Like many avid homebrewers, I soon found myself growing hops as a hobby that sprung from the joys of homebrewing beer. I got Cascade rhizomes from a coworker at a brewery I was working at and once planted they really took off.

I planted the hop rhizomes at the base of my grandmother’s blue spruce tree to allow the tree to become my trellis for the hops to grow on using minimal effort. By the third year I had a sufficient hop harvest to brew a 5-gallon (19-L) batch of my roasted sweet potato pale ale using fresh Cascade hops that I grew.

As the years went on the hop plant produced an abundance of hops to brew with and I was soon making several fresh-hop (or wet-hop) recipes that utilized the hops shortly after picking and forgoing the drying process hops generally go through. When brewing with fresh hops you need more weight to account for the water in the hop cones as opposed to the normal dried hops (whether as cones or pellets) that are often below 10% moisture content. I like using a factor of 6 and feel that really lines up with IBU calculations if the hops are added during the boil. This means a lot of fresh hops are needed to brew hoppier beers like pale ales and IPAs.

While drinking a homebrew and watching my hopback/whirlpool during its resting phase on a fresh-hop brew day, I pondered over what the actual utilization was given the large amount of hops that were used, relatively short contact time of 20 to 40 minutes depending on the recipe, and as the wort approached or fell below the isomerization temperature of 176 °F (80 °C). I was thinking of utilization not just with the alpha acids and bitterness, but how much hop oils and terpenes were left in the hops for flavor and character. With these questions and plenty of spent hops in hand, it was time to brew an experimental spent-hopped beer!

Recipe Idea

I assumed that the character of the spent hops would be delicate and would lend itself well to a lighter style hoppy beer. The first style to come to mind was an English bitter. Special bitters are known for lower alcohol content around 3.8–4.6%, with 4% being a great middle target. Special bitters and higher gravity strong bitters (4.6–6.2% ABV) use lower alpha acid hops like East Kent Goldings, which are rich in oils that pack a beer with hop flavor, aroma, with a clean bitterness. This was my inspiration for this project. While hoppy beers are usually the topic when it comes to brewing with fresh hops, don’t be afraid to try using spent fresh hops in other styles. I can imagine doing so in future batches with something like my favorite helles or Pilsner recipe.

Method of Brewing with Fresh Spent Hop Cones

When using wet hops that are freshly picked off the hop bine, the majority of brewers — whether homebrewer or professional — choose the easiest option to add the whole leaf hop cones to the mash tun to act as a hopback or whirlpool. This makes for easy cleanup and you can use a ridiculous amount of hops to extract a unique hop character. Also, by using your mash tun you can easily maximize wort recovery to your fermenter by using the false bottom to aid with wort drainage.

Over the years I guessed my original alpha acids of my homegrown Cascade hops to be about 6% (this is anecdotal based on about 20 years of experience brewing on a home and professional scale) and assumed only 2% alpha acids remaining in the spent hops. I continued to harvest homegrown hops and brew the sweet potato pale ale fresh-hop beer followed by the spent-hop English bitter for five consecutive years. After a few batches of brewing with spent hops I believe this reduced alpha acid percent of about 2% to be correct or close enough without paying for an analysis. 

My current boss at Lindgren Craft Brewery remembered these 5- and 10-gallon (19- and 38-L) homebrew batches that I made every year during hop harvest and once we had our own brewery we decided to give it a try on a commercial 3-barrel scale. The idea was to collect the spent hops in 5-gallon (19-L) buckets to hold for the next batch. That year we brewed two 3-barrel wet-hop IPAs using Newport and Comet varieties, which led to a lot of spent hops to reclaim. Following each wet-hop brew we collected the spent cones in buckets that we sealed and placed in the refrigerator to brew with for a second time the next day.

The following day, the spent hops were added as a whirlpool addition when the wort was below isomerization temperature, around 170 °F (77 °C). After the boil was complete, I immediately transfered the wort from the kettle to the mash tun loaded with spent hop cones and noticed that the temperature went from 212 °F (100 °C) down to 184 °F (84 °C) once everything was in the mash tun. If adding spent hops stored in the refrigerator then you will see a more drastic drop in temperature, so I’d recommend allowing them to come to room temperature first.

Once the spent hops and wort were in the mash tun we used a pump to recirculate the wort and help keep the floating hop cones submerged and moving for maximum interaction between the hops and wort. The goal is to try and remove all the oils from the hop cones and get them suspended in the wort. During recirculation the lupulin will come out of the cone and you will see little yellow balls all throughout the wort, the majority of which make their way to the fermenter. When using spent fresh hops starting at room temperature with a 40-minute whirlpool recirculation we saw the starting temperature around 184 °F (84 °C) and finishing around 170 °F (77 °C). For homebrewing, an occasional stir here and there to help mix the hops and extract the leftover oils into the wort is suggested. Also, with smaller homebrewing equipment you might see faster temperature losses than we did on our commercial equipment, which might dictate how long you can whirlpool the hops in your target temperature range.

Mash Hopping

For some extra fun you can add a portion of your spent hops to the mash, which is said to help release thiols and aid in biotransformation. It is said that you get roughly 20% of the IBUs that you would get during a 60-minute boil from mash hop additions. If you choose, you can build that into your recipe.

Flavor & Character

The hop flavor and character will significantly depend on many factors like hop variety, age of the hop plant, original recipe followed by the spent-hop recipe, amount of hops used, and all other brewing techniques used to produce the beer. As a hop plant grows throughout the years it will become a heartier plant that produces better quality and quantity of alpha acids and hop oils. We have seen this happen at our local commercial hop farm over the last five years. One thing that is constant is the soft, delicate hop character contributed from hops on their second use, which is just delightful. For this particular batch at the brewery, we used spent hops from two fresh-hop IPA batches we brewed just to see what would happen. Because we harvested all of the spent whirlpool hops to use in the next batch we just used that base hop weight prior to brewing and did not account for any wort absorption. Even if measuring out spent hops for a bittering addition, just keep it simple and use the weight as is. We are estimating roughly 2% alpha acids left in the spent hops so there is plenty of room for variance.

When calculating the spent hop weight we used 72 pounds of spent hops (as was written in the previous recipe) in the whirlpool in 110 gallons, or 0.65 lbs. per gallon (78 g/L) of post-boil wort and it had a unique, soft jalapeño pepper character with no heat. This was the first time I experienced this character and attribute it to using more hops than I would normally use, however customers told us they enjoyed the flavor and it sold out quickly. In all subsequent brews I have just used one batch of spent hops into another batch (5.3 oz./gallon or 39 g/L).

Homebrewing vs. Commercial Brewing

A major difference between homebrewing and commercial brewing a wet-hop beer is how you source your hops. If you are commercially brewing on smaller equipment like a barrel or two you might have enough hops if you are growing them yourself, but beyond that you will need to find a commercial source due to the amount needed for your recipe. Another commercial option is to plan the brew ahead with local homebrewers that grow their own to get an estimated expected harvest. With enough participants harvesting various varieties they grow you might be able to acquire enough hops to brew a wet-hop beer, then the spent-hopped beer. For commercial brewing we have been told by our cattle farmer that when we put the spent hops in the grain bins the cows don’t like it and don’t eat it. We were asked to find a way to discard the hops and not add them to the spent mash. Just like with homebrewing, we take the spent hops and add them into empty malt bags to throw out. Everything else on the brewing side is pretty much the same for homebrewers and commercial brewers, just on different size equipment.

Wet Hop Availability and Sources

For brewing with fresh wet hops the best option is to grow your own. I understand that this is not an option for some homebrewers, and it’s rarely an option for commercial breweries. For homebrewing, you can plan to pair up with other local homebrewers that do grow their own hops and see if you can harvest the spent hops from their batch to use in your beer. Some hop suppliers offer fresh hops around harvest season in August-September. You might have to pre-order them, so as soon as they are harvested they can be shipped to you immediately. In today’s world with the internet you have many companies, locations, farms, and hop varieties to choose from for your fresh hop needs.

I am a huge fan of supporting local hop farms. Many states have hop farms that are enthusiastic about their products and love hearing from homebrewers. What is your closest hop farm? Do you have multiple hop farms in your state, or even in a neighboring state? Look up their website and see what they have to offer for varieties and then contact them to check the availability of fresh hops, expected harvest time, pricing, as well as shipping or pickup options.

I have worked at breweries before where we had fresh wet hops shipped in overnight from the Pacific Northwest and while they were excellent products, the less time between harvest and brewing with the wet hops, the better. Homebrewers who grow their own hops have a great advantage here. Luckily for us, GEMS Hop Farm is right down the road from us, which allows us to visit the farm and closely monitor the upcoming harvest schedule as well as participate in harvest. It was the same involvement I had when I was growing the backyard hops myself and brewing with them only hours after harvesting. 

We have noticed that after harvest if you place the hops in the freezer and wait three days to brew you can see up to a 6% loss in weight. I sincerely feel that the moisture that is evaporated in freshly harvested hops will affect the overall character. Not necessarily for the worse, just different.

Spent Fresh Hops vs. Spent T-90 Pellet or Dried Whole Cones

To be honest, I have only ever reused spent hops following a wet-hop brew day; however, I see no reason why this technique should only apply to fresh hops. If you wished to get two turns out of T-90 pellets or whole dried hop cones, you could place the hops in a bag in the kettle on your first brew and reuse the spent hops again for your next batch.

Spent-Hop Recipes

For the past few years – both before the pandemic and after – the busiest brewery at the annual Great American Beer Festival in Denver hasn’t been one of the big hitters like Russian River, Dogfish Head, Fremont, or 3 Floyds. 

Instead, the brewery with the most check-ins on the Untappd app and the longest lines has been Colorado’s own WeldWerks Brewing, according to numbers provided by the Boulder, Colorado-based Brewers Association (BA).

The chaos started just a half hour into the first session of the festival in 2017 with a crush of demand for their hit hazy IPA Juicy Bits, its big brother Double Dry-Hopped Juicy Bits, and for Medianoche, a Bourbon barrel-aged stout that ended up winning a gold medal at the festival two days later. There were 100 people in line at any one time, and it never let up, Owner Neil Fisher said then.

In 2018, the BA moved WeldWerks to an endcap where there would be more room, and the brewery itself created a special line just for industry peers, like fellow brewers, vendors, and sponsors, so that they could have easier access to the tables. That line backed up into the crowd as well. People were undeterred and waited it out for their shot to try the beers with so much buzz.

The following year, WeldWerks poured an estimated 25,000 samples of Juicy Bits, Extra Extra Juicy Bits, Double Barrel Peanut Butter Cup Medianoche (a version of Medianoche that was aged for 21 months in Bourbon barrels with peanut butter cups and peanut flour) and seven other beers, maintaining the overall top rating on Untappd at the fest with three in the top 10. 

Extra Extra Juicy Bits ended up winning gold that year, while a session version of Juicy Bits, called Itsy Bits, took home a silver medal.

The COVID-19 pandemic put an end to the festival in 2020 and 2021, but when it returned, slightly smaller, in 2022, things picked up for WeldWerks where they had left off, and have remained at a frenzied pitch ever since. 

The attention and demand is a world away from how WeldWerks began in early 2015 in the agricultural town of Greeley, Colorado, about an hour northeast of Denver. That’s where Fisher had moved in 2009 from North Carolina, gotten married, and found a rhythm of life that included homebrewing sessions with friends in his garage.

