Winning Homebrew

Posted: 17 Aug 2021 05:34 AM PDT

I love peanut butter. No, I mean love peanut butter! In college, I had a "peanut butter family" in my pantry: six different peanut butter jars of varying sizes and kinds (including maple peanut butter and cinnamon peanut butter).

I really love peanut butter.

Everyone here at Winning-Homebrew loves beer, especially craft beer with new ideas. Going to breweries and getting flights is one of our favorite pastimes – we want to try everything they have to offer.

So, it makes sense that nothing makes us more excited than going to a brewery and seeing something new like a peanut butter porter on the menu.

If you get as excited as we do over peanut butter beer, keep reading. Here, in no particular order, are some of the best peanut butter beers we've found in breweries across America.

DuClaw Brewing: Sweet Baby Jesus

DuClaw's Sweet Baby Jesus is one of the most popular craft peanut butter beers in the country. Based in Maryland, DuClaw provides beer to 21 states and internationally.

They also have an Imperial chocolate peanut butter porter called "For Pete's Sake" and Sweet Baby Java, a twist on Sweet Baby Jesus but with more coffee than chocolate.

Sweet Baby Jesus is a chocolate peanut butter porter with 6.2% ABV and 33 IBU. With chocolate, all-natural peanut butter extract, and espresso, this beer starts smooth and finishes smoother.

It won bronze at the Great American Beer Festival and remains popular in Maryland and around the country. If you can get your hands on a DuClaw peanut butter beer, you won't regret trying it.

Belching Beaver Brewery: Peanut Butter Milk Stout

Belching Beaver Brewery is based in San Diego, with satellite locations all around Southern California. Their peanut butter milk stout is the number one seller at Belching Beaver, and for a good reason.

Belching Beaver's peanut butter milk stout has won over a dozen international awards with its smooth, delicious, and easy-to-drink taste. It has 5.3% ABV and 30 IBU. It's a delightful beer and probably sold somewhere near you!

They also offer a nitro version of their peanut butter milk stout and Viva la Beaver, a Mexican hot chocolate-inspired peanut butter milk stout with coffee and cinnamon tones on top of the chocolate and peanut butter (it's fantastic).

Liquid Mechanics Brewing: Peanut Butter Porter

Liquid Mechanics Peanut Butter Porter has been the recipient of five medals from various beer competitions.

They brew this porter in limited batches in their Lafayette, Colorado brewery and usually sell out quickly.

The Liquid Mechanics organic peanut butter porter has an ABV of 8.6%. It's an imperial porter, so it's dark and smooth.

This porter is the perfect drink for people who love porters first and peanut butter second.

It's an impressive porter, with rich, smooth hints of peanut butter and a smoky finish. There are coffee undertones without chocolate, making the beer a less sweet option than other peanut butter porters.

4 Hands Brewery: Absence of Light Peanut Butter Chocolate Stout

4 Hands Brewery in Saint Louis brews Absence of Light. This craft brewer combines the rich flavors and creaminess of a milk stout with the sweetness of peanut butter to great success.

Absence of Light has a 7.1% ABV and is more than just a peanut butter chocolate stout. It also features caramel and coffee notes and has a sweet, smooth taste.

If you're craving even more sweetness, 4 Hands also makes a S'more Absence of Light. It adds vanilla, marshmallows, and lactose to the brew.

Either one of these peanut butter chocolate milk stouts is delicious.

Terrapin Beer Company: Liquid Bliss

Terrapin Beer Company makes a bold claim with the name of their peanut butter porter: Liquid Bliss. However, the Atlanta, Georgia brewery doesn't overstate the greatness of this beer.

Liquid Bliss has a 6.1% ABV and 30 IBU. Liquid Bliss doesn't disappoint if you're looking for smooth peanut butter flavor in a dark porter with salty and sweet chocolate and peanut butter notes. It is a limited release that only occasionally makes its way to shelves or taps, but boy is it worth the wait. If you can find Liquid Bliss, buy it while it's there!

