Miscellaneous FAQ

Questions :

• What's the different between an Ale and a Lager?
• Which book should I buy?
• Does homebrew give you heartburn?
• How do you pronounce XXX properly?
• How long will homebrew keep?
• Less hangover with Homebrew?
• What's with the new ads on the site? Are you selling out to The Man, or what?
• What's with the units on your pages? Can't you stick with just one system of measurements?
• How do I remove Iodophore stains?

Answers :

• What's the different between an Ale and a Lager?.
  
  The terms "Ale" and "Lager" do not refer to styles of beer, but rather to the way in which the beer is brewed, as well as the type of yeast used in brewing.

  There are a number of important differences between Ale and Lager. First of all, they are brewed with a different sub-species of yeast. Ale is brewed with sacharomyces cerivisiae, and Lager with sacharomyces uvarum. Ale yeast is commonly referred to as top fermenting since the yeast tends to clump together (flocculate) near the top, sometimes forming an impressive pancake of yeast on the surface of the beer. Lager yeast on the other hand is also called bottom fermenting yeast since it tends to flocculate near the bottom of the fermenting beer.

  Where there are several very distinct sub-types of Ale yeast, all known Lager yeasts are on the genetic level recognizable as descendants of the original Bavarian strain, or of the Danish strain which was stolen from Bavaria several hundred years ago (establishing the Carlberg breweries).

  Not only is there a difference with the yeast itself, but there is also a difference in the temperature at which fermentation takes place. Ales are usually fermented at 15C to 20C (60F to 70F), whereas Lager fermentation usually occurs at 5C to 10C (40F to 50F). The lower temperatures for Lagers usually mean as well that they are fermented over a longer period of time, and then aged for several weeks to several months after that at even lower temperatures. In fact, the term Lager itself comes from the German verb lagern, meaning "to store".

  Part of the flavour profile of just about any Ale are yeast and fermentation by-products. With a lager, the goal is to eliminate as much of this as possible and allow the flavours of the malt and hops to come through. The lower fermentation temperatures of lagers in combination with the yeast strain used are largely responsible for the elimination of these by-products.

  This is why Ales are supposed to be served at a higher temperature. Lagers are served cooler in part to numb the tastbuds so that if there are any yeast by-product flavours still lurking around, that the drinker won't notice them. Ales are served at a higher temp because you are supposed to taste this stuff.

  Lagers should be served around 40F (5C), Ales around 50F (10C). A UK Real Ale slightly higher than that.
  
  

• Which book should I buy?
  
  The question of which book to use as a beginner is one that is asked very frequently. More often than not, one of two books is recommended : "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian, or "Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide". We present the following discussion based on our personal experience with both these books, as well as a few others. If you are looking for tips on more advanced books, check out our reviews section.
  
  In The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing Papazian has a very relaxed style of writing and brewing. Indeed, the most common phrase found in his book is "Relax. Don't Worry. Have a Homebrew". Although this tends to do a great job of putting many beginners at ease, it is equally as likely to become annoying as the brewer progresses and advances. Without question this is an excellent book to get going with homebrewing, and it will even take you into more advanced techniques. But it's not organised very well to use as a reference, and we find the laxadasical writing style becomes something of an obstical as well. He flails about, jumping very quickly from one topic to the next, and jumps from a serious note right into a foolish little anecdote, so that you can never quite remember exactly what it was you were supposed to be reading about in this specific place. The anecdotes are great to ease the nerves of beginners. But serious brewers are likely find this distracting and frustrating. It's unlikely you'll be disappointed with it, but you'll probably want another book before too long
  
  Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide on the other hand has a much more organised and to-the-point approach to writing and brewing. His book is without question far more complete than Papazian's, but it is certainly not as comforting for beginners. Indeed, it may be to some rather daunting. Although many people don't recommend it to total beginners, others report great success having started out with Miller. In comparison, his writing style can seem fairly dry, and some folks do have a problem with that. The book is also much better organised for a reference work, too. In stark comparison to Papazian, who fills an administrative role in the Association of Brewers, Miller is the head brewmaster at a brewpub, and also runs the "Troubleshooter" column in Brewing Techniques magazine.
  
  What we generally recommend is for beginners that if you are the timid type who takes to new things like this with caution, then get Papazian. If you are the type who jumps in with both feet, or usually does something first, then goes back and reads the instructions later, then go for Miller.
  
  A relative newcomer to the fold is The Brewmaster's Bible by Stephen Snyder. In fact, I reviewed this book for the January 1998 issue of Brewing Techniques. It's a good book that's well organised both as a learning tool as well as a reference. In fact, some of the tables and charts in this book (hops, yeast, grains, etc) are without question the best I've ever seen. The book even seems to have a small following in the rec.crafts.brewing newsgroup. Snyder doesn't get much into the how's and why's of brewing beer so much as perhaps Miller (I mean really diving down into the science and theory), but he does a good job of giving you all the information you need without bogging you down with too much theory. Perhaps not my first choice as the only book you should have, but certainly a book you won't regret buying, even if you've been brewing for a while.
  
