Closer Inspection It looks like the rock candy you ate as a
kid, but light candi sugar is used less for creating sweetness than for controlling alcohol content. A pound of the sugar can increase the percentage by 0.5 to 1 percent. Use enough, Terrell says, and you could get an alcohol content as high as 20 percent. But, he warns, “it’s a balancing act of
actually making it taste good. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should.”
Terrell hosted a contest at his Herndon home
between amateur brewing clubs: the Wort Hogs and the D.C. Homebrewers. Participants were asked to incorporate lime peel and sorachi hops (which imparts a lemongrass fl avor) into their concoctions. “One guy brewed a beer
where, in addition to [those ingredients], he added graham crackers and marshmallows,” Terrell says. “It tasted just like Key lime pie.”
Torrifi ed wheat is used in British beers and helps produce a
creamier head on the fi nished product.
Your home-brewed
framboise lambic ale doesn’t have to be as sticky-sweet as most
store-bought versions. T e Framboos kit
by Belgian company Brewferm uses
raspberry juice, rather than an extract, to yield a gentler fl avor.
Flaked rice is found in Japanese lagers such
as Sapporo. Like candi sugar, it increases a beer’s alcohol content and lightens the libation’s hue.
Heather tips add a mild tanginess and slight fl oral character (no surprise,
because they’re cultivated directly from the heather shrub itself).
While it’s tough to fi nd six-packs of chocolate, black currant or watermelon libations, you
can easily create them by scooping up small bottles of liquid fl avoring. How much you
add to your batch is up to you: “It’s a matter of adjusting to taste,” Terrell says.
Brewed to order Getting seasonally experimental with homemade beer
BY KRIS CORONADO Ah, fall. It’s the time of year when delicious Oktoberfest brews and pumpkin ales make their seasonal debut on grocery store shelves … and are quickly snatched up by fellow beer- lovers. Instead of lamenting that the Dogfi sh Head Punkin Ale may be out of stock, Derek Terrell has another suggestion: Concoct your own. Terrell, the owner of My Local Home Brew Shop (
www.mylhbs.com) in Falls Church, says Dogfi sh’s pumpkin brew is currently the most popular brand name beer his customers try to copy using online
recipes coupled with trial and error. Yet it isn’t just the frothy replication
potential that makes brewing your own beer appealing, it’s the fact “that you can really tailor beers to your own liking, whether or not you add exotic ingredients,” Terrell says. Whatever your preference — be it a
Russian Imperial Stout or a Japanese lager — he estimates that customers have the capability to create hundreds of unique brewskies. (Chocolate cream stout, anyone? How about a watermelon wheat?) “Brewing is actually really easy. People have done it
for thousands of years, and people can get really anxious about what they’re doing and overcomplicate things,” Terrell says. “But the fact of the matter is, if you can cook even basic foods, you can really easily make beer.”
OCTOBER 24, 2010 | THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE 5
Of course you’ll want to tag your latest creation.
Design a logo and print it
on 18 sheets of professional label-making paper that you can slap on 108 longnecks or a growler (which holds a half-gallon).
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BENJAMIN C. TANKERSLEY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164