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Brewing Articles

My Book!
American Sour Beers: Innovative Techniques for Mixed Fermentations - Brewers Publications 2014



Sections trimmed from American Sour Beers
American Saison - Reimagining Farmhouse Brewing
Kvass - Liquid Sourdough Beer
Adding Spices and Herbs to Sour Beers
Gruits and Other Hopless Beers
Pairing and Cooking with Sour Beer
Commercial Microbe Descriptions
Bottle Dregs to Harvest

Brew Your Own Magazine (BYO) - Subscribe and support the blog!
Adding Fruit to Sour Beer - September 2010
Kvass Revival - December 2010 (with Nathan Zeender)
The Cult of American Saison - July/August 2011 (with Nathan Zeender)
Sour Beer Orientation - November 2011
American Wild Ales - Running Feral Fermentations at Home - September 2012
Fermented Foods - October 2012
Dark Lagers: The New Possibility - January/February 2013 (with Nathan Zeender)
Blending Sour Beers with the Solera Method - May/June 2014 
Experimental Homebrewing: Approach Unconventional Beers with Confidence - July/August 2014 
Collaborative Fermentations: Blending brewer's yeast strains - March/April 2015 
Brewing with Lactobacillus: Overview and Evaluation - May/June 2015 (with Matt Humbard)
The Science of Hop Glycosides: Hop aroma buried under your nose - July/August 2015
Foraging for Ingredients: Finding and brewing with wild ingredients - September 2015
Hard Cider with a Twist - Weird ciders: More than fermented apples - October 2015
Nitrogen and Stout Faucets: Pouring foam you can eat with a spoon - November 2015
Hop Oil Analysis and Blending - December 2015
Overnight Acidification - January/February 2016
Understanding pH - March/April 2016
The Science of Syrups - July/August 2016
Hoppy Fruit Beers & Fruity Hopped Beers - July/August 2016
Not Another Pumpkin Ale: The new pumpkin beer styles - September 2016
All About Brett - October 2016
Sour Beers from Extract - October 2016
Dehusked Dark Malt - November 2016
Acid Tolerance of Brewer's Yeast - December 2016
Hoppy Sour Beers - December 2016
Brewing Day Priorities - January/February 2017
Spunding Valves - March/April 2017
Low Dissolved Oxygen Lagers - May/June 2017
Drink Your Vegetables - July/August 2017
Mineral Profile in the Glass - September 2017
Kveik - October 2017
Working with Barrels - November 2017
One Batch, Many Beers - December 2017
The Freedom of Homebrewing - January/February 2018
IBUs: Modern Beers with Old Formulas - March/April 2018
Brewing with Wine Yeast - May/June 2018
Hop Extracts - July/August 2018
Sour Sans Bacteria: Brewing with lactic acid-producing yeast - September 2018
Brewing Table Beer: The challenges of making a 3% ABV beer - October 2018
Fermentations Apart: Selecting different yeast for different jobs - November 2018
Recipe Design Ethos - December 2018

Zymurgy Magazine
Producing Wort for Mixed Fermentation - May/June 2014

Blog
With more than 600 posts on this site it can be a bit overwhelming, here are a list of some of the more in depth, interesting, and well done posts I have made since starting this blog.  If I'm missing some that you think would be worth adding, let me know.

10 Homebrewing Myths Debunked - There is a lot of misinformation about homebrewing ingredients and processes.

11 Tips for Better Hoppy Beer - Includes general process tips that will make your hoppy beers taste fresher and hoppier.

All About Brettanomyces - A survey I completed for Greg Doss for an NHC presentation he was working on.  It gives my general thoughts on brewing with Brett. Pair that with Hop Oil Analysis.

American IPA and Hop Bill Analysis - A list of the hops used in some of my favorite IPAs, and a bit of analysis on how commonly the various hop varieties appear.

Anatomy of a Clone - The Lost Abbey's Cable Car - My most ambitious clone and the thought process that went into creating the recipe.

Book Reviews - Links to all the brewing book reviews I've written.

Brewing Lambic: Mythbusters Style - Lambic brewers follow a complex process, but do they have to?

Brewing Sour Beer at Home - My thoughts on brewing, fermenting, aging, and bottling sour beers.

Capture Your Own Microflora - Make a starter from the wild yeast and bacteria in your local air.

Designing a Beer Recipe in 10 Steps - The process I go through every time I create a recipe.

Fire-Pit Gruit - A day spent brewing a  beer without hops over an open fire.

Harvesting Sour Beer Bottle Dregs - A list of commercial beers that have harvestable wild yeast and/or bacteria.

Homebrew Water Treatment – A Practical Guide - When I want to adjust my water for brewing, this is how I do it.

How To Homebrew : All-Grain Beer - A guide to the basic methods and equipment I use to brew beer.

Maintaining Microbe Cultures - How to keep cultures of Brett and lactic acid bacteria on hand and ready to pitch.

Mistakes Every New Homebrewer Makes - A list of suggestions on how to avoid common pitfalls for the first time brewer.

Treatise on Oaking Homebrew - The general theory and practice behind my use of oak in homebrew.

