I’ve been a little obsessed with making bread for the past few months using my wonderful bread machine. This week, I stumbled upon a recipe for sourdough based on a beer starter and gave it a whirl. The recipe calls for little to no use of the bread machine – you can do it without. It was the most difficult bread that I’ve made so far but also very tasty.
I’ve modified the recipe from one featured in The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (German beer starter & Sourdough Bread) though the recipe remains very close to the …read more

Hmm, a challenge, I love a challenge.
These are the bratwurst beers I’d pick off the cuff:
1. Jever Pilsner (or any of a number of other hoppy Pilsner-style beers)
2. Spaten (or Augustiner Edelstoff, if you can find it)
3. Victory Hop Devil
4. Gaffel Kölsch
5. Beck’s (that one’s for sentimental reasons, but I’m sticking with it)
I almost picked the Flying Fish Extra Pale Ale, but since I didn’t I’ll add their recipe for Grilled Brats and Beer.

I’m a pain in the ass about beer glasses, I admit it. Not only do I (strongly) prefer my beer from a glass, I prefer it from the correct glass as well. My wife has grumbled at me in the past because, having switched from a Pilsner to a Munich Helles, I also switched from the already dirty glass to a brand new, clean glass.
In my defense, I have gotten better about it. During those summer backyard barbecues I happily dug an overly-cold beer out of the barrel of ice, popped off the top, and drank my beer like …read more

I like beer with a lot of different foods, from all sorts of different places. Indeed, entire books have been written on the subject (none of which I’ve actually read). But surely one food which goes well with beer is pizza.
Now, I must confess to often choosing a big-bodied red wine with my favorite slice, but there are plenty of times I’ll enjoy a nice pilsner or other lager-style beer instead. The flavors in beer seem to compliment those in pizza, it’s as simple as that. Or perhaps not.
You see, someone has decided that if those two flavors go …read more

So, I mentioned a wonderful beer I had at a party recently. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the beer I brought to the party, which was disappointing. More disappointing is that it was from Tröegs, a Pennsylvania brewery which usually brews very fine beers. In fact, Tröegs’ beers are so good that I’ve never once complained about their Mötley Crüe-esque misuse of the poor, unappreciated umlaut.
The beer in question is the brewery’s Sunshine Pils, which is billed a crisp, hoppy Pilsner. I like hoppy, crisp pilsners, but this didn’t really do it for me. There wasn’t all that much hop, and …read more