. The sulfur smell is from when yeast is in a low nutrient environment from my research.

I'm using slightly higher than that ratio. At first I thought it was sulfur from the campden, but I've fermented a batch without campden and it still stank. At this point I'm just working on the hypothesis that apple juice has a lot of sulfur bound up in it in a way which is normally unoffensive to our senses and yeast knows how to release it. A lot of beer yeasts also generate a fair amount of sulfur during fermentation, and wort is far more nutritious than cider.

might be your apples. or your yeast. have you tried switching up varieties of apples? there's a good dozen varieties that are awesome for cider that you can procure if you know where to go.

I've tried juice from about five different orchards, and at least four strains of yeast.

Communist_Manifesto: mainsail: Communist_Manifesto: I had a minor failure of a wee heavy I made. Stupid me got distracted watching the bronco game and let my sparge water get too hot extracting some tannins and too many non-fermentable sugars. It's the worst beer I've made, but it's still better than bud light.

I've got an ambitious project for a snickers stout that i want to make. I just need to get around to ordering the powdered peanut butter.

Won't the oil in the peanut butter screw up your head retention? And the salt in the peanut butter...I admit to the curiosity, here.

The oil in normal peanut butter will destroy head retention. However! There is a company that de-oils the peanut butter and turns it into powder. The product is called PB2 and can be bought online so no salt or oil to worry about. I did a mock up of the recipe, but I was really stoned so now that I'm looking at it I'm second guessing the amount of honey malt I used but if you want to look at it here's a link


That does seem a tad heavy in honey malt, especially with the dark malt LME. But my other concern with the peanut butter is what the intensity of the flavor, is. Also, why not cocoa nibs?

I was planning on it, but then I was told I have to fly to Syracuse, NY for work on Monday, and it's kinda an open ended ticket. I don't want to start a beer without being home to keep an eye on it.. At least they have some decent microbrews in the area.

Reposted from another site, by a user named namelessbrewer: http://www.reddit.com/r/beer/comments/12goc1/light_beer_you_dont_h ave_ to_like_it_but_respect_it/c6v2wef

I'm a brewer. Not a homebrewer, but a guy who's worked nearly a decare in breweries large and small. I worked in one of the largest breweries in North America churning out 7+ million barrels a year. Now I work for a craft brewery with an annual production comparable to what I used to make in a week. I left to go smaller, and took a pay cut, because I didn't like the culture of the company anymore and wanted to go to a place where I felt I would fit in. To all of you folks who are hating on the big guys, let's set a few things straight:

Light beers didn't come to dominate the Global beer market because it sucks and everyone hates them. There was a steady evolution of consolidation in America as manufacturing techniques improved. Where 75 years ago there was a brewery in every region turning out good to great beers that were different everywhere, they were also inconsistent. And there was a lot of spoilage. Americans bought in to lighter and lighter beers. And the breweries who produced them the best had more sales, and the other breweries failed. Light beers weren't pushed down Americans throats, they were pulled from breweries by the demands of Americans.

The devotion of the large breweries to product quality is the ONLY reason that you can get a consistent craft beer today. There was no science put behind yeast and microbiological spoilage organisms until THEY did the research and discovered it. There would be no standards for cleanliness without them. People wouldn't know that diacetyl could be produced by latent alpha-acetolactate after beer was bottled. People wouldn't understand that if you ferment the same yeast at different temperatures, you can get completely different flavors. The big brewers developed the methods to detect and identify spoilage organisms in a brewery. Why does the same type of hop lend different bitterness at different times? Because of what they learned, we know that the alpha acid % is what determines bitterness. Without any of this knowledge, the craft brewing industry would not be anywhere close to where it is today because nobody could brew the strong, complex brews that craft brewers make.