Catawba Brewing Company: Peanut Butter Jelly Time

North Carolina's premier brewery, Catawba Brewing Company, was founded in Asheville and has spread across the state.

Their Peanut Butter Jelly Time has been called a "sandwich in a glass" and is hugely popular.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time has an ABV of 5.7% and 10 IBU (it's very sweet). It's a raspberry brown ale and is one of the only peanut butter beers on this list that isn't a stout or a porter.

Catawba's Peanut Butter Jelly Time is brewed with raspberries and peanuts to recreate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich taste in your mouth.

It's delicious, and if you're in North Carolina, it's worth a try.

The Bruery: PB and Jelly Thursday

The Bruery, in Placentia, California, prides itself on high-quality beer, and their PB and Jelly Thursday is no exception. It's an imperial stout flavored with boysenberries, an ideal match for peanut butter.

Although it's one of the most expensive beers on this list, the PB and Jelly Thursday delivers on classic peanut butter and jelly flavors and a very high alcohol count (19.4% ABV).

A part of their weekday series, PB and Jelly Thursday follows other classics, including Black Tuesday (which also has peanut undertones in a very robust beer).

The Bruery is a unique experience, and if you're in SoCal, we highly recommend you visit one of their tasting rooms. Once there, you have to try the PB and J Thursday–it's a real treat!

Spring House Brewing Company: Chocolate Peanut Butter Stout

Based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Spring House Brewing Company offers a large assortment of different beers.

Their chocolate peanut butter stout, Big Gruesome, is one of my favorite year-round options.

Big Gruesome has a big flavor–peanut butter, chocolate, and the nutty undertones of a classic stout. It has an 8.5% ABV and tastes like a liquid peanut butter cup.

Spring House has made a beer that doesn't just have chocolate and peanut butter hints: these two flavors are the whole beer.

It's the perfect stout for Reese's fans–we get it every time we are at Spring House!

Gnarly Barley: Peanut Butter Korova Milk Porter

Gnarly Barley has more than just a fun name–they brew some delicious and award-winning beers. Not least of these is their peanut butter Korova milk porter: a legend amongst peanut butter beers.

The peanut butter Korova milk porter has a 9% ABV. It is served year-round at Gnarly Barley, which brews out of Hammond, Louisiana.

Gnarly Barley has a Korova milk porter with rich coffee, chocolate, and oat flavors. When they added real peanut butter, it made a delicious beer even better.

This combination of tastes is incredible and worthy of a try.

Dangerous Man's Brewing: Peanut Butter Porter

The Twin Cities are great beer cities, and Dangerous Man's Brewing makes the list of the top breweries to try in the area.

Their peanut butter porter has peanut butter, chocolate, and slight coffee notes throughout.

Dangerous man's peanut butter porter is a dark and smooth drink with an ABV of 5.9% and 26 IBU.

Almost rich enough to be a stout, this porter is a great drink to pass the winter in Minneapolis.

If you don't like the bitterness of hops, this beer is for you: it's all peanut butter all the time, with very little hoppiness of "beer" flavor.

The peanut butter porter at Dangerous Man is just a smooth drink of peanut butter.

Tin Whiskers: Salted Nut Roll Cream Ale

Another Twin Cities staple, Tin Whiskers, sits right in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. They offer a great selection of beers. One of my favorites (to no one's surprise) is the salted nut roll ale.

The Salted Nut Roll cream ale has 5.5% ABV and 12 IBUs. It’s a cream ale with peanut butter and vanilla flavorings, as well as lactose.

It's interesting because it's peanut butter flavored, but not a porter or a stout.

While the peanut butter brown ale lacks the deep smooth richness of these darker drinks, it has a great light peanutty flavor.

Tin Whiskers also partnered with Pearson's Candy (another Saint Paul original) to recreate their Nut Goodie candy in a porter with peanut butter.

It's peanut butter, chocolate, and maple syrup and makes a delicious beer (6% ABV).

If you're on a peanut butter beer tour of the midwest, stop into Tin Whiskers for both of these peanut butter beers. They'll give you very different but equally delicious experiences.