  Another relatively new book on the market is the Homebrewing for Dummies book. Even though I have a personal biased against the Dummies books in general, I have to say that I'm extremely impressed with this one. Organisationally speaking, it is hands-down second to none. That's probably due in no small part to the vast wealth of experience the editors have in producing books for beginners. This in turn makes it an exceptionally good reference book. It's also extremely complete in terms of the content itself, having everything you could possibly imagine relating to brewing beer. And it does all of this but still manages to keep a light-hearted approach similar to that of Papazian, which does an extremely good job of putting your nerves at ease. The author Marty Nachel is relatively unknown, but he's been around a long time, and has been a BJCP beer judge since 1986. Again in spite of my personal biased, of the books I've read so far, this one wins my recommendation as the best book for beginners.
  
  Finally, just a word about Papazian's new book "The Homebrewers Companion". It should first of all be noted that this book is basically useless unless you already own The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, since the former is constantly referring back to the latter claiming not to have to discuss that here, since it is already covered in TNCJOHB. That makes for an incomplete reference, and was probably designed to increase sales of both books. For those readers who enjoy Papazian's style, yet want to learn a bit more, then The Homebrewer's Companion is likely a decent choice. However, it is our opinion that the brewer will still not advance very far with it, since it is still by far not a very technical book. We found the writing style to be just as frustrating as with the first book, and maybe even moreso since one would expect the more advanced topics of the newer book to be treated a bit more seriously than they are. In fact, after getting about two-thirds through the book, Alan finally got so fed up with the foolishness and extremely confusing writing style (which comes to a large extent from a very poor command of English written grammar), that he gave up and put down the book.
  
  We realize we may take some flack for this opinion, but that's what we honestly think.
  
  For more information on books, see both our reviews section.
  
  
• Does homebrew give you heartburn?
  
  > Has anyone here ever gotten horrid cases of heartburn from not pouring
  > their beer carefully and getting a lot of yeast into it? I've noticed when
  
  Speaking as someone with chronic heartburn who's basically gone the last12 years of experiencing it every single day to varying degrees, I have to say that I've never noticed any special connection to homebrew other than the regular heartburn I get from any beer. And without exception, when I drink a bottle of homebrew, I carefully pour it off the sediment, then I swirl the remainder around in the bottle and down the yeast, before consuming my clear glass of beer. So that seems to speak in favour of there being no connection.
  
  cheers,
  -Alan
  
  
• How do you pronounce XXX properly?
  
  We've actually compiled a website with WAV files for the proper pronounciation of many brewing terms. Right now we're concentrating on those terms which come from German and Czech, but more will follow in time. Just follow this link to find the page.
  
  
• How long will homebrew keep?
  
  > Q: does aging it longer make it better or is there a
  > Too long? -and if so-
  > How long is too long?
  
  The only real way to answer this is to monitor your beers closely (oh darn, right :-)?). Seriously, your beer will keep differently than mine. Before I started kegging, I found my beers got better over the first 4 to 12 weeks for the average beer. Over the first 12 months for extremely strong or dark beers, but they are the exception. They then peak for about the same amount of time, then start to go downhill. And this was all stored at room temperature. If you store it below room temperature, the lower the temperature the longer it will keep. I've had kegs in the fridge for well over a year which are still just as fine as the day they were put in. Keep in mind that filtering out the yeast will dramatically reduce the storability of your beer.
  
  
  
• Less hangover with Homebrew?
  > Is it just me or does anyone else find that they don"t have near the
  > hangover when they drink home brew? If so , what causes this reaction?
  
  This is actually fairly well documented, and I for one experience the same thing. There are two main things which scientists have found contribute to a hangover : Dehydration and depletion of Vitamin B12. Well, as it turns out, brewers' yeast is a veritable factory for Vitamin B12, and since the vast majority of homebrew does not have the yeast filtered out like commercial beer does, homebrew helps combat hangovers.
  
  
• What's with the new ads on the site? Are you selling out to The Man, or what?
  
  Believe me, almost 2 years of serious thought went into it before the decision was made to put advertisements on the site. It was definitely not a decision which was taken lightly. We're just hoping to be able to cover our web costs. Please read this article for more details.
  
  
• What's with the units on your pages? Can't you stick with just one system of measurements?
  Sorry folks, but having grown up and gone to school in Canada during the big switch to Metric, I tend to flow freely and without really realizing it from metric to Imperial units. I try to stick with Metric as much as possible, but sometimes it just happens. Several times I've thought of going through the pages and doing all the conversions, but then decided against it since it is just too much work. Besides, I find it gives the pages character.
• How do I remove Iodophore stains? That is answered here

Last Updated 2005.10.15 @ 08:01
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