Brewmasters at large breweries have to deal with more problems than you will ever understand. Oh gee, it was rainy in central Canada in March and April. Who cares? Well, since the fields were flooded, barley is going to be planted late, so its not going to come in full. Now you're going to have barley that is low in extract and high in color because it had two weeks less to grow this year and it had to be kilned more to keep the enzymes low. So your lautering efficiency is going to be low and your color is going to be high. On top of that, you're starting to see that your wort fermentability is decreasing and you aren't getting to your alcohol level. So now you've got to find which mash vessel temperature probe is understanding temperature, or which steam valve is leaking by. But you don't have any yeast to brew with anyway because somebody forgot to add the sanitizer to your automated yeast brink cleaning system, and now ALL of your yeast has pediococcus in it. Plus, your filter has broken down because your pressure gauge wasn't calibrated properly and you blew out all your seals, and you don't have a spare set of filter screens because your boss wanted to keep below budget and pushed the purchase of new screens until January of the next year so he didn't have to answer to the board of directors.

The fact is that most people have no idea whatsoever how to do anyone's job but their own. Since beer is something that is everywhere, so incredibly varied in style and taste, and there are thousands of blogs about it, people think that because they've had so much exposure to it that they're experts and it must be easy to do. Do you think that building a Ford Focus is easy? They're all over the place, they don't look that complicated, and they're mostly plastic anyway. I can take them to the Jiffy Lube and those jerks can change my oil in 20 minutes! How complicated can building the thing really be? Or what about flying an airplane? They have autopilot do all the work! All they have to do is take off and land, right? And that's all computers too, isn't it?

Brewing is a career. It's not a hobby, or something you can learn by hanging around your local brewpub a lot. There is so much to learn about the craft that it takes a lifetime to learn most of it. I don't care if you don't enjoy light beer. I don't enjoy it either. But I know where it comes from, I know how smart you have to be to make it, and how difficult of a job brewing is at any level. If you don't respect light beer, then just give up on beer altogether. Switch to wine instead. Those idiots have no idea what they're doing anyway. I mean, it's just grapes, right?? 

MylesHeartVodak: Reposted from another site

The huge brewerys have contributed greatly to brewing science, but they don't make good beer. Light lager is probably the most difficult style to brew, but still not good beer. The people who brew it work very hard and care a lot, but it is still not good beer. Yes, mass produced light lager is an amazing feat of chemical engineering. That does not mean it is good beer.

I'll be going to Ranger Creek Brewstillery tomorrow to sample everything I can get my hands on. I have the ingredients for an oatmeal stout (mini-mash) and extract Hoegaarden clone to make. Currently have a belgian ale and hefeweizen in the kegerator with one empty keg.

I just returned from signing the final papers to incorporate my craft brewery so I'm really getting a kick out of this.


/Also has five gallons of saison ready to keg

poorjon: MylesHeartVodak: Reposted from another site

The huge brewerys have contributed greatly to brewing science, but they don't make good beer. Light lager is probably the most difficult style to brew, but still not good beer. The people who brew it work very hard and care a lot, but it is still not good beer. Yes, mass produced light lager is an amazing feat of chemical engineering. That does not mean it is good beer.

I don't have a dog in this fight. I drink booze, usually vodak. I do enjoy a good brown ale or a stout with a sandwich for lunch, but not to actually drink for recreation. I had to admit that this guy realized that modern craft brews would not exist without the macrobrew industry. Modern microbrew is working on established science from the big boys.

GreenAdder: That's great.
Really.
Only problem is, why would I spend all my time making beer when Bud Light and Corona are already perfect?
Leave beer-making to the big boys, people.
Leave it to people with centuries of brewing experience.

Captain, I am detecting large concentrations of snarkasm in this sector.

MylesHeartVodak: this guy realized that modern craft brews would not exist without the macrobrew industry.

We have been brewing since the dawn of civilization (some argue that brewing is what lead us to civilization) yet we have only enjoyed a beverage which we would recognize as beer since sometime in the 1800's. This is due almost entirely to the mega-huge breweries. I'm not trying to downplay their contributions to the understanding of of scientific principles underpinning malting, barley and hops genetics and agroscience, water chemistry (the pH scale was invented in the Carlsberg brewing labs), mashing, boiling, fermentation, conditioning, sanitation, yeast propagating and genetics, packaging, and far more. They have given us all of these advances, but they still don't give us very good beer.

Every time homebrewing comes up, all I can picture is that Breaking Bad episode where everyone is trying Hank's homebrew at a party. Everyone is cringing.