Homebrewing was something that appealed to Fisher’s scientifically oriented mind — he’d been a physics major at the University of North Carolina — and he started to enter his beers into homebrewing competitions. And started to win.

But when he opened WeldWerks — the brewery takes its name from Weld County, where Greeley is located — with then-business partner Colin Jones, they weren’t serving hazy IPAs or barrel-aged stouts. The menu consisted instead of a red ale, an American IPA, and a German hefeweizen.

Ironically, it was that homebrewing background that a lot of people turned their noses up toward during the brewery’s first summer, Fisher said. “We’d say, ‘Come try our hefeweizen,’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, where did you brew before?’” When he told them it was in his garage, they’d move on. But the hefeweizen ended up winning a silver medal in 2015 at GABF. 

“That really helped. At the time, we were mostly hobbyists, but people started to see us as something else,” he added.

While the brewery had started with traditional styles, it introduced what would become its flagship in early 2016 after Fisher heard about New England-style IPAs, which were murky in appearance but lacked the bitterness of California- and Colorado-style IPAs. As one of the very first New England-style hazy IPAs to be brewed commercially in Colorado, Juicy Bits set off a frenzy. 

Brewed with the then-novel hop varieties of Citra^®, El Dorado^®, and Mosaic^®, people couldn’t get enough of its tropical, almost sweet flavors and aromas, including orange juice, grapefruit, pineapple, and mango. The luscious, slightly naughty name helped bolster its image and consumer desire.

Aside from a few small, yet heavily attended tappings in metro Denver, the only way to try Juicy Bits in 2016 was to drive to Greeley, a blue collar city of 100,000, known more for its meat-packing plant than anything else. So that’s what people did, setting off a juicy gold rush up Interstate 25. 

Part of our DNA

Today, WeldWerks is all grown up and maintains its campus on a full square block in Greeley, operating two brewing systems — a 30-barrel, 4-vessel steam brewhouse and a 15-barrel, 3 vessel system — that together turned out 14,500 barrels of beer in 2024, an 8% increase over the previous year. WeldWerks expects to produce nearly 16,000 barrels by the end of 2025.

It also runs a restaurant out of the back of its beautiful taproom, serving burgers, sandwiches, wings, and tacos; has dabbled in canned ready-to-drink cocktails; and cans and bottles beers that are shipped not just to Colorado’s major metropolitan areas but to 30 states and Washington, D.C.

While the company grew by double digits in the years before the pandemic — something that resulted in many “culture pain points,” Fisher said — it has now settled into a “sustainable” growth trajectory, helped in part by the fact that it owns its own building, and that real estate prices are less expensive in Greeley than in the busy commercial neighborhoods of Boulder or Denver. 

The company also self-distributes in Colorado, maintaining a sales delivery person dedicated to each account, something that Fisher and his staff believe has helped them add shelf space while competitors fall off.

As of June 2025, when the most recent numbers were released by the BA, WeldWerks was the eighth largest independently owned brewery in Colorado. But with the current wave of brewery consolidations in the state — not to mention declining sales among the larger players, like Monster Brewing (the owner of Oskar Blues), Odell Brewing, Left Hand Brewing, and Upslope Brewing — WeldWerks could end up in the top five by the end of 2026.

It isn’t just the quality of beers that sets WeldWerks apart. The company’s brewing model and philosophy are unusual — in some ways unheard of — when compared to other craft brewers with a similar profile.

WeldWerks brews upward of 150 different beers per year, at least three dozen of which they’ve never made before. It started that lofty goal in 2018 by publicly announcing an ostentatious plan to make more than 100 — and then easily crushing that number. In 2021, WeldWerks brewed a high of 225 different beers, while in 2023, it made 180. In 2025, it’s on pace to brew 160, at least 40 of which will be variations the brewers have never done before.

“We are one of only a very few breweries at this size that is doing that,” Fisher said. “You would think we would be smarter. But we built a lot of our systems around that model, and I think that is what makes us continue to stand out. In a market that is slowing down, we are still growing. I don’t think that is independent of maintaining that creativity and innovation.”

Most are New England-style IPAs, but there are also West Coast IPAs, pastry stouts, lagers, and a wide variety of tart or sour ales.

Examples of the beers they have brewed so far this year:

Apricot White Peach Cobbler, a 4.3% sour with vanilla, graham cracker, milk sugar, apricots, and white peaches

Churro Laser Sword Fight, a smoothie-style sour with cinnamon, vanilla, and milk sugar

Mango en Palo, brewed with mango and finished with chili lime salt

Blueberry Strudel, a 4.8% sour with blueberry puree, vanilla, icing, puff pastry, and milk sugar

Blue Razz Cotton Candy, a 4% sour with blue raspberry slushy syrup and blue raspberry cotton candy floss

Summer S’mores Stout, at 6.4%, brewed with vanilla beans, milk chocolate chips, marshmallows, graham crackers, and milk sugar

Strawberry Guava Green Tea, infused with real green tea, strawberry, and guava extracts

Bamm Bamm Rubble Rubble, made with fruity rice cereal, strawberry, marshmallow, and vanilla

Root Beer Float Stout, at 6%, brewed with sarsaparilla, birch bark, vanilla, and milk sugar

Then there are the Bourbon barrel-aged Medianoche releases. These beers are as gaudy as they are mouthwatering. Releases like: 

Diez Años De Medianoche, a 36-month blend aged in 10 different Bourbon, whiskey, and rye barrels, including Pappy Van Winkle, W.L. Weller, Old Fitzgerald, and Eagle Rare

Macaroon Medianoch, which was made in collaboration with North Park Brewing in San Diego using a blend of Medianoche and North Park’s Macaroons Before Dying, aged for 34 months in Weller and Blanton’s Bourbon barrels before being infused with four types of coconut, vanilla beans, caramel, and espresso beans

Coconut Medianoche, aged 28 months in a blend of Dickel, Sazerac, Blanton’s, Buffalo Trace, Stagg Jr., Weller, and Old Fitzgerald barrels before being rested on 2,000 pounds (900 kg) of raw coconut

It’s a lot to keep track of, but the brewers don’t seem to mind.

“It’s part of our DNA, part of what consumers expect. People want something new from us and we want to experiment and play,” said Derek Gold, the Senior Director of Operations at WeldWerks. 

“We tried to do less, but it is part of what we have done for so long,” added Head Brewer Skip Schwartz. “I don’t feel exhausted every day, but that is partially because some [of the beers] are a play on other beers we have done in the past. The smoothie-style sours, for instance, all have a similar signature makeup: Vanilla, milk sugar, and some kind of fruit puree. 

Juicy Bits: One of the Most Influential Beers of the Decade

The tastemakers at the Brewers Association have seen a lot of beer styles come and go over the decades, building in popularity before fading into obscurity, or rising out of nowhere to become buzz words in the industry.

It’s why they take their time when it comes to designating new competition styles (there were 206 categories in 2025, along with dozens of sub-categories). For instance, they waited many years after the so-called New England-style IPAs became popular to create style guidelines, adding three categories in 2018 and a fourth shortly thereafter.

Neil Fisher, the Owner and Co-Founder at WeldWerks, was one of the people who pushed hard for its inclusion. After all, his flagship beer, Juicy Bits IPA, had become a viral sensation since he introduced it in 2016, not just in Colorado, but in other parts of the country as well.

He and many other brewery owners didn’t want to wait that long to get their beers out in front of the masses, though, so they poured their hazy IPAs at the Great American Beer Festival in 2016 and 2017, but didn’t enter them into competition since they didn’t fit any of the existing style categories. Fisher understood the caution: Not only was the style new — and very different from traditional IPAs — but there was a strong backlash among some old-guard brewers to the appearance of hazy IPAs, which many equated to what they considered to be the amateur brewing techniques of — gasp — homebrewers.

Like canned craft beers, however, which were mocked when breweries like Oskar Blues introduced them in the early 2000s, hazy IPAs eventually became not just the norm, but a dominant factor in small breweries coast-to-coast.

And Juicy Bits? It is now offered up as an example by the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) as a commercial example of what a hazy IPA should look, smell, feel, and taste like. It joins Belching Beaver Hazers Gonna Haze, Hill Farmstead Susan, Other Half Green Diamonds Double IPA, Pinthouse Electric Jellyfish, Tree House Julius, and Trillium Congress Street as paragons of the style – which is rarefied air when it comes to peers.

All seven embody the following general characteristics: “An American IPA with intense fruit flavors and aromas, a soft body, smooth mouthfeel, and often opaque with substantial haze. Less perceived bitterness than traditional IPAs but always massively hop-forward,” according to the BJCP.

Fisher said that having guidelines, whether from the BA or the BJCP, are important when it comes to maintaining a quality product, especially one like hazy IPAs, which have so many variations (think milkshake IPAs that include the addition of lactose).

Creating the beer was one thing, but the brewers at WeldWerks never stop analyzing the beer, improving their own processes “across the board” and making changes if necessary. “Juicy Bits is better than it was when we launched it and definitely better than it was five years ago, and better than last year,” Fisher said.

That improvement through minor tweaks, as well as a consistency of quality, is important. “Building that trust with your customers is important,” Fisher said. “We would lose customers quickly if the quality is bad.”

Head Brewer Skip Schwartz said the changes are small and have included things like adjusting the amount of flaked oats or flaked wheat, calcium chloride, or acid. “We are always testing,” he said. 

And when the team goes to Yakima, Washington, in late summer for the hop harvest, they know exactly what they are looking for when it comes to aroma profiles from Citra®, El Dorado®, and Mosaic® hops. “Some years, El Dorado® has the orange. Other years it doesn’t, so we need to get it from the others. We want the exact right flavor combination from them.”

But he also acknowledged that the hopping technique for Juicy Bits has changed over the years as the brewers at WeldWerks learned more about the science behind what happens with hops and what works best in their brewhouse.

“When I started here (in 2019), we did add (hops) into the kettle,” Schwartz said, explaining that different amounts of each hop were added to the wort in stages during the boil and during whirlpool. Through the years, more were added as the temperature of the wort dropped and after it had cooled. These days, WeldWerks waits until the boil has finished and the wort has been transferred to the whirlpool and cooled to around 196 °F (91 °C) (the boil point for most Colorado cities ranges from 200–204 °F/93–96 °C due to their higher elevation). At that point, the brewers add about 1.1 to 1.5 pounds of hops (divided evenly between Citra®, Mosaic®, and El Dorado®) per barrel in a 30-barrel batch. That’s equivalent to about 0.6–0.8 oz./gallon or 4.6–6 g/L.

After that, they wait until fermentation is done (about 6–8 days) before dry hopping, at 2.5 pounds per barrel (1.3 oz./gallon or 10 g/L). The main goal of waiting is so WeldWerks can harvest the yeast (which helps keep costs in check) without stressing it or changing its flavor-imparting ability.

The beer is then put in a centrifuge — which keeps it from becoming sludgy, like some other hazy IPAs — and then kegged or canned. In fact, unlike the early days of hazy IPA brewing, WeldWerks doesn’t recommend rolling their cans to help distribute the particles inside.

For homebrewers, brewing a hazy IPA can be difficult, but one Schwartz’s top pieces of advice is cold crashing the fermenter prior to transferring. “(Three days) after dry hopping and usually two days before transferring to kegs or a bottling bucket, I recommend a cold crash.” This will help settle trub and make it easier to transfer beer with less hop material to packaging.