Short's Brewing Company: Über Goober

Über Goober is one of Short's Brewing Company's most popular stouts (and Short's Brewing is one of Michigan's most famous breweries).

It's an oatmeal cream stout with strong peanut butter overtones and hints of chocolate and coffee.

Über Goober has an ABV of 8.2 and an IBU of 30. It's smooth and creamy with a peanut butter cup feel.

Hot tip: if you're at Short's brewing and both über Goober and Soft Parade (their berry fruit ale) are on tap, you can request a blend to make a peanut butter and jelly stout. It's like a secret menu but for beers.

The post Peanut Butter Beer appeared first on Winning Homebrew.

The Best Lager Beers

Posted: 17 Aug 2021 05:27 AM PDT

Lagers have to ferment low and slow at cool temperatures to get the best results.

Now is one of the best times to start exploring (and appreciating) what authentic lager can be. The craft beer movement has had a resurgence since the COVID pandemic. American breweries have had more time to produce some of the best lager beers in various mature and delicious choices because of brewery closures across the country.

This list of cold-fermented beers doesn't just include pale amber pilsners, although they are present. It also has options that are dark, flavored, spiced, and pale.

Become a lager convert; this family of beers is available from craft breweries all over the country. Read on and find your lager.

New Belgium 1554 Enlightened Dark Ale

We're starting with a dark ale because lagers are more than just the Coors Lite and Budweisers of the world.

Those popular beers are fine, but this American lager from Colorado's New Belgium Brewery is dark and rich with notes of roasted coffee. It looks like a stout but uses lager yeast.

1554 is the beer to give your friends that don't like lagers.

Shmaltz Pastrami Pilsner

It is a flavored lager that doesn't use pastrami but instead takes its inspiration from the flavors found in the famous deli meat.

That's things like:

cracked black pepper
caraway and mustard
Herbs
Natural horseradish flavor

It would be fun just as a quirky idea, but people return to this beer because it offers umami in drink form. We think it's the perfect beer to have with a sandwich and a bag of chips.

Big Grove Brewery Iowa City Lager

This lager appeals to so many people because it's so light and accessible, with a crisp, clean taste, a fresh linen scent, and a bit of a honey swirl on the back of your tongue.

A perfect summer beer for times when you know you should stay hydrated, but the party on your patio demands something a little stronger than just water.

Smith & Lentz Brewing Mariachi Static

This Nashville lager offers mint and citrus aromas with a mild bitterness that disappears quickly. It almost bridges the gap between lager and IPA.

It can be a good introduction for a lager drinker to IPAs or a bridge to lagers from the IPA side. It's light and aromatic either way you drink it while retaining its crispness.

Hopewell Brewing Co Alpi

An Italian-style Pilsner that tricks your taste buds into thinking it's sweeter than it is.

It does this by pushing the naturally sweet hops forward and adding layers of coconut and notes of pineapple with a floral body.

Crisp, refreshing, and light, it's a nice beer to offer your cocktail-loving friends who aren't fans of heavier ales and bitter IPAs.

Jack's Abby Craft Lagers Calyptra

The purple can makes it jump out on the shelf, and the heavy grapefruit in each sip keeps it memorable without tasting soapy.

Too much rind can cause a beer to become astringent, but this lager balances bitterness and citrus to make an enjoyable beer that you can drink for any occasion.

Poison City Brewing Sad Devotion to Ancient Religion

This beer with a very cool name is a Schwarzbier, a German-style which translates to black beer.

This lager offers a lighter body than a porter or stout while still having a heavier beer's notes of chocolate, biscuit, and depth.

It makes a great addition to ice cream or brownies or for drinking after a meal. If you've always wanted to try dark beer, try a Schwarzbier to start.

Urban Chestnut Zwickel

This unpasteurized lager appears cloudy but tastes pure and clean like a traditional filtered lager, perhaps even more so. As European beers are so simple, there's nothing for the brewer to hide behind, and this beer is so popular because it's so simple.

The aroma is hops, but the taste is rich and almost bread-like, making it a filling drink compared to the lighter summer lagers mentioned elsewhere in this list.