Testing the Alcohol Content of Ice Concentrated Beer - A day in AJ's lab running the test to figure out just how much alcohol EisAdam contained.

Session Ale Brewing Tips - A series of suggestions for brewing better low alcohol beers that maintain the flavor and body of the strong beers everyone loves.

Why Sour Beers? -  An article I wrote for HomeBrewTalk about why I love brewing sour beers so darn much!

Podcast Interviews
Basic Brewing Radio - September 7, 2006 - Single-Hop Small Batch Experiment
Basic Brewing Radio - December 28, 2006 - Belgian Sugar Experiment
Basic Brewing Radio - September 20, 2007 - Offbeat Yeast Part One
Basic Brewing Radio - September 27, 2007 - Offbeat Yeast Part Two
Basic Brewing Radio - May 15, 2008 - Alternate Hopping Strategies
Basic Brewing Radio - March 13, 2008 - Belgian Sugar Experiment II
Basic Brewing Radio - December 4, 2008 - Beer Blending Experiment
Basic Brewing Radio - October 8, 2009 - Solera Brewing and Barrel Aging
Final Gravity - May 27, 2010 - Mike the Mad Fermentationist..sake and beer in DC
Basic Brewing Radio - December 9, 2010 - Kvass: Beer with Bread
Basic Brewing Radio - December 16, 2010 - Barrel Aging Update
BeerSmith - January 27, 2011 - Historic Beer Brewing
Basic Brewing Radio - March 10, 2011 - Berliner Weisse
Basic Brewing Radio - September 1, 2011 - Brewing Saison
BeerSmith - September 15, 2011 - Session Beer with The Mad Fermentationist
Final Gravity - September 16, 2012 - Harvest Fest special part 1
Basic Brewing Radio - March 8, 2012 - Solera Tasting Pt. 1
Basic Brewing Radio - April 5, 2012 - Solera Tasting Pt. 2
Basic Brewing Radio - October 18, 2012 - Sour GABF
BeerSmith - January 28, 2013 - Pro Beer Brewing Startup with Modern Times
Basic Brewing Radio - January 31, 2013 - Dark Lagers
BeerSmith - October 28, 2013 - Modern Times Brewery Follow Up
Basic Brewing Radio - July 3, 2014 - Michael Tonsmeire at Club Night
BeerSmith - July 22, 2014 - Sour Beer Brewing with Michael Tonsmeire 
The Sour Hour - August 28, 2014 - First Episode
Basic Brewing Radio - November 12, 2014 - Mad Berliner Weisse
Basic Brewing Radio - November 20, 2014 - Mad Weird Fermentations
BeerSmith - January 7, 2015 - Beer Brewing Secrets
Brewing Business - March 9, 2015 - Michael Tonsmeire - The Mad Fermentationist 
Fermentation Nation - April 13, 2015 - Intro to Sours & The Mad Fermentationist
Chop & Brew - May 28, 2015 - Influence of Mashing on Sour Beer Production
Basic Brewing Radio - August 6, 2015 - Modern Times Brewing 
Craft Commander - December 3, 2015 - Michael Tonsmeire "The Mad Fermentationist"
Basic Brewing Radio - January 7, 2016 - Tonsmeire Recipe Tips
BeerSmith - April 15, 2016 - Embrace Homebrewing
Sour Rangers - June, 2016 - Michael Tonsmeire on Sour Beer
Trellis to Table - June 16, 2016 - Mike Tonsmeire, the Mad Fermentationist
Basic Brewing Radio - July 14, 2016 - Collaborative Flemish Red
Basic Brewing Radio - August 11, 2016 - Tonsmeire Funky Honey Beer Experiment
Basic Brewing Radio - July 28, 2016 - Tonsmeire Taps
Basic Brewing Radio - September 22, 2016 - BlueJacket/The Arsenal
The Food Flow - November 1, 2016 - The Art of Homebrewing Beer
The Brew Files - February 8, 2017 - Michael Tonsmeire Fails Gracefully At Cloning Oerbier
The Sour Hour - April 23/30, 2017 - Part 1 and Part 2
Good Beer Hunting - October 17, 2017 - Michael Tonsmeire and Scott Janish of Sapwood Cellars
The Brew Files - December 12, 2017 - Double the Juice with Mike
BeerSmith - February 26, 2018 - Brewing New England IPA
Uncapped - January 16, 2019 - Sapwood Cellars
Good Beer Hunting - January 28, 2019 - So, you opened a brewery. Now what?
Basic Brewing Radio - March 14, 2019 - Scaling Up with Sapwood Cellars
Basic Brewing Ratio - August 8, 2019 - Mike Tonsmeire Meetup
See What You Can Brew - August 10, 2019 - The Mad Fermentationist
Modern Times: The Podcast - Episode 5: The Mad Fermentationist
Basic Brewing Radio - October 8, 2020 - English Imperial Stout
Beersmith - Decmeber 31, 2020 - Craft Brewery Operations
Jared Veldbeer Podcast - October 2021 - Mike Tonsmeire, Sapwood Cellars