Some techniques vary from the commercial to homebrew scales, but the recipe for Juicy Bits doesn’t need to. WeldWerks has always been open to sharing their recipes (not just pieces of it, as many brewers do).

“Neil shared that recipe early on when everyone else was super secret about how they were making their hazy IPAs. So that was one of the only ones people had access to,” Schwartz said – something that also contributed to BJCP’s inclusion of Juicy Bits in its examples of commercial hazies.

“Now, there is so much more information out there, but I really think Neil releasing that recipe was kind of a difference-maker. We don’t want to be gatekeepers. We want to be very much open and helpful.”

While the recipe has been shared many times over the years, check out the clone on page 39, which came directly from Schwartz, for the most recent iteration.

Just About Any Ingredient

Fisher is quick to acknowledge that Juicy Bits remains the brewery’s workhorse, at 42% of its production, with variations on Juicy Bits, including Extra Extra Juicy Bits and Itsy Bits, bringing that up above 50%.

“We would love to grow beyond Juicy Bits, but some of our attempts to build core brands have not been as successful,” he explained.

Some of their other biggest sellers include Orange Creamsicle, and Bamm Bamm Rubble Rubble, as well as a Pilsner and the hefeweizen (clone recipes for these are below). 

At this point, they can confidently throw almost anything into a beer and have a good idea of what will come out. 

As a homebrewer, Schwartz said he had the freedom to brew whatever he wanted. At WeldWerks, he maintains that freedom, but now he has the high-tech equipment that helps him improve the quality every day.

Gold and Schwartz both joined WeldWerks, about a week apart, in 2019 and, like Fisher, both had backgrounds in homebrewing before becoming pro brewers. It’s why they always respond to homebrewers who send emails with questions about beer ingredients or processes.

“We want to be an open book, not gatekeepers,” Schwartz said, adding that he will send them full recipes, grist bills, advice on food additions, and opinions on how water chemistry is different from place to place.

Homebrewers are also some of the people who could make up the next generation of commercial brewers, although the pipeline for those jobs has emptied out somewhat, according to Gold. “People are leaving the industry, especially on the production side,” he said, pointing out the declining number of students in local brewing programs. “We need to ask what do we need to do to develop a pipeline for people who are interested in brewing.”

Taco Gose

Something else that keeps the brewery close to homebrewers — and their endless creativity — is an annual tradition in which it creates an outlandish beer for GABF in order to titillate — or infuriate — the masses. 

While some turn up their noses, others join those long lines to try concoctions like Soy Sauce Barrel Aged Sushi Gose; Spaghetti Gose (made with tomatoes, pasta, and “dry-hopped” with oregano and basil); or Hot Sauce Barrel Aged Taco Gose, a sour made with taco seasoning and aged in a Horsetooth Hot Sauce barrel (that beer was served with taquitos at GABF).

And while these beers are unlikely to win any medals — or even be entered into competition — the reality is that they often work on some level that makes you think, well, maybe spaghetti does belong in a beer?

Start Brewing

As noted, WeldWerks is very open when it comes to sharing their recipes. All five clone recipes that follow came directly from Head Brewer Schwartz. The only stipulation was that they preferred not to share their fruited sour recipes due to the potential risks related to refermentation that can occur with the huge fruit and sugar additions, which require pasteurization upon packaging. Still, we think you’ll be more than happy with the recipes they have supplied!

Clone Recipes

Creativity abounded in this year’s BYO Label Contest. With the popularity and ease that comes from using artificial intelligence, more labels than ever were submitted, and yet so many labels created the old-fashioned way still caught the judges’ eyes and took home many top honors.

From hop cops to finger-painted apes, to mosaic birds and surfer fanzine-inspired labels, we believe the judges nailed it this year. But there were so many other great labels to choose from so we then gave readers a chance to vote for their favorite on our social media pages after we awarded the top four. 

We just hope the homebrews inside the bottles taste as good as the labels that wrap around them look. Check out all of this year’s winning labels and honorable mentions on the following pages. 

As always, a huge thanks goes out to sponsors who generously donated prizes, as well as readers who make this contest so much fun each year!

Grand

Sheephound Brewing is a group of homebrewers in San Bernardino County, California, who are first responders, mainly in law enforcement. All of their labels are original artwork and follow a similar theme, but our favorite was their Top Hop entry. “In the label, our hop cop is sitting on his police car while blocking off the freeway. The bridge in the back is an homage to the San Bernardino bridge, which is almost identical to the one in our label. The California road signs are used for the beer information,” Jason says. 

Gold

Good things take time. It’s true when brewing beer, and when making labels. Inspiration for the Hail, Caesar! label struck as a rerun of Planet of the Apes came on TV. “I grabbed my iPad and finger painted the ape, already with a vision of how I would lay out the label along with the red strip accent. The artwork took me about three days to complete,” Allan says.

Silver

Gary is not new to bringing home the hardware in our label contest, as the reigning Grand Champion winner from 2024. And his submission this time around didn’t disappoint either! He describes the hoppy, crisp Chirpy Lager as “easy drinking on a summer’s day, as the birds are busy, I’m taking it easy.” The primary hop, Mosaic®, dictated the art style with a mosaic look that has us looking forward to spring.

Bronze

Inspired by surfing the beaches on the East Coast and indie music fanzines, Bill Gibbons combined these passions to create the label of “a blonde surfer riding killer waves to come up with the inspiration for the Suicide Blonde label,” Bill says. He says this refreshing New Zealand Pilsner bursts with tropical aroma and fruity flavors, making it a great post-surf beer to reach for.

Reader’s Choice

This label was just narrowly beat out for a spot in our top four, but when it came to a vote among Facebook followers it was the clear Reader’s Choice winner. Cosmin started homebrewing this year and says he enjoys the creativity not just in brewing the beer but also designing the labels. This particular label was created for the baptism party of his son, “which is the Romanian name of the bird Robin (his name).” 

Honorable Mention

As an avowed fan of rich, dark beers like porters and stouts, a big body and mouthfeel is something I’ve focused quite a bit on in my 38 years as a homebrewer. In addition to the malt/hop balance, overall aroma and flavor, body is one of the critical features you must get right to achieve perfection in a beer.

This is not to say that all beers should be full-bodied. Many lagers, session, and summer beers require a thin, light body to maximize drinkability. The key, of course, is to match the body to the style and effect you are trying to achieve in the finished beer so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Mouthfeel vs. Body

The terms “mouthfeel” and “body” are often used interchangeably in brewing, and indeed it is hard to separate them. Mouthfeel is perhaps the broader term, being defined by Merriam-Webster as “the sensation created by food or drink in the mouth.” I like this definition as it captures the perception of beer in the mouth, which may be a combination of many ingredients, chemical reactions, and techniques.

In contrast, Merriam-Webster defines “body” as “fullness and richness of flavor,” or alternately “denseness, fullness, or firmness of texture.” This is a somewhat narrower definition, as one might imagine a thin-bodied beer that is still rich in flavor. Body and flavor are not necessarily synonymous in my mind.

I think the key point here is that it is the perception of body that matters most. Individual aspects of the beer like finishing gravity, bitterness, carbonation, flavor, and unfermented sugars all drive the mouthfeel and body of the beer, but it is the combined effect on the drinker that matters.

The body of beer cannot be easily measured, as it is an overall perception and not a number from a machine. One needs to sample a beer to determine its body. When judging the body of beer, it is common to speak of a scale that varies from thin- or light-bodied beers to medium-bodied, to rich- or full-bodied beers.

Contributors to Beer Body

The perceived body of a beer is driven by many factors. We will explore each of these in more detail, but I want to first introduce some of the key drivers:

Carbon Dioxide (and Nitrogen) – The carbonation level of the beer drives its perceived body. Beers higher in carbonation have more mouthfeel and are perceived as having more body. Beers like Guinness that are carbonated with a nitrogen mix have even more mouthfeel than beers carbonated with just CO₂.

Foam – Related to carbonation, a beer with a creamy head of foam is perceived as having more body. Interestingly, polyphenols from both malt and hops play a role in foam retention, so beers high in hops can be perceived to have more body.

Proteins in Malt – All malts and grains contain some level of protein, and protein is one of the biggest contributors to perceived body.  Beta-glucans and gums in malts also contribute body to a finished beer.

Unfermentable Sugars and Carbohydrates – A portion of the complex carbohydrates from grains are typically not completely broken down into fermentable sugars in the mash and remain as residual carbohydrates. Like proteins, these long chains of sugars contribute mouthfeel and body to the finished beer.

Yeast Selection – Yeast selection drives the attenuation and fermentability of the beer, but it also drives the overall flavor profile, which can affect the perception of body. Even residual yeast itself can be used in suspension for beers like hefeweizen to increase the perception of body.

Alcohol and Gravity Level – Beers higher in alcohol create a warming sensation in the mouth and are perceived as having more body. A high starting gravity produces more alcohol for a given yeast strain, increasing the perception of warmth and body.

Tannins – Tannins are a naturally occurring plant compound found in both malt and hops. In the mouth, tannins are attracted to proteins in our saliva and react with these proteins and coagulate, creating a sensation known as astringency. Astringency creates a dry, crisper mouthfeel for the drinker, though in excess they can be distasteful.

Dark Malts – While many beer drinkers think that dark beers inherently have more body, this is not always so. However, dark malts do have a higher level of unfermentable sugars. This is because dark roasted, caramel, and kilned malts have converted some of the fermentable sugar chains into unfermentable as part of the roasting process. 

As I mentioned earlier, the goal with a certain recipe could be a full-bodied beer, very light-bodied beer, or anything in between, so you need to consider all of these factors in combination when designing a beer. Having covered the basic factors, we can now dive into each individual factor in more detail.

Carbonation and Foam

The level of carbonation drives the mouthfeel and perceived body of beer. Higher carbonation levels like those used in many Continental European beers will increase mouthfeel, while low carbonation will reduce it.

If you take the extra step of using a nitrogen/carbon dioxide mix, also called a stout mix, to carbonate your beer as draft Guinness does, it will enhance the perception of body even more. It’s interesting to note that draft Guinness has a relatively low original gravity and alcohol level, but the addition of a large portion of flaked barley, dark malts, and nitrogen mix carbonation creates one of the biggest mouthfeel/body perceptions of any beer.

Foam also plays a huge role in the perception of beer body. The captured CO₂ bubbles at the top of the beer provide mouthfeel when you sip the beer. Proteins and dextrins, will enhance the head retention in a beer. However, many brewers don’t realize that hops also play a role. Alpha acids, which are the primary bittering compound in beer, enhance head retention, as do polyphenols from the hops themselves. A very hoppy IPA will have better head retention than a lightly hopped session beer.

Malt Selection and Protein Levels

Protein is one of the easiest factors to control since the malt data sheet for a given malt will typically show the protein percentage. If targeting a big, rich-bodied beer you can use malts with higher protein levels. Obviously, low protein levels are desirable for light-bodied beers.

One note of caution, however, is that proteins also tend to reduce clarity in light-colored beers, so if you use a bunch of high-protein adjuncts in your beer it can cause serious clarity issues. Looking at protein numbers from various maltsters, several things stand out. Unmalted grains such as flaked oats, flaked or torrified wheat or barley, and black (stout roast) barley all have the highest percentages of proteins. Below that we have caramel and crystal malts like Carafoam^®, Caraamber^®, and various colored caramel malts. Next come the darker roasted and kilned malts.

