Spring beer

March beer is the first brew of the year, made from the fresh crop of malts and hops. It is a mellow, fruity beer with a full flavor - floral aromas, fruitiness and subtle notes of roasted and caramelized malt. The beer has an elegant well-balanced bitterness. Every year in March when nature is reawakening, March beer arrives to tickle the palate and announce the coming of spring.

Spring beer first made its appearance some 600 years ago, in the Northern French town of Arras. Emerging from the winter chill, the master brewers prepared a fresh, light beer. Made from malt from the last barley harvest, this golden beer was traditionally placed in vats around October and stored in the naturally cold winter temperatures to reach maturity in the springtime after three months cellaring. Thus it became known as "spring beer."

Ingredients
4 lbs Wheat/Malt extract
3 lbs Light malt extract
1/2 lb Honey
1 lb Crystal malt
1 lb Light DME
2 oz Hallertauer (boil 60 minutes)
1/2 oz Hallertauer (finish 2 mins)
Wyeast Bavarian wheat yeast
Procedure
Steep dry grains in 1.5 gallons water @ 150F for 20 minutes, remove from grains from water. Bring wort to boil and add extract, honey, DME and bittering hops. Boil for 58 minutes. Add flavoring hops and boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and cool, transfer to fermenter, pitch yeast. Ferment for 14 days at 70F.

World's best brewery tours

Once a magnet for those looking for a free beer, brewery tours have become much more sophisticated in recent years.
Along with that gratis beer, breweries the world over are offering everything from in-depth tours to lessons in beer-making. Some have even built restaurants or brewpubs where visitors can lunch on a Kobe burger and wash it down with a German-style ale. Add it all up, and you have more than just a free beer; you have a perfect Saturday afternoon. < MORE >

beer can chicken

It's not a home brew recipe, but it's just as good. Beer-Can Chicken is a recipe that's been on the barbecue circuit for years, not in cookbooks. It cooks evenly and gets a perfect crisp skin from it standing on the can. It's a recipe that was probably created by a couple of drunk buddies in their backyard. READ MORE

Boston Lager

Grains and Extract
1/2 lb. 60 crystal
4 lb. light malt extract
2 1/2 lb. light dry malt extract
Hops
2 oz. Tettnanger (60 minutes)
1/2 oz. Tettnanger (5 minutes)
1/2 oz. Hallerttau Mittlefruh (dry hop)
Yeast
Saflager S-23

Brewing Instructions:
Steep crystal in 1.5 gallon of 150f water for 20 min. Remove grains and bring to a boil. Add the extract, light dry malt extract, and bittering hops. Boil for 55 minutes, add 1/2 oz Tettnanger. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from stove, cool, place in fermentor, and add enough water to make 5 gallons. Pitch yeast and ferment cool at 55F for 2 weeks. Rack to secondary and add the dry hops, wait another week and bottle or keg.

ESB

Grains and Extract
1 lbs. Simpsons Crystal
6.5 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup
Hops
2 oz. Willamette (60 min)
2 oz. Kent Goldings (5 min)
Yeast
Safale S-04

German Pilsner

Grains and Extract
1 lb. carapils malt
6 lbs. Muntons extra-light malt extract syrup
Hops
1 oz. Perle hops (60 minutes)
2 oz. Hallertau hops (5 minutes)
Yeast
Saflager S-23

Schwarzbier

Grains and Extract
0.5 lbs. Weyermann Caramunich III
0.5 lbs. Dingemans Debittered Black
6 lbs. Dark Malt Syrup
1 lbs. Dark Dry Malt Extract
Hops
1 oz. Argentina Cascade (60 min)
1 oz. Argentina Cascade (30 min)
Yeast
Saflager S-23