Brew Your Own magazine

07/15/2025

Raise a glass to Jack McAuliffe, a true craft beer pioneer, who passed away today at the age of 80. Jack paved the way for thousands of new breweries by launching America’s first craft brewery, New Albion Brewing Company in Sonoma, California in 1976. Learn more about his legacy and find a homebrew clone recipe for his historic New Albion Ale in this BYO article from 2013.

The first modern microbrewed ale in the United States was New Albion Ale. Learn how to brew this historic ale.

07/15/2025

There is no one-flavor-fits-all when it comes to mushrooms. A brewer shares his experience growing and brewing with shiitake mushrooms that contribute a sweet white chocolate flavor and aroma to a saison.

A brewer shares his experience growing and brewing with shiitake mushrooms that contribute notes of sweet white chocolate to a saison.

07/06/2025

The final day of our Brew Your Own Belgium Brewery Adventure focused on the wild world of spontaneously-fermented Lambics. We started by sampling four different local producers of one-year-old Lambics from casks served by pitchers during a picnic lunch. Then onto Lambic powerhouse Brasserie Cantillon in downtown Brussels. Our group of 22 homebrewers loved seeing the coolship in the attic, the brewhouse, and the aging barrels before sampling Cantillon’s world-class Lambics and Gueuzes. A perfect way to wrap up a wonderful week exploring the diverse world of Belgian beer. Santé and Proost!

07/05/2025

Belgium’s strong connection between the Catholic church and brewing is long established. The BYO Belgium Brewery Adventure visited two Trappist monasteries producing beer as well as a Belgian craft brewer located in a former church giving the building a second chapter. It makes sense why the Flemish for “Holy Ghost” and “Yeast” is almost the same word.

07/04/2025

The center of Belgian hop production centers around the city of Poperinge. The BYO Belgium Brewery Adventure spent two nights in the region featuring a visit to a family hop farm, dining high above the St. Bernardus hop yard, and biking past dozens of local hop producers.

07/03/2025

One of the very special parts of running our BYO beer trips around the world are the friendships made along the way. J***y and Linda are a husband-wife bus driver dynamic duo who we’ve been lucky to work with on our last two Belgian beer tours. They are the best and generously gave Publisher Brad Ring an amazing large-format bottle of Whiskey-Infused Gouden Carolus for his birthday. Dank u wel J***y and Linda!

07/03/2025

The Replicator recently checked out Indiana's Fontana Farms Brewery and came back with a recipe for their blood orange pale ale that packs a citrusy punch. Sounds like a great brew to beat the heat this summer! https://byo.com/article/fontana-farms/

07/03/2025

Day three of the BYO Belgium Brewery Adventure featured three family-owned breweries going back generations. We started at Deca Brouwerij, a fifth-generation family brewery now experimenting with barrel-aged beers. We then visited Leroy Breweries dating back to 1572 with family member Bruno Leroy, best known in North America for their Poperings Hommelbier. It was special seeing their historic brewhouse in operation. We ended the day with a personal tasting of the lineup of Duchesse de Bourgogne beers made by Brouwerij Verhaeghe Vichte dating back to 1885 led by family member Morgane Vanden Borre.

07/02/2025

Two bucket list breweries on day two of the BYO Belgium Brewery Adventure. We started the day walking through the forest of foeders along with foeder samples at Rodenbach. Then we tasted all three beers from Brouwerij de Sint-Sixtusabdij van Westvleteren including the legendary Westvleteren 12 quadruple (and even the ice cream made with Westvleteren 12 beer!) It was a great day to be a beer lover!

06/30/2025

Goededag from Belgium where we kicked off the first day of our BYO Brewery Adventure in the beautiful medieval city of Bruges. We visited all three breweries in Bruges: Brouwerij Fort Lapin, Brouwerij De Halve Mann, and Bourgogne des Flandres. Speaking with the brewers and tasting their beers onsite was a great way to start our weeklong trip focused on the Flanders region. Proost!

06/27/2025

We paid a visit today to our longtime friends at Brouwland in Belgium. They are one of the true leaders in Europe for equipment and supplies as well as Nano . It was great to catch up with their team and see their impressive operation from huge warehouses with people (and robots!) picking orders, a large retail store, and their classroom space for brewing workshops. We’re in Belgium getting ready to welcome 22 homebrewers for a weeklong BYO brewery tour in the Flanders region starting up this Sunday!

06/25/2025

Dry hopping is the practice of adding hops to beer at the tail end or post-fermentation. However, there is a lot more to it than that. Temperature, quality, and quantity of hops each play a pivotal role in what you’ll get out of dry hopping. Let's dig in!

Many factors including time, temperature, quality, and quantity of hops play pivotal roles in what you’ll get out of dry hopping.