If your goal is to have less body and less protein, the lighter base malts like Pilsner are a good choice. Not surprisingly, 6-row barley varieties have higher protein levels than 2-row varieties. Also, American barleys tend to have a higher protein content than their European cousins, though some traditional British malts do have high protein levels.

Unfermentable Carbohydrates and Mashing

Yeast will consume simple sugars like maltose and glucose, leaving more complex carbohydrates untouched. Because we can influence the amount of unfermentable sugars remaining post-fermentation through our choice of malts, mash temperature, and yeast, we can drive the attenuation of the yeast and how much body remains.

Malt selection again plays an important role. In addition to considering how much protein a malt has, we also want to consider how much unfermentable sugars like dextrin the malt contains. For example, malts like Carafoam^®, Carapils^®, dextrin, and chit contain more dextrins and are often used to add body to beer. Unmalted adjuncts like flaked barley and flaked oats also contain a high percentage of unfermentable sugars. As will be covered later, dark malts also have a lower percentage of fermentable sugars because many of the fermentable sugars are broken down during roasting and kilning.

The next factor a brewer can easily control is mash temperature. Because the two major enzymes — alpha and beta amylase — reach their peak effectiveness at different temperatures, you can adjust your mash temperature to promote more or less fermentable sugars and therefore drive a lower or higher body in the finished beer.

Selecting a high mash temperature around 156–158 °F (69–70 °C) will create less fermentable sugars and create a beer with a full body. Using low mash temperatures in the 148 °F (64 °C) range will promote more fermentable sugars leaving a lighter body in the finished beer. If you hold steps at both temperatures, often called a lager mash profile, you can promote even more fermentability and less body than just mashing the low temperature range.

Yeast Selection

Another consideration is the choice of yeast strain. Each yeast strain has a published “attenuation” parameter as part of the yeast data sheet. Attenuation is the “apparent” percent of sugars that are fermented by the yeast strain in a standard wort. Yeast labs usually list the apparent attenuation, which differs from the real attenuation only in the fact that real attenuation is corrected to account for the fact that alcohol has a gravity below 1.000, while the apparent attenuation can be measured directly. The average attenuation for many yeast strains is around 70%.

If you choose a yeast with low attenuation, it will leave more body in the finished beer, while a yeast with high attenuation will ferment more of the sugars, leaving a lighter body in the finished beer.

As mentioned earlier, yeast itself can also play a role in the body of the beer. Fresh, green beers served early will still have yeast in suspension, adding to cloudiness but also enhancing the perception of body in the beer.

Perhaps the best commercial example of this is the hefeweizen style from Germany, which is a wheat beer served “with yeast.” This beer is bottled with the yeast sediment, and the server will pour some of the beer off the top and then swirl the bottle around to get the yeast back into suspension before pouring the rest into the glass. The suspended yeast adds considerably to the flavor and body of the finished beer. Another great example is the hazy IPA style, which relies on yeast in suspension, in part, to provide the haze and enhance the body of the finished beer.

Alcohol and Gravity Levels

The warm flavor from high alcohol levels tends to enhance the perception of mouthfeel. A low-gravity light summer or session beer will have less perceived body than a high-alcohol strong ale.

Alcohol in your beer is primarily driven by your starting gravity and choice of yeast, which drives the attenuation. A higher starting gravity beer will drive higher alcohol levels for a given yeast strain. Therefore, raising the starting gravity of your beer is a simple way to also increase the body since a given yeast strain will only ferment a roughly fixed percentage of the sugars.

Selecting a higher attenuating yeast will also drive higher alcohol levels. However, in an interesting twist, higher attenuation also leaves less body in the finished beer in the form of unfermented sugars. If you choose a high attenuation yeast you may get more alcoholic warmth without substantially raising the perception of body since the beer will have less unfermented sugars. So, the entire effect you are trying to create in terms of body, flavor, and balance needs to be considered.

As you drive the alcohol level up to very high levels, overall balance becomes a consideration. First, as you drive gravities and maltiness up, you need to add more hops to achieve the right balance. Second, you really need plenty of body and flavor in a high-gravity beer to offset and balance the alcohol warmth or the alcohol will come across as harsh.

Conversely if you consider non-alcoholic or low-alcohol beers, many of these styles suffer from a lack of body because the alcohol we expect to be in the beer has been removed, throwing the body out of balance. Great lengths often must be taken to add body to a low- or non-alcoholic beer to achieve a normal body and flavor balance.

Tannins

Tannins are found naturally in both grains and hops as well as fruits and even tree bark. They work as a preservative in beer and foods. Tannins are extracted from malt husks during mashing, and extracted from hops in the boil, whirlpool, and dry hopping.

As mentioned earlier, tannins combine with proteins in our saliva causing them to coagulate in your mouth, creating a sensation known as astringency. In moderate doses this reaction can create a perception of additional body. It also creates a dry, crisp mouthfeel, which can be an advantage with certain styles.

However, if you add too many tannins, you can create a harsh flavor akin to sucking on a tea bag. In addition, some people are more sensitive to tannins than others, so excess tannins can be very off-putting to some drinkers.

Tannins from malt are highest in what we call the “harsh zone” malts. Harsh zone malts are malts in the color range of 70–200 Lovibond, including malts near the edge like light chocolate malt and brown malt. If you use malts in this range sparingly, at only a few percent of the total malt bill, you can create great flavor depth as well as additional body. Raising the percentages higher, however, risks creating harsh astringency in the finished beer.

Tannins are also present in hops, so highly hopped IPAs will have more perceived body than a comparable beer with fewer hops. As with malts, over hopping a beer runs the risk of introducing harsh astringency into the beer and often also introduces vegetal off-flavors, so achieving proper balance in a hoppy beer is important. 

Dark Malts

As mentioned in the introduction, dark malts have fewer fermentable sugars, which can be used to drive the finished gravity higher creating additional body. Several studies (cited here) show drops as large as 25% in attenuation when using a high percentage of dark malt (as high as 50% dark malt).

While adding 50% roast malt to a recipe is extreme, the studies mentioned above have shown a consistent relationship between the use of darker malts and lower fermentability. This makes sense as the kilning and roasting process will break down some of the carbohydrates in the malt into a form where they are no longer fermentable and therefore survive fermentation as unfermented residual sugars.

When we combine this lower fermentability with the presence of higher tannins as well as melanoidins (color compounds) from the kilning or roasting process, the overall effect of using dark malts in your beer is to enhance the body of the finished beer. Conversely, lighter-colored beers tend to be perceived as lighter in body.

Conclusion

I’ve provided an array of tools to enhance or reduce the body of your finished beer. The key to using them is often combining several techniques rather than relying on just one. The classic example is Guinness, which includes a high percentage of flaked barley, unmalted stout roast malt that adds a dry coffee-like finish, and a nitrogen and CO₂ stout mix to carbonate the beer. Despite the low alcohol level and low starting gravity, Guinness has a great deal of mouthfeel.

No matter whether you are targeting a full-bodied beer or light summer ale, balance is the key. Going overboard on the use of hops, tannins, alcohol, dark malts, yeast, carbonation, or any single technique will likely result in an unbalanced beer. However, combining several of these techniques in moderation can deliver exactly the body and mouthfeel you want for your next brew. 

When most people think of “experimental beer,” they picture the latest release from a craft brewery. But commercial brewing, even at its most creative, is limited by needs for profitable margins, consistency, and to appeal to a broad audience. In my opinion, the real work of experimenting with various batches is in homebrewing, where the only question I tend to ask is: What boundary do I want to push?

Sometimes the boundary is flavor. I once asked myself, “how smoky is too smoky?” (a question I suspect others have made and a flavor I wouldn’t recommend repeating). But failure is part of the process. While I might lose a batch, I don’t have to worry about investors, market share, or turning off a first-time customer who may never return after tasting a missed attempt. 

Other times, the challenge is technical. I brewed a 100% rye beer once, and it was stickier than I ever imagined. Lautering took forever, but eventually I managed 10 gallons (38 L) of rye wort, which I fermented and aged in a rye cask. The payoff was worth the effort: A beer that tasted like liquid bread, dense and spicy, unlike anything I’d ever had.

That kind of curiosity also took me back in time. Working with Primer’s Yeast, I set out to brew with the oldest yeast I could find. I pulled together ingredients from Yemen, Egypt, and Israel — stuff no commercial brewer would ever attempt to source at scale. The result was a beautifully floral, unhopped sour beer. Brewing it at home made the impossible possible.

Experimentation has also taught me more about yeast than I ever expected. At one point, I pushed a strain to its absolute limit with a 25% ABV beer that adhered to Reinheitsgebot, the German beer purity regulations. What was initially to be a 10-gallon (38-L) batch of beer ended up being 15 gallons (57-L), after accounting for nearly 100 lbs. (45 kg) of liquid malt extract additions.

With the addition of nutrients to help the yeast reach its full potential, and after a few stalls, the beer reached 25% ABV and I tucked it into a Bourbon barrel for a year. Commercially, the logistics of a beer like that would be a nightmare, especially when needing to change course quickly and decisively. At home, it was just a test of patience and persistence.

Now I’m working on a beer made entirely from chestnuts. Chestnuts bring starch, not enzymes, so brewing with them requires a whole new approach. Also, due to the low proteins in chestnuts it has minimal amounts of free amino nitrogen (FAN), therefore Fermaid O and diammonium phosphate (DAP) are required. The final issue is that adding too much of an enzyme may result in an extremely dry beer and limit the head. 

What ties all of these beers together is simple: They only make sense in a homebrewing context. Commercial brewers, even when they chase innovation, have to stay within guardrails of efficiency and marketability; homebrewers don’t. That’s why the bleeding edge of beer belongs to the thousands of curious tinkerers experimenting in kitchens, garages, and basements. We’re the ones resurrecting lost traditions, testing unconventional ingredients, and seeing how far yeast and process can be pushed.

To me, homebrewing isn’t just a hobby; it’s the frontline in establishing new flavors and techniques while searching for that “lager in the rough” you’ll remember drinking years from now.  But it all starts with a question: What boundaries can I push?

Although the first hydrometer was described more than 1,600 years ago, its use in brewing dates only to the late 1700s. More than 250 years of data collection show that beer strength has historically been moderate by modern standards. Strong beer styles intended for storage, shipment, or sipping at higher alcohol levels are the obvious exceptions. Even today, most beers remain within a moderate range when compared to other alcoholic beverages.

Brewing history also shows that malted grains were the dominant ingredient in beer until the late 1800s, when German-American brewers began using corn (maize) and rice adjuncts to dilute malt protein and husky tannins from Midwest barley varieties of the time. Contrary to popular belief, adjunct use aimed to improve beer quality, not to reduce production costs.

You may be wondering: What do wort gravity, beer strength, and adjunct use have to do with yeast nutrition? These historical details reveal that brewers have been fermenting normal-gravity, high-malt worts for centuries. They also suggest that beer has been popular enough to sustain a continuous brewing tradition for thousands of years without the use of yeast nutrients until quite recently.

The modern biochemical argument for the rise of yeast nutrients is rooted in our growing knowledge of zymurgy. Without that scientific framework, how could brewers have known when or how to supplement fermentation? And yet, they developed the complex triple decoction mash — without any understanding of enzymes and without thermometers — crafting a reliable process from inconsistent, poorly modified malts.

