An invisible hand guides Adam Smith to the shade of Saint Sixtus Abbey.
Rochefort
On Clones, Colour and Cassonade
One of my Pursuit of Abbeyness XII brew-day posts received a spike of traffic from the Homebrew Talk forum. I went and eavesdropped on the discussion.
“Memento Mori”: Another Lesson in Serendipity
If you stumble blindly and incompetently into your brewing masterpiece, will you ever be able to revisit that triumph?
Four Reasons Why We Should Question the “£22 pint”
Why do we defend beer that is economically unjustifiable and the product of unsustainable late-cycle excess?
Brew Day! … “Pursuit of Abbeyness XII”
With an odd 3.7kg of Pilsner malt in my cellar and a three-month-old Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II in my fridge, it was time to brew up a small portion of the beer style I return to most often - the Strong, Dark Abbey Ale.
The Price of Everything
How much art can 113 million bottles of Orval buy? Why is Achel Bruin so undervalued? And why should Brasserie Cantillon read Richard Cantillon's "Essai"?
Brew Day!… Revisiting “Pacific Northwest”
Were brewers to be divided up into “tweakers” and “experimenters”, I would certainly find myself categorised as an experimenter. But I have been tweaking lately... and learning about the ageing of essential-oil components in hops.
Time: the Secret Ingredient
With Vintage Beer, Patrick Dawson has given us a handy, easy-to-use book on a topic that is attracting more and more attention from beer drinkers.
“Les Vagues Ambrée”: A Lesson in Brewing Serendipity
The most common advice that experienced homebrewers offer to first-timers is, “Try something simple.” So I set my sights on one of the most admired beers on the planet.
Pursuit of Abbeyness 