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50 years ago, in a corner of the Valley (San Fernando, that is), in Southern California, just off the world-famous Ventura Boulevard, the homebrewers that would become the Maltose Falcons really just wanted a good beer. Check out their story! Plus, we recap our recent trip to Ireland, visiting breweries, distilleries, and more.
The Maltose Falcons began 50 years ago in pursuit of brewing good beer. A new book features dozens of the best recipes members have come up with over that time. We share five of those recipes with you.
While the crafty homebrewer may have given the usual process of cooking with spent grain a try — which generally requires drying the grain, grinding it into a flour, and then using it in a recipe — there is a much easier approach. Simply use it wet right after your brew day. A trained chef and homebrewer shares advice on doing it right, plus five delicious recipes.
Decoction mashing offers a unique flavor and quality to a beer, but it is also tedious. There are a few ways to mimic the attributes of decoction mashing without actually going through the labor-intensive steps.
We recap and share photos from a recent trip Publisher Brad Ring and a group of BYO readers went on to Ireland, visiting breweries, distilleries, and more.
Beer and cheese go hand-in-hand in the BYO office. While making cheese may seem complicated, making beer probably did before you started too. Follow
this advice and you’ll be on your way to making cheese, including recipes for cheese curds, Asiago, and Caerphilly.
If you’ve made cheese, then you’ll be left with a considerable amount of whey. Why not use it to start a new fermentation project, such as whey wine, mead, or even liquor?
One of the largest investments a new brewery makes is its brewhouse equipment, so it is obviously critical to keep that investment running and at optimal performance. Make sure you are properly maintaining your brewing equipment with regular cleaning and upkeep.
Making stone fruit mead is a fun alternative to beer. Relying on honey and fruit — from cherries, peaches, and plums, to more exotic pitted fruits — for the fermentable sugars, the flavor combinations are endless.
Märzen is an amber lager that was served at Oktoberfest for over a century. While not poured in tents at the festival’s fairgrounds anymore, it is still a delicious style worth brewing at home.
There are no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to beer and cheese pairings, though two experts in this area share their advice to make the experience enjoyable.
Fonio is an ancient African grass that has been gaining attention in the craft beer world in recent years. Learn more about brewing with this flavorful ingredient. Plus, advice on swapping dried for liquid malt extract and following up on previous discussions around dip hopping.
A German-style helles from Working Draft Beer Co., in Madison, Wisconsin.
This is a competition beer. It is a bit bigger, sweeter, and maltier than many modern German Märzen examples, which judges often prefer.
This is a cherry melomel named after the seafaring Nordic legends — the Vikings — from where it originated. So, if not for anything, make this mead simply for the lore. The honey, sourced from hives kissed by Nordic breezes lends its essence, while the cherries impart a tartness that balances its sweetness with a tantalizing acidity.
There are many ways of making a stone fruit mead, and they range from using fresh fruit to buying canned fruit, to juicing your fruit or buying the juice itself. This peach melomel recipe, which will be using canned peaches and Tupelo honey, is just one of the many ways to make a peach mead. It’s a good introductory recipe that is relatively easy and results in tasty mead. Feel free to substitute fresh peaches if they are in season.
This is the first homebrew recipe presented in the Maltose Falcons newsletter archive from January 1978 and it was an award-winning recipe from Dr. John Boulton of the San Andreas Malts. The quote from longtime beer author and owner of The Beverage People in Santa Rosa, Byron Burch: “An excellent, very rich stout made by Dr. John Boulton of the Malts. After sufficient lip-smacking on my part, he was good enough to send me his recipe and allow me to make it public. This is a true stout lovers (sic) stout.”
You cannot tell the story of the Falcons without having Doug King in the middle of it. In Doug’s years in the club, the legend of Dougweiser and his habit of throwing anything into the mash tun (with consideration) became the stuff of legends. This is the last batch of Doug’s eponymous beer he brewed before his death driving to the Northern California Homebrewers Fest. It was brewed on July 4, 1999 and was kegged on August 10. (For readers obsessed with gear in pursuit of perfection, Doug brewed world class lagers on his kitchen stove and used a ZapPap bucket setup for lautering.)
The Falcons and Sierra Nevada have had a long history and close relationship over the years. Something about members of the Grossman clan and others learning how to brew while in high school here in Los Angeles with supplies from John Daume. (Things are foggy and who knows about statute of limitations!) But seriously, both the Falcons and Sierra Nevada have been around since the start of this crazy “good beer” thing we all enjoy, so it’s only right that we joined forces with them for our 50th anniversary beer. Also, this brew session came about after a number of discussions and one really big kick in the pants by Marty Velas, “youngest President in club history” and Owner/Brewer of Fanatic Brewing Company in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Marty convinced Sierra Nevada to brew a festbier because we’re celebrating 50 years, it’s our Oktoberfest, and the club really was founded with a deep and abiding love of lagers as demonstrated by Merlin Elhardt and Cal Moeller’s obsession with them.
Volume-wise, booze-wise, and holy crap-wise, this still remains our “biggest” collaboration to date (only Sierra Nevada brews more beer per year in terms of our collabs). This one all happened on a whim as Allen Tracy, a member with family in the Paso Robles area, stopped in at the brewery and had a palaver with Brewmaster Matt Brynildson about brewing a special beer. Matt said, “whatever you want to make” and this crazy thing came about from two suggestions “a really big brown ale” and “rum barrels.” The recipe design was created by Steve Cook and then brewed by a large crowd of Falcons. (We say brewed, but really the whole place is computer-controlled so they mostly ran around like barely trained monkeys after eating partially fermented bananas.)
This beer went on to be a surprising hit with the beer ticket crowd who would clamber for a chance to get a taste whenever Firestone rolled it out for things like their Firestone Walker Invitational.