The more practical explanation for the recent widespread use of yeast nutrients is simple: They weren’t necessary for brewing the kinds of beers that dominated most of brewing history. So why are yeast nutrients now ubiquitous among both home and commercial brewers? Before exploring that question, let’s review how nutrients are used by our fungal friends.

Zinc is a critical cofactor for alcohol dehydrogenase, the enzyme that converts acetaldehyde to ethanol. It also supports yeast cell membrane integrity. Adequate zinc levels promote faster fermentation, better attenuation, and cleaner-tasting beer. Because wort is often zinc-deficient, supplementation in the range of 0.1–0.3 ppm can be beneficial. Although many references, often without citation, state that excess zinc is toxic to yeast, this concern is usually overstated. Problems typically arise when the zinc concentration is around 3 ppm or greater, roughly ten times the upper limit of normal additions.¹

B vitamins (including thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, biotin, and folic acid) act as coenzymes in glucose metabolism, energy production, and fatty acid synthesis. They are essential for yeast growth, reproduction, and complete attenuation. Most are present in sufficient quantities in wort, though high-adjunct worts may be deficient.

Amino acids (organic nitrogen from raw materials) and diammonium phosphate (DAP, an inorganic nitrogen from nutrient supplements) supply yeast with nitrogen for protein, enzyme, and structural component synthesis. Both forms promote faster yeast growth and more vigorous fermentation.

Nitrogen in wort is measured as free amino nitrogen (FAN) and comes primarily from malt and, to a lesser extent, from protein-rich adjuncts, except when DAP is added directly as a nutrient. Because proline is a major component of FAN but is not assimilated by yeast, a wort with high FAN can still lack certain essential amino acids.

Magnesium stabilizes metabolic enzymes, is critical for ATP production, and helps regulate intracellular pH during fermentation. It improves yeast vitality, enhances stress resistance, and supports consistent fermentation performance. Malt typically provides sufficient magnesium.

Manganese serves as a cofactor for antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase and plays a role in carbohydrate metabolism. It protects yeast from oxidative damage and supports cell health throughout fermentation. Malt usually supplies enough manganese.

Phosphorus is essential for ATP formation, phospholipid synthesis, and nucleic acid production. Malt is a rich source of phosphorus.

Potassium boosts metabolic enzyme activity and helps regulate intracellular pH and osmotic pressure. Malt typically contains sufficient potassium.

Calcium stabilizes yeast cell walls, aids flocculation, and influences enzyme activity. It can improve beer clarity but, in excess, may slow yeast growth. Mash additions for pH control and alpha-amylase stabilization typically meet fermentation needs.

Sulfur, usually in the form of sulfate, is required for the synthesis of sulfur-containing amino acids such as methionine and cysteine, as well as certain vitamins. Wort sulfate comes primarily from brewing water, as malt and other carbohydrate sources contribute very little. Many nutrient blends supply sulfate via salts such as zinc sulfate, magnesium sulfate, manganese sulfate, and potassium sulfate.

Lipids and sterols are necessary for maintaining yeast cell membrane fluidity and function. They improve ethanol tolerance, ensure complete fermentation, and enhance yeast vitality in harvested crops. Although wort contains little lipids or sterols, yeast can synthesize them if sufficient oxygen is available. Dried yeast typically contains ample lipids and sterols, eliminating the need for wort oxygenation.

In short, all-malt wort is almost the perfect source of everything a yeast cell needs to thrive. The one exception is zinc, which is often deficient. Unless you strictly follow the Reinheitsgebot, many options exist to correct zinc deficiency. If the Reinheitsgebot is your jam, consider biological acidification using spent grains as a zinc source (much of the malt zinc leaves the brewhouse with spent grains) or Servomyces. Because few homebrewers strictly adhere to the Reinheitsgebot, I’ll avoid the rabbit hole on the horizon!

So why are nutrients commonly used if all-malt wort is so nutrient-rich? The most common reason is dilution of malt-derived nutrients by unmalted adjuncts such as corn/maize and rice. Because malts from most regions are now well-modified and often contain excess nutrients, dilution is generally not an issue until adjunct levels exceed about 20%.

Another common use, especially in commercial brewing, is in high-gravity brewing, where high-alcohol beer is diluted with brewing water after fermentation. Home and craft brewers face similar challenges when brewing big beers, with or without sugar adjuncts. These strong worts cause greater osmotic stress on yeast at fermentation onset and more ethanol stress as fermentation progresses. Nutrients help improve metabolic efficiency and enable yeast to synthesize membrane components that cope with these harsher conditions.

Finally, there is hard seltzer — the beverage that has opened many brewers’ eyes to the importance of yeast nutrients. Proper nutrient additions allow yeast to quickly and cleanly ferment “worts” made entirely from glucose (dextrose or corn sugar), sucrose (cane or beet sugar), and/or fructose (fruit sugar).

The underlying commonality of these cases is speed and reliability. When nutrients are added to deficient worts, fermentation is faster, cleaner, more consistent, and generally less stressful for brewers hoping that a fermentation makes it to the finish line and tastes as expected after the long wait.

Now that we’ve covered some background and identified the beer styles most likely to benefit from nutrient additions, the obvious question is: How much should I use? Unfortunately, that’s not an easy one to answer. Brewers often use FAN as a nutritional metric because it measures the pool of amino acids and small peptides in wort that yeast can readily assimilate for protein and enzyme synthesis. While FAN is useful for gauging nitrogen availability, it tells only part of the story. Yeast also requires vitamins, minerals, lipids, and other cofactors for optimal health. FAN measurements do not capture these other essential nutrients or account for amino acid imbalances. Because most brewers are not equipped to analyze a wort’s complete nutrient profile, they rely on general guidelines and trial-and-error adjustments to determine dosage rates. Table 1 offers guidance on which nutrients to consider for different wort types.

If you’ve read about nutrients in winemaking or cidermaking, you may already be familiar with YAN (Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen) and wonder how it differs from FAN. YAN measures all amino acids except proline, along with ammonia — the form of nitrogen supplied by DAP and urea (the latter not discussed earlier since it is rarely used in brewing). While YAN is a more complete metric than FAN, maltsters and brewers generally do not measure it because two separate analyses are required.

This seems like a logical point to introduce the nutrients available to homebrewers and show how they fit into the framework outlined earlier. The challenge is that while there are many products available to the brewer, most provide limited technical detail about their actual composition. Suppliers tend to sell performance while treating formulation as proprietary. Still, ingredient lists can offer valuable clues.

For example, products without zinc should be assumed to contain no zinc unless the nutrient is specifically marketed as a zinc source, such as Servomyces. Those containing yeast extract or yeast cells provide organic nitrogen along with B-vitamins and micronutrients. Soy flour also supplies organic nitrogen. Nutrients made with DAP or urea (more common in distilling or very high-alcohol fermentations than in brewing) deliver inorganic nitrogen. Some labels simply mention “trace minerals,” while others list specific salts such as magnesium sulfate, manganese sulfate, or potassium sulfate. The real difficulty lies in knowing how much of each nutrient is delivered at the recommended dosage — an area where comparing notes with fellow brewers can be especially helpful.

In summary, yeast nutrients have become important not because traditional malt worts were lacking, but because modern brewing practices often create new stresses for yeast, including shorter fermentation windows. High-gravity fermentations, heavy adjunct use, and sugar-based beverages like seltzer reduce nutrient availability and increase fermentation challenges. Supplements such as zinc, amino acids, vitamins, and trace minerals help maintain yeast vitality, improve stress tolerance, and support clean, consistent attenuation. By recognizing when supplementation is most beneficial, brewers can adapt to today’s diverse styles while ensuring fermentation reliability. Thoughtful nutrient use ultimately strengthens yeast performance and enhances the quality of the finished beverage. 

References:

¹ Yun-ying Zhao, Chun-lei Cao, Ying-li Liu, Jing Wang, Jie Li, Shi-yun Li, Yu Deng, Identification of the Genetic Requirements for Zinc Tolerance and Toxicity in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics, Volume 10, Issue 2, 1 February 2020, Pages 479–488.

The strong Scotch ale of Scotland, also known as a wee heavy, is an often-misunderstood beer style in several ways. Seen as the big brother to the more common Scottish or shilling ales, they are really derived from different ancestors. While peat is abundant in Scotland, peat-smoked malt is not used in the production of beer, despite what some sources claim. Finally, some (typically, American) homebrewer methods to get a Scottish-like character have been interpreted as being authentic and used by commercial brewers in Scotland — not the case, either. 

I sometimes get into arguments with brewers, and separately with writers and historians, about the nature of Scottish ale (and other beer styles, to be fair). Understanding what ingredients and methods are used by commercial breweries over the years in the evolution of styles is important to trace influences and development paths. But once you understand the desired sensory profile, people should realize that there are many legitimate paths to get that in a finished beer. Using non-traditional ingredients or methods doesn’t automatically mean the result won’t be recognizable. Likewise, authentic doesn’t always equate to best-tasting. Just don’t be too sweeping in your judgments and proclamations about the beer.

A wee heavy is a rich, warming beer with a full-bodied, chewy, sweet malt profile that includes caramel, toffee, and fruity flavors. It reflects a definite Scottish national beer character, one that favors restrained bitterness, lower attenuation, and deeper colors. It is categorized as style 17C Wee Heavy in the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Style Guidelines in the Strong British Ale category, along with British strong ale, English barleywine, and old ale — all stronger, malty beers from the British Isles. The Scottish ales (light, heavy, and export) are in a separate style category.

History

Scotland is the country north of England on the island of Great Britain. Politically, it is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the U.K. The Scots are a different people than the English, but both can be called British. England and Scotland have been politically united since 1707, which had an impact on the development of brewing traditions, although they became more distinct after the Free Mash Tun Act of 1880, which reduced regulations.

Scottish ales have some similarity with English pale ales and mild ales, but the stronger wee heavy is descended from a maltier, stronger beer known as Edinburgh ale, which is more similar to the old Burton ale of England (except not as heavily hopped). Like Burton ales, Edinburgh ales (and wee heavies) were often available in different strengths, although a greater range was available in the past (up to 12% ABV). Today, two gravity ranges are common, a mundane 5–6% beer and a more respectable 8–9% version.

Edinburgh ales were dark, strong, and sweet, and were exported from Edinburgh since before the 1800s. These were called Scotch ale, but this does not mean that they were related to Scotch whisky, peat-smoked malt, or barrel aging. The name wee heavy means little strong (likely meaning a strong beer in a small bottle), but is derived from Fowler’s Wee Heavy, a historical 12 guinea ale. Guinea was a currency, like shilling, and in a similar manner described a price at a certain time for a specific Scottish beer.

If you prefer to call the style strong Scotch ale or simply Scotch ale, that’s a reasonable alternative to wee heavy. It’s then up to you to remember that Scotch ale and Scottish ale are different. Honestly, this is why the BJCP made the choice to call it wee heavy — less chance for confusion. While having a historical foundation, the style has become a modern craft brewing era favorite, taking on a new worldwide life separate from its Scottish roots.

Sensory Profile

As I’ve mentioned, the first and most important point about a wee heavy is that it isn’t just a stronger Scottish ale; it has more richness, sweetness, body, and depth, especially the strength of caramel flavors. I’ve said it’s a bit like a less bitter and hoppy Burton ale, but those are mostly an anachronism, so maybe think of them as a darker, more caramelly English barleywine. While the strength can be as low as 6.5% (and some are even lower), many of the better-known examples are stronger, up to 10%.

