Beer Radar<\/p>\n
By John Kr\u00fcger<\/p>\n
The beer that changed my life.<\/p>\n
Continuing our series of \u201cThe beer that changed my life\u201d this month is one of our favourite beer experts from the United States and prolific beer author Charlie Papazian. The godfather of homebrewing coined the phrase \u201cDon\u2019t worry, relax, have a homebrew\u201d which has been used as a mantra by homebrewers worldwide to the point where online forum members regularly quote the acronym DWRHAHB and t-shirts and coffee cups bearing the letters are available for sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure that prohibition style homebrew I had in Charlottesville, Virginia changed the course of my life.\u00a0 I was a student at the University of Virginia when a neighbor of a friend went down to his basement to \u201cget the good stuff,\u201d a year old pale homebrew.\u00a0I marveled at the clarity, color, foam and unique character.\u00a0 It was way more interesting than any of the cheap beer I was buying then, back in 1970.<\/p>\n
I was made to realize that I could make my own beer.\u00a0 So I began my journey down the path that leads me to here and now.<\/p>\n
Another real head turner: Aecht Schenklera smoked Bamberg lager.\u00a0 It was sent to me by a homebrewer who had just returned from Germany.\u00a0 At the time in 1978 I had not visited Europe yet.\u00a0 And my first German Helles and Pilsener was also in that package.\u00a0 None of these beers\u00a0were anything like imported German beers that were available.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to realize something was amiss here.\u00a0 Why couldn\u2019t we get real European quality beers in the USA? They brewed stuff especially for the American market \u2013 or it was so old that it didn\u2019t generate any beer drinker excitement.<\/p>\n
It became clear and all the reason why homebrewing was essential.\u00a0 You had to learn how to make it. Then make it in order to get authenticity.\u00a0I had a lot to learn. I traveled to the UK in 1981 and learned the foundations for brewing authentic English ales, stouts and real ales.<\/p>\n
Homebrewers had been brewing stouts and the wisdom was you had to wait many months for the beer to mellow out.\u00a0 A real head turner was Guinness Stout and other Irish and English stouts, brewed, smooth and ready to drink in 10 days!\u00a0I listened to brewmasters tell me their simple knowledge.<\/p>\n
I cast away most of the English homebrewing books of the time. They had much bad information and perpetuated myths.\u00a0 It was time to translate pro brewing techniques to small scale homebrewing.\u00a0 Thus emerged my Complete Joy of Homebrewing<\/em> 1984 original edition.<\/p>\n My head continues to turn and beers continue to change my life.\u201d<\/p>\n *Many thanks to Charlie for his help in this article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beer Radar By John Kr\u00fcger The beer that changed my life. Continuing our series of \u201cThe beer that changed my life\u201d this month is one of our favourite beer experts from the United States and prolific beer author Charlie Papazian. The godfather of homebrewing coined the phrase \u201cDon\u2019t worry, relax, have a homebrew\u201d which has … Continue reading Interview with Charlie Papazian<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beer","category-craft-beer","category-home-brew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}