Skip the bread with your German cuisine or barbeque and indulge in a Zwickel instead.

Brick West Brewing Co. Brick West Pilsner

This Pilsner has a dry, clean finish, almost like a dry white wine for wine lovers. As this is a German-style lager with some bitterness, hops, and a round taste, it will make you want to have more than one.

Weihenstephaner Pilsner

Light, fresh, crisp, and summery with a hoppy aroma and enough bitterness make it a great addition to a meal.

Lagers are versatile, and this one comes recommended as a pairing with risotto or pasta with cream sauce.

It's also delicious and enjoyable on its own, with a golden color that looks beautiful in a glass.

Chuckanut Rye Lager

Lagers fermented and mixed with rye are becoming more popular, and that's because of the unique and tasty spicy finish the rye gives to the finished product.

This beer is a beautiful golden lager, an excellent pairing with food or a complex malty drink to sip while enjoying a late summer or early fall evening.

Bohemia Clásica

The difference for this Mexican craft lager is that it doesn't need help from citrus to bring out the highlights in its flavor—no need to squeeze lime or citrus wedges down the bottle's neck.

It has a bit more bitterness and more depth and character on its own, allowing it to stand out among the other traditional, paler Mexican lagers.

Try the Bohemia Clásica, and if you enjoy its unique profile, branch out into other Mexican lagers on the market.

Russian River Brewing Co – Santa Rosa STS Pils

This Pilsner has bitter notes throughout, but it works well because the rest of the profile is bright and malty.

Balance is crucial in lagers; perhaps that's why people have the misconception that they're boring. Try this one if you want to appreciate a pure PIlsner made with lager yeast and a Russian River fermenting.

Tröegs Sunshine Pilsner

This Pilsner is a beer that is not only delicious in the summertime, but it looks like liquid sunshine with a straw to gold color hue when it's poured.

It has a bright and clean taste of citrus, honey, and bread with an aroma of herbs and natural, moderate carbonation that lifts everything.

No matter the season or the occasion, this is just an excellent refreshing beer that breaks that joke of lagers being boring.

Art History Brewing Inc Art History Fastenbier

Also known as Lenten lager (lent beer), this variety of smoked beer was traditionally only distributed by monks to other monks. Then, later on, it sold during Lent as a way to encourage the consumption of calories without breaking the required fast.

If you're lucky enough to get this Fastenbier from Art History Brewing, you're in for a treat.

It's dark for a lager but full of chocolate and spices with an aroma of tobacco that adds depth without weight. It is a meal in a glass.

New Glarus Two Women Country Lager

Sometimes you want a classic lager that is simple and done perfectly.

This beer is a by-the-book country lager crafted in a collaboration between two women-led breweries using malt and hops, resulting in a well-balanced drink that pairs well with heavy food.

Dovetail Helles

A light-colored beer from Chicago's Dovetail Brewery possessing a well-rounded body, this Helles is slightly floral but still clean and refreshing.

Consider this for a drink option at the tailgate party or for watching baseball together with family and friends.

Blackberry Farm Mountain Lager

When summer turns to fall and the weather starts to cool, this Vienna-style lager offers a bolder taste and richer body than a traditional pale lager.

Try it by the campfire—the malty taste pairs well with grilled meat and dark chocolate s'mores.

Trophy Flight Trajectory

Brown in color and a whopping 10.1% ABV, this Imperial lager has a powerful sip that might confuse someone new to lagers.

Don't be confused about the taste though, It tastes great while packing a punch, unlike its light and refreshing relatives.

With jammy notes like good red wine and woodsy elements like a fine liquor, it somehow works together to be something even better than the sum of its parts.

Finback Brewery Telephone Lines

A clean, crackling lager with a delicate hint of spice may be the best starting point for someone new to the style of beer, given all the unique variations of lagers.

This one is smooth with some lemon, pine, and even peppercorns lurking in the background. Combined with light carbonation and lighter bitterness, it makes a great warm-weather beer.

The post The Best Lager Beers appeared first on Winning Homebrew.

How To Make Wine

Tuesday, August 17, 2021