The Scottish character is evident in that the beer is darker in color (copper to dark brown) and balanced towards sweetness by keeping the bitterness low. The fermentation is cleaner than most English ales, although there are often esters from the ingredients or higher-gravity fermentation. The mouthfeel is heavier, with a thicker, chewier impression from a medium-full to full body and a dextrinous viscosity. 

The flavor and aroma are malt-focused with a rich, bready-toasty base and a strong caramel-toffee accent. Medium to low esters may be present, with dark or dried fruit being more common. Hop aroma and flavor are typically absent or very low. Roast is rare as well, as the beer should not taste like a porter or stout, but sometimes can have a touch of dryness in the finish from dark grains. The malt flavors can take on a wide range of caramelized sugar and toasted bread notes, in combination.

Stronger versions will often have a noticeable, medium to low alcohol component, although the residual sweetness and body often does a good job of masking this element. The alcohol can provide some of the balance that bitterness provides, since that component is typically low. The finish is usually medium-dry to sweet, although the impression of sweetness is often increased by the lower bitterness and higher esters.

Stronger beers are often aged longer, and Scotch ales are no exception. The longer storage times could lead to an increase in the perceived caramel and fruit notes as minor oxidation takes place. This is not an intentional process, but could contribute to the more caramelly, sweet, fruity examples that those not in Scotland are likely to find as imports.

Brewing Ingredients and Methods

Scottish ales in general are made with a base of pale ale malt and a small amount (2%, maybe) of something dark, like black malt, chocolate malt, or rarely, roasted barley. Brewing sugars and crystal malts are sometimes used for color (as is commercial caramel colorant). Adjuncts such as corn and wheat may be used, but are usually not a large portion of the grist. Pale ale malt often makes up 85% or more of the recipe. And, once again, peat-smoked malt is not used by brewers, only distillers.

The pale ale malt is often British, sometimes even Scottish, but doesn’t have to be the distinctive fancy malt like Maris Otter with robust biscuity flavors. While I often have a preference for Golden Promise malt, that is a more expensive product that is often not used when cheaper generic 2-row pale ale malt is available. 

You may find homebrew recipes using a wide range of crystal malts for caramel and toffee flavors, but these are not as widely used commercially in Scotland. I certainly have created recipes that layer different crystal malt flavors to attempt to replicate the complex commercial flavors I have tasted, and it can work, just know it isn’t traditional. Scottish breweries are more often using dark invert sugars and caramel colorants, which are typically harder for homebrewers in North America to source.

Another homebrew method often discussed is kettle caramelization where first runnings are boiled down to increase the caramel flavors, but this method can sometimes produce buttery flavors mistaken for diacetyl. I like this method, but also note that it isn’t traditional. I look at it as a substitute for some of the invert sugars. Some homebrewers use longer direct-fired boils, which is not a common practice in Scotland (Caledonian once used direct-fire, but not longer boils), although Traquair House (a relatively tiny brewery opened in the 1960s) is known to use a longer two- to three-hour boil. A favorite of beer writer Michael Jackson, the story of this beer could have led to the thought that this practice was more widely used than brewing records support.

Scottish brewers tend to use single-infusion mashes, often with multiple sparges. Commercial brewers may parti-gyle their beers, producing multiple beers from the same mash, although this practice is used more in English beers. Homebrewers can produce beers with a single infusion, often with a higher mash temperature (say, around 152–158 °F or 67–70 °C) to produce a more dextrinous mash, which helps create a less attenuated and sweeter finished beer.

The hopping level for wee heavy seems to me to be less than in Scottish ales, since the finish is often perceived as being sweeter. English varieties are most commonly used, such as Golding and Fuggle for late hopping, and any variety for bittering. I think many U.S. commercial brewers shoot for a lower bitterness level, or increase the maltiness and caramel flavors to affect the balance.

Scottish ale yeast is cool-fermenting, but not as cold as with lagers — it’s more like that of altbier and Kölsch temperatures, around 59 °F (15 °C). The Scottish ale yeast strains available from multiple suppliers are fairly clean, work well at cooler temperatures, clear well, and tend to leave some residual sweetness. If you select a different strain, remember that these are the desirable characteristics to seek. Scottish brewing water is fairly soft, so I would avoid minerally profiles.

Scottish ales are styles where homebrewers love to experiment and build flavor profiles often with non-traditional methods and ingredients. I think that’s a lot of fun, and helps when you can’t get the right ingredients, but don’t be fooled into thinking that just because you hit the desired flavor profile that Scottish brewers must also be using these methods.

Homebrew Example

While I have made all manner of strong Scotch ales over the years, I think this version strikes a good compromise between strength and drinkability. I really like Traquair House Ale, and this is certainly inspired by it, albeit at a greater strength. It uses homebrew techniques like kettle caramelization, but otherwise is fairly true to commercial techniques Scottish brewers use.

I’m using Golden Promise malt as the base, which is my preference for any Scottish beer. I’ve also made good versions where half the base is an English pale ale malt, and the other half is a more dextrinous malt like mild malt. I’m using about 2% roasted barley for color and a little dryness, which is not generally traditional for Scotch ales but is used in Traquair House Ale. You can use a debittered black malt or something like Carafa® Special III, if you prefer. 

I’m mashing at a higher infusion temperature to give a more dextrinous body, and keeping the bitterness at a lower level to play up the sweetness. A single addition of hops for bitterness is sufficient, and anything British will do. The caramelization of the first runnings will give caramel flavors and a darker color without the use of crystal malt. I’ve made versions of this beer using a variety of crystal malts instead, but that also isn’t a traditional method. But it approximates the desired flavor profile, and that is what matters more to me.

I have always used Wyeast 1728 (Scottish Ale) in my Scottish recipes, and am happy with it. Fermenting it cool is traditional, and the yeast does work well at this temperature. The recipe lists some possible substitutes. Whichever way you decide to go, stick with yeast that are clean and can handle lower temperature fermentations.

I prefer to age my stronger beers for several months to allow the alcohol to mellow, but that’s a personal preference. If you can’t stand to wait, I won’t judge you.

As the year heads towards the end, our thoughts turn to the fancy of a big beer. “But isn’t it too late? You need to brew big beers months prior.” Much like a tree where the best time to plant it was a decade ago, the second-best time is now. Of course, with modern brewing practices you don’t always need to wait a year to drink your giant beer.

Definitions first: What’s “big?” For ease of this discussion, we’ll put our floor at 1.080 OG. Ceiling? Let’s say maple syrup levels of 1.320 OG. Actually, if you made a beer that strong, we’ll applaud your reckless enthusiasm for very dumb projects. (And we’ll wonder how you plan on fermenting that monster.)

Now, we’ve both brewed big, stupid things like Drew’s now infamous Samichlaus clone called “Falconsclaws” and Denny is routinely creating bold Belgian beers. To say we have some experience is underselling it, but even with all that experience we’re still confounded with the changes that happen! 

When you go big you will find new challenges. Your previously well-documented and well-behaved mash tun will become reluctant to give up the sugar it shared freely before you fed it a gluttonous diet. All that grain takes up unexpected volume when mixed with water — messing up your intuitive sense of water amounts. How much do you collect? How long do you need to boil? And even, or maybe especially, your old reliable favorite yeast strains will require extra attention and coaxing to fulfill their life’s purpose. 

In other words, things get wibbly when you go big.

The Recipe

Your first challenge when brewing big is structuring a recipe that will work. Your first inclination will invariably be “let’s go BIG!” A lot of this, a little of that, etc. Being silly lends a goofy air to our choices with the exuberant energy of a kid hopped up on cotton candy at the local carnival. 

We caution you to remember that “this, that, and, oh, that too” adds up to a lot in a beer that by definition will have a lot going on. Use what you need, but sparingly so, because there will be a literal tun filled with base malt. 

Taking a cue from history, Bass No. 1, usually credited as the first beer named “barley wine,” was reputedly made from 100% pale malt. Having made several barleywines in this fashion, we can say you get a very lovely beer when you choose a characterful base malt. In other words, don’t expect the same results from 100% domestic Pilsner malt as 100% Maris Otter. 

If you do add character malts, tread lightly. If 100% pale malt gives enough character, you really don’t need much more! Our general rule of thumb about crystal malts is to keep them less than 10%, but for a bigger beer, we’d recommend starting even lower.

One thing that is definitely a nice touch is adding sugar. It has other advantages (more on this later), but from a recipe perspective, sugar’s clean fermentability leading an air of “dryness” is a boon to those attempting to make a less sweet final beer. 

The Mash

Mind the Volume 

We usually don’t have to think about our mash tun capacity as most projects don’t approach the extreme limits. When you’re going big, you need to mind the volume. Remember the rule of thumb that each pound (0.45 kg) of grain will take up roughly 0.13 gallons of volume (or 0.9 kg will take up 1 L) . When we brew in our 40-liter system (~10.5 gallons), we can fit nearly 30 lbs. (13.6 kg) of grain in that vessel. 

How much grain you can fit in will also vary with how much water you add. While you can gain some room by reducing the initial amount of water, remember that will make your mash harder to run off and impact efficiency if you push too far.

Adjust Your Expectations

Brewing science and brewing calculations are brilliantly on point when you’re doing something “normal” (e.g., beers in the 4–7% ABV range). So, we have a tendency to think, “I plug the numbers into my recipe calculator and those will be what I get.” Then we get upset when the physical universe refuses to confirm to the theoretical possibility. 

Go into this project with the knowledge that you probably won’t get what the calculators say and in fact will probably grossly undershoot. Drew’s experienced his usually reliable 75–80% efficiency plummet to 55–60% when going large. In part, this can be mitigated by adding more grain or sugar, but even when compensating gravities don’t play fair and square. So, prepare to accept lower original gravities or go for a longer boil and lower volume if the number is dead set important for you.

Sugar is Your Friend 

It wasn’t that long ago that any adjunct was looked down upon by craft and homebrewers as “lesser.” As stated earlier, sugar is your friend when going big, and that includes malt extract. Even in commercial breweries it’s not uncommon to use it for 10–20% of the sugar content to boost gravities. (For most homebrew-sized batches this would equate to 1–3 pounds in a 5-gallon batch or 0.5–1.5 kg/19 L.)

It’s not cheating, and it can make for a better final product. Besides, if you don’t use sugar in making a strong Belgian beer, you’re making your life more difficult for what?

The Ferment

Baby Your Yeast

We’ve repeatedly banged the drum that “Healthy and Vital Yeast Forgives a Number of Sins!” In other words, give your beer enough healthy yeast and you can screw up in a lot of ways and still get a decent drop at the end. That mantra becomes carved into a stone tablet of deity-derived wisdom when it comes to your large beer projects. Starting with an inadequate supply of yeast because you’re trying to save time or money is running straight into the arms of a bigger waste as your beer suffers for your penurious ways.

If you’re short on time, at least buy several packs of yeast to jumpstart your beer. For our money, the best thing you can do is plan ahead and create a “starter beer” — aka a beer brewed with the eye of generating a yeast cake. It’s a wonderful idea, because you get two beers out of one silly “big beer” idea. Just brew a low- to moderate-strength beer, say 4–6% ABV, transfer, and use a portion of the resulting yeast cake to ferment your big beer. You don’t want to use all of the yeast cake! When making his big Samichlaus-inspired strong lager, Drew brews a 5-gallon (19-L) batch of schwarzbier and splits the resulting yeast cake across 30 gallons (13.6 L) of the big stuff. (And remember, lagers are recommended to have higher pitching rates!) 

This is also a really good time to cozy up to your favorite brewery and very politely ask the brewers if they’re getting ready to dump yeast. Bring them a sanitized growler or jar and get more healthy yeast than you can shake a stick at. 

One other advantage to large amounts of healthy yeast — it simplifies the oxygen game. We used to recommend adding copious amounts of oxygen at pitching time and 12–24 hours after pitching — the idea being to encourage enough sterol production to create flexible new cell walls to handle the intense fermentation event. While we still think adding oxygen when you pitch is a good measure, we no longer recommend the later additions due to fears of staling and contamination.

Keep Your Cool

Big beers have a reputation for some aggressive fermentation characteristics — and we don’t just mean rollicking kräusens threatening to shoot out of your airlock! But because of the harsh fermentation stresses, yeast cells will often secrete compounds we consider “off-flavors” — think your phenols, esters, and fusel alcohols. Pitching a ton of vital yeast is step one in warding off those problematic sensations. 

The second is keeping your ferment cool, at least for the first part of the process. When the yeast is in the lag/reproductive phase is when a number of those stressor chemicals are produced. To combat that phenomenon, we recommend keeping your fermentation consistently chilly early on. Think 63 °F (17 °C) for an ale ferment. If you hold there for at least the first three days of fermentation, you’ll keep the yeast relaxed and slow down the chemical processes that cause extra heat and stress. After those first few days, you’ll want to allow the fermentation to rise in temperature to encourage a complete fermentation. 

Stay Patient

How much time your beer will take is one of those fun debates. In the older days, the recommendation was “seal up the fermenter and wait a few months.” It feels like most of those rules were needed due to poor yeast health. 

With all that vitality you threw at your beer, you should be fine to follow a slightly extended version of your typical fermentation schedule — think a month or two for your primary fermentation. After that, get the beast out of your fermenter and into kegs or bottles (assuming of course that your gravity has stopped changing). We do this to avoid tying up the precious resource that is a fermenter, but also to get the beer off any remaining yeast. While we’re not normally worried about the meaty flavors of autolysis, months spent on a bulk of yeast strikes us as a bit “extra.”

Your beer will be ready to drink, for certain values of that notion, as you go to package. Homebrewers tend to hold onto romantic notions of long aging times and while we agree there’s value to it, you’ll only learn how things change when you also try the beer young. So, package, try one, wait a couple weeks and try again. Rinse, repeat, and make it a regular ritual like your dental checkups!

Fixing Problems

No matter what you do, you will probably run into a problem or two as you make a larger beer. Here are our solutions:

Missed My Gravity (Low) 

First, ask yourself if your missed gravity is actually a problem. If you missed low and want to raise it, reach for the sugar we talked about earlier. You can also boil longer if you’re over volume or don’t mind producing less beer. If you’re at the end of boil, just make a sugar syrup and mix it into the still hot wort. If you’re in the fermenter, you might want to ask why is this now a priority?

Missed My Gravity (High)

Most folks would be happy to have this problem! It’s also fairly easy to fix with a small judicious dilution of water. You can calculate this as a straight dilution of 0 sugar points. For example, 5 gallons at 1.100 + 1 gallon of water would be (5 x 100) + (1 x 0) / (5+1) = 0.8333 or 1.083 OG. If you want to dilute later in the process, make sure your water is freshly boiled to avoid contamination.

My Beer Stopped Fermenting

This is probably the big scary one!

Is Your Beer Actually Done Fermenting? It’s not unusual for a beer with a high OG to end up with a high FG. Many mega-monster imperial stouts end up with final gravities near 1.050. Those are outliers, but don’t be surprised if your big malt bomb ends up with an FG in the 1.020–1040 range. (Remember a little extra sugar isn’t terrible — it can hide the extra burn of alcohol!) 

Use a Fast Ferment Test. When you start your fermentation, hold a portion to the side in a flask or growler. Put it on a stir plate or give it a regular swirl and don’t control the temperature on it! After a few days it should be done fermenting. You’ve optimized for fermentation completion, not flavor. The resulting gravity will tell you your rock bottom baseline. A good flavor-oriented ferment will end up a little above the base. If you’re more than 5 points off, then your yeast still has work to do!

Give It A Swirlie. If you still need to ferment a few more points, the right place to start is with a gentle swirl of the beer to rouse the yeast back up. No, this doesn’t always work, but it’s the least invasive way to get it fixed.

Still Not Done? Give it some fresh yeast. Whether from a re-hydrated pack of dried yeast or more yeast slurry from another batch (or brewery). Pitch a fresh dose of yeast and give it that swirl. If you have extra concerns, a little pinch of yeast nutrient may not ensure a further ferment, but it might calm your addled mind. Repeat until either the beer surrenders or you do.

It’s Still Not Done! Well, darn! First things first – give it a taste. Does it taste complete? You may be able to run with it! Consider other options – would dry hopping help cover any sweetness (and maybe re-kick fermentation)? Would a spirit like Bourbon add the additional potency and watering down needed to make the beer pop? Fruit? Spices? Etc.? Ultimately, with this stubborn brew, you’ll need to find some way to make you happy and anything’s fair game.

The Nuclear Option. Brew again. This is really the last resort, but it’s a possibility. Brew a beer to blend in with the recalcitrant biggie. Make something smaller, more hoppy, etc. to punch up the characters of your first beer. This isn’t without precedent — many great British strong ales are blends. But while we remind you that this is a possibility, we’ve both only done it in cases of mortal peril!

There’s your five-minute course in the art of making a big beer. Remember, lots of everything — malt and sugar for fuel, hops for break, yeast to turn your dessert soup into dessert beer, and a mix of patience and perseverance to drag it across the finish line. You’ll also quickly discover that playing with the big bold notes of these beers opens up other possibilities, whether it’s strange techniques like reiterated mashing to pull more malt sugars into the beer or the endless combinations of barrel aging and flavors that brewers are adding to the bold bottles. 

Keep your wits about you and stay calm to steer your big beautiful barleywine from mash tun to snifter glass!

Dear Replicator, I recently got to try The Brewing Lair’s BLT. It is a tripel that is surprisingly hoppy and quite delicious. Any chance you could find a recipe and share some tips to brew a beer like this? 
Leland Carey via email

Some breweries are born from meticulous business plans in sprawling industrial parks. Others, like The Brewing Lair in Blairsden, California, feel like they’ve sprouted organically from the forest floor. Tucked away on 30 acres in the Plumas National Forest, The Brewing Lair is as much a destination as it is a brewery, boasting an outdoor taproom, its own 9-hole disc golf course, a 100-acre bike park next door, a stage regularly filled with live music performances, and a vibe that’s pure mountain escapism.

The brewery is the dream of Rich DeLano and his wife, Susan. Their story is one many homebrewers can relate to. “When I met Susan in 2009 I was running out of work as a carpenter . . . and Susan was in need of a new project,” Rich recalls. Susan, who had previously worked for several San Diego-area breweries, quickly introduced him to the world of all-grain brewing. “The first couple of batches were on the kitchen stove, but after the first boil-over, we quickly upgraded to a better setup outdoors on our back porch.”

Before long, the hook was set deep. “I started reading all the books on brewing I could,” DeLano says. “Ray Daniels’ Designing Great Beers became a big part of honing our recipes. After over a hundred batches in our first year together, we decided we would start pursuing the dream of opening our own brewery.” 

That dream, which supplanted an early vision of a goat farm, became a reality in 2012, creating a unique forest haven for beer lovers.

While The Brewing Lair’s tap list often leans toward the hop-forward styles of the West Coast, one of their standout creations finds its roots thousands of miles away in Belgium. The Brewing Lair Tripel, or “BLT,” is a carefully-balanced marriage of Belgian tradition and American hop ingenuity. The inspiration, fittingly, came during Rich and Susan’s honeymoon.

“We loved drinking lambics and gueuzes, but every once in a while craved a hint of West Coast hoppiness,” DeLano explains. “We found Duvel Tripel Hop and Houblon Chouffe satisfied that itch.” The beer from Duvel, in particular, left a lasting impression. “During our honeymoon in Belgium, we found Duvel Tripel Hop in three different single-hop varieties: Citra®, Mosaic®, and Amarillo®. Duvel Tripel Hop featuring Mosaic® was our favorite of the three; it just seemed to play best with Belgian yeast character and our hoppy attitude.”

Upon returning home, the mission was clear. “As soon as we returned to the States we began formulating our own recipe for a hoppier Belgian tripel,” says DeLano. 

The goal wasn’t to create a Belgian IPA, but something more nuanced. “For us, a nice fruitiness from the hops helps to complement the expressive Belgian yeast character.”

Another key element was drinkability, a challenge for a beer style that can easily become sweet and heavy. “We also don’t like a cloying character to the beer,” DeLano notes, “so a free rise during fermentation and a dose of cane sugar help to achieve that goal.” The result is a tripel that is dangerously smooth, aromatic, and complex—a perfect representation of the brewery itself.

The Wizard explains the impact of lagering in a fermenter as opposed to a keg or bottles, as well as brewing non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beers. Plus, tips for storing kegs and how ascorbic acid may be used at packaging to scrub dissolved oxygen.

Q. How does lagering a beer in a carboy or barrel affect the beer differently than storing the same unfiltered beer in a bottle or keg at the same temperature for the same period of time? 
Chris Patterson
Downers Grove, Illinois

A. This is a great question, Chris, and the answer starts with a quick review of the objectives of lagering. Although lagering is most often associated with lager beer, the process can be applied to all types of beer. Some brewers refer to all aging processes as “lagering,” others use the term “cellaring,” and some simply say “aging.” Naming aside, yeast sedimentation, diacetyl and acetaldehyde reduction, flavor integration, and sulfur scrubbing are among the key changes in beer flavor and appearance that can occur during lagering. In the commercial lager world, lagering may also include partial or complete natural carbonation.

Cask conditioning, while rooted in ale tradition, shares much in common with lagering. One of the key differences between lagering and cask conditioning is volume: Lagering is a bulk process in which the finished beer is later transferred to kegs, bottles, or cans, while cask ales are conditioned in the very vessels from which they are served. Another difference is yeast sediment. Commercially packaged lagers typically do not contain yeast sediment, whereas cask ales generally do.

At home, lagering can be done in containers that do not permit carbonation, such as carboys, or in containers that do, such as kegs or certain pressure-rated small fermenters (such as those included in this homebrew unitank comparison). In both cases, beer clarification, flavor maturation, and sulfur volatilization occur. Lagering in a keg allows homebrewers to mimic commercial practices, including kräusening — adding actively fermenting beer to fully fermented beer to achieve carbonation and speed aging. A key part of this process is venting excess gas. While aging in a carboy also allows sulfur venting, keg aging, where CO₂ is naturally produced and released, is my preferred method.

When lagers are aged in bottles, three important things cannot occur: Sulfur scrubbing, yeast sedimentation, and yeast separation. A practical solution for home lager production is to select a yeast strain that produces clean, low-sulfur lagers within a short fermentation and maturation window. Strains such as SafLager W-34/70 can be used successfully at warmer temperatures (59–68 °F / 15–20 °C) by both home and commercial brewers to quickly produce beers with low diacetyl and sulfur. Others, such as LalBrew NovaLager, have been developed through traditional selection and hybridization to yield strains that produce minimal diacetyl and hydrogen sulfide. 

As long as the beer is cooled to encourage most yeast to drop out before packaging, you can bottle-condition and age for flavor integration. Is the result identical to bulk-aged lager? Probably not, but it can be surprisingly close.

Q. I have been looking for maltose- and maltotriose-negative yeast to brew a low-alcohol Pilsner recipe from BYO. The yeast recommended is White Labs WLP603 (Torulaspora delbrueckii) or SafAle LA-01, and I can’t find those yeasts in a homebrew size. Every maltose-negative yeast is either the 500-g size or unavailable through any online retailer or homebrew shop I have searched. Any tips on what homebrewers can do?
Mike Seward
Barrington, Rhode Island

A. Before I answer this question, I want to say that I sometimes sit on questions because great questions come in waves and this one was sent into the mailbox earlier this year. It’s rarely the case where new information comes about while questions sit in the inbox, but in this case the body of knowledge related to non-alcoholic (NA) brewing is growing at a rapid pace. Bottom line is that this is a timely question and I have some thoughts about this topic.

I am not surprised that you haven’t been able to find a source for these yeast strains because none of these suppliers are selling them into homebrew markets. There is one major challenge when brewing beer with maltose- and maltotriose-negative yeast strains, simply referred to as maltose-negative strains; the biggest risk to stability comes from garden-variety brewing yeast.

Because breweries, both home and commercial, are rife with brewing yeast, the risk of contamination is high. When beer produced using a maltose-negative strain is contaminated with a regular brewing strain, over-carbonation and the possibility of exploding packages is a clear and present danger. The only currently acceptable stabilization process is pasteurization. This may change in the future as alternative approaches are examined, but those currently do not exist. Some breweries and research facilities are serving unpasteurized NA beers fermented with maltose-negative yeast in dedicated draft systems where temperature control is used to minimize the risk of re-fermentation and monitoring is used to check for the signs of re-fermentation.

Another concern with NA beers is the growth of pathogens. That’s the other reason that commercially produced NAs are pasteurized. I will come back to this topic later but want to pivot to some other points first.

If I were writing this answer earlier this year, I probably would not have thought much about the actual alcohol content of the beer as a real concern to homebrewers. However, the alcohol content of these beers is of concern to many of the people who drink them. The term NABLAB is used around the world these days to describe non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beers. Although definitions are not universal, most countries define beers with ABVs between 0.5 and 2.5% as “low alcohol.” When alcohol is less than 0.5% ABV, the term “non-alcoholic beer” is used. The term “alcohol-free” or “zero-alcohol” is reserved for beers with no measurable alcohol.

Consumers who are serious about how they consume or do not consume alcohol must be able to rely upon the producers of NABLABs to properly adhere to these product classifications. Because I drink beer, I am one of those consumers who is not overly concerned about drinking something that may contain 0.7% ABV instead of 0.4% ABV. But brewers cannot make assumptions about others and need to be precise with labeling. If your interest in brewing NA at home is related to brewing beer for a friend or loved one who cannot or does not want to consume alcohol, you really should stick to purchasing these beers from a commercial producer unless you are willing to have your beer analyzed before serving.

You specifically asked about using maltose-negative yeast because that is the method discussed in Kara Taylor’s article. However, there is another method available to homebrewers that does not require special yeast or equipment — high temperature mashing. This method involves mashing in at ~176 °F/80 °C, resting for about 15 minutes, collecting, boiling, and cooling wort as usual, and fermenting with whatever yeast strain you want to use. Because there is essentially no beta-amylase activity, very little if any fermentable sugars are produced during the mash. This very high temperature also quickly stops alpha-amylase activity and results in starchy wort. Halting alpha-amylase is important because alpha-amylase does produce some glucose, maltose, and maltotriose because its action on starch is random.

I recently brewed two beers using this method. Although I knew what I was doing, I was still surprised by the cloudiness of the wort. Not seeing anything during fermentation, although not surprising, was also odd. Although there are compounds in wort that yeast metabolize during the short fermentation, the lack of appreciable fermentable sugars means that alcohol production is all but eliminated and the fermentation appears non-existent. While the beers both finished with a veil, neither are extremely hazy.

Much of the focus of NABLAB production is aimed to eliminate worty aromas and flavors common to these beers. One method that works surprisingly well is kettle souring. Lactic acid bacteria apparently metabolize some of the worty precursors and reduce the concentration of aldehydes in the finished beer. And the interesting thing is that this action occurs in kettle soured wort that is not obviously sour. This means that pH can be monitored and the process stopped with wort boiling before the wort is sour, allowing the method to be used in just about any style.

My recent NA brews used kettle souring. In one brew, a Pilsner-style NA, I dropped the pH to 3.9 (my target was 4.0) and in the second brew, the base for a berry-flavored sour, I dropped it all the way down to 3.2. I used kettle souring in an attempt to reduce worty aromas — this was a success — and to lower pH for safety reasons discussed later.

The 2025 Summit — a joint conference uniting members of the American Society of Brewing Chemist (ASBC) and the Master Brewers Association of the Americas (MBAA) — featured numerous presentations related to NABLAB production. The one topic related to NABLABs that has brewers and industry experts concerned is the risk posed by spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms, especially when it comes to draft beer. Because in-keg pasteurization is not possible and the very real challenges associated with properly cleaning and sanitizing kegs, keg couplers, and draft lines, many brewing experts and brewers believe that NABLABs should only be served from cans or bottles. Although some brewers are conducting research into the use of liquid preservatives, in-package pasteurization is the only preservation method universally accepted for these beverages.

Some small-scale producers use batch pasteurization to process cans and bottles of NABLABs. I can address that process in another column, but for the time being I will just leave you with the knowledge that batch pasteurization is something that can be performed at home. A very conservative level of batch pasteurization for a typical NABLAB is in the 80–120 PU range.

Whether producing low-fermentable wort using the hot and fast mash method or using a maltose-negative yeast strain, I believe that certain practices should always be followed brewers, and others should be avoided when producing NABLABs.

DO:

• Boil wort for at least 30 minutes
• Heat-sanitize the wort cooler
• Reduce wort pH to <4.2
• Adjust finished beer pH to <4.2, if required
• Add all hops before wort cooling
• Heat-pasteurize finished product

DO NOT:

• Dry hop — this simply is an unnecessary risk
• Add unpasteurized fruit purees or any fermentable sugars if your goal is <0.5% ABV
• Barrel age

I know that commercial craft brewers read this column. If you are one, know that I am a big proponent of this growing category of beer. I sincerely want brewers to continue elevating these beers without incident. It’s really amazing how many excellent-tasting products are currently being produced. Brewers are going to do whatever because these products are only regulated by the TTB and the industry does not want to see that change — that’s why producers of these products are so concerned about possible issues in the market.

Caution flags and raised voices, however, will not prevent brewers from experimenting with these beers at home and taking the easy way out by packaging in kegs and not pasteurizing. If you decide to roll the dice, read the literature, understand the risks, clean your kegs by completely disassembling, sanitize your kegs after reassembly, use new draft lines and picnic taps, and store your keg and dispense rig in a cooler at <38 °F/3.3 °C. Finally, have a party and drain the keg asap.

Q. I have a question about storing kegs after they’ve been cleaned and sanitized. I had a bad experience when I had purged a keg with CO₂ and stored it that way for months before using it for kegging. On the day we were going to keg, I popped the lid and got a very strong, pungent odor from the keg. I would say it was even acidic, as if carbonic acid gas had formed over time. How could this have happened? Perhaps I left too much sanitizer in the keg, though I do my best not to do that. Or maybe some other contaminant was present because I didn’t clean well enough? Or perhaps this is a natural process that occurs over several months and the long-term storage of kegs needs to be done differently?
Jeff Vandewinckel
Arlington, Tennessee

A. Your example is an extreme case between sanitizing and use, but the broader question is one I’ve often heard craft brewers discuss when preparing equipment. My preferred method is to clean equipment immediately after use, then sanitize just before use. Fermentation vessels, for instance, are easiest to clean shortly after emptying. Often, a simple water rinse with gentle scrubbing, followed by another light rinse and then a cleaning cycle — either by hand or with a pump and spray ball — is quick and effective. Some brewers then sanitize the vessel and store it closed and under pressure until needed, as you describe.

The real issue with cleaning and sanitizing is that neither process is absolute — sanitized equipment is not sterile. And because no-rinse sanitizers used in brewing and food processing rarely provide residual activity, any surviving microorganisms can grow if nutrients are present. It’s impossible to know exactly what developed in your keg during extended storage, but the sour smell is a clear indicator that something did. Carbonic acid itself is odorless, but when you sniff carbonated beverages, it creates a tingling sensation in your nose. By contrast, organic acids such as acetic, propionic, and butyric have sharp aromas that are easy to detect.

Going forward, I recommend cleaning equipment immediately after use, allowing it to drain, and then storing it. Dust is difficult to control at home and can carry yeasts, molds, and bacteria. A quick rinse followed by sanitization right before use is the best practice.

Q. Can I put ascorbic acid in my cans before I fill them with beer to scrub any dissolved oxygen? Also, how would I dose it?
Darren O’Day
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A. Ascorbic acid, also known as Vitamin C, is indeed an antioxidant often discussed in the context of beer stability because of its ability to scavenge oxygen in the headspace of packaged beer. Its mode of action is somewhat different from many other antioxidants. Ascorbic acid does not directly bind oxygen. Instead, it donates hydrogen atoms to reactive oxygen species such as peroxide radicals, thereby neutralizing them. This transfer of electrons is the fundamental chemical process we call oxidation.

However, the behavior of ascorbic acid can be complicated by the presence of transition metal ions, particularly iron and copper (Fe²⁺ and Cu²⁺). In the presence of these metals, ascorbic acid can actually promote the generation of reactive oxygen species rather than prevent it, effectively reversing its antioxidant role and causing oxidative damage. For this reason, successful use of ascorbic acid requires very low levels of these metal ions. Unfortunately, in brewing, keeping metals out can be difficult. Common brewing inputs such as hops, malt, brewing water, and filtration aids can all be sources of copper and iron. But for the sake of discussion, let’s assume a beer with minimal problematic metal ion content.

When used under the right conditions, ascorbic acid is safe for beer, though flavor limits must be respected. At higher concentrations, it imparts a noticeable tartness. The threshold for this effect varies depending on beer style: Light, delicate beers can show tartness at concentrations above about 10 mg/L, while more flavorful or heavily hopped beers can tolerate slightly higher levels. As is often the case in brewing, bench trials are invaluable for determining the appropriate dosage for a specific recipe. A common working range is 5–10 mg/L.

The most practical way to add ascorbic acid is as an aqueous solution. Because the compound itself is reactive toward oxygen, the solution should be prepared in deoxygenated water — ideally water that has been boiled, cooled, and stored in a sealed container to minimize oxygen pickup.

The dosage calculation is straightforward when using metric measurements. For example, suppose you are working with 20 liters of beer and wish to dose at 10 mg/L. That requires 200 mg of ascorbic acid in total. Since the solubility of ascorbic acid in water at 68 °F (20 °C) is about 330 g/L, there is no risk of creating an overly concentrated stock solution. A convenient approach is to prepare a 40 g/L stock solution. 20 mL of this solution will contain the required 200 mg of ascorbic acid for the 20-L batch. Unless you have a highly accurate scale, mixing up 4 g of ascorbic acid in 100 mL of water is easy to measure and gives you plenty for bench trialing and dosing.