Sam Calagione - Extreme Brewing, A Deluxe Edition with 14 New Homebrew Recipes: An Introduction to Brewing Craft Beer at Home

A Deluxe Edition with
14 New Homebrew Recipes

An Introduction to Brewing Craft Beer at Home

Sam Calagione

owner of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

2006, 2012 by Quarry Books

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners. All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the artists concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by producer, publisher, or printer for any infringement of copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied. We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred and will resolve inaccurate or missing information in a subsequent reprinting of the book.

First published in the United States of America in 2012 by
Quarry Books, a member of
Quayside Publishing Group
100 Cummings Center
Suite 406-L
Beverly, Massachusetts 01915-6101
Telephone: (978) 282-9590
Fax: (978) 283-2742
www.quarrybooks.com

Digital Edition: 978-1-59253-802-7
Softcover Edition: 9781-6-1059-948-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Calagione, Sam, 1969
Extreme brewing : an enthusiasts guide to brewing craft beer at home / Sam Calagione.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-59253-293-4 (pbk.)
1. BrewingAmateurs manuals. I. Title.

TP570.C3146 2006
641.873dc22 2006019246
CIP

ISBN: 978-1-59253-802-7
Digital edition published in 2012
eISBN: 978-1-61059-948-1

Extreme Brewing contains a variety of tips and recommendations for making beer. While caution was taken to give safe recommendations, it is impossible to predict the outcome of each recommendation or recipe. Neither Sam Calagione, nor the Publisher, Quayside Publishing Group, accepts liability for any mental, financial, or physical harm that arises from following the advice or techniques, using the procedures, or consuming the products in this book. Readers should use personal judgment when applying the recommendations of this text.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DESIGN: Lori Wendin

PAGE LAYOUT: Leslie Haimes

COVER DESIGN: Rockport Publishers

PHOTOGRAPHY: Kevin Fleming, except the following:
Courtesy of Yakima Chief, Inc.,

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to all of the amazing brewers I am and have been fortunate to work with at Dogfish Head. Your dedication and passion for the craft of brewing inspires me every day.

to deluxe edition

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO I was fortunate enough to be invited, by Sony and the family of Miles Davis, to brew a special beer commemorating the fortieth anniversary of his fusion masterpiece album, Bitches Brew. In reverence of that fusion approach, we created a beer that fused three-parts imperial stout fermented with raw dark sugar from the Ilse of Mearitious with one-part Tejthe traditional honey beer of Ethiopia, which is bittered with gesho tree root.

I met Miless nephew, and onetime band-mate, in a recording studio in New York to tell him about our plan for the recipe and to hear some early outtakes from the Bitches Brew recording sessions. I told him what we planned to make and about the list of ingredients we would use in the recipe. He was quiet for a minute, as we nodded along to the music. Then, he said, I like the sound of that... it reminds me of something Miles used to say: Dont play whats there, play whats not there.

Homebrewers and craft-beer lovers are promiscuous, and this is a beautiful thing. They are explorers, and they love the thrill of something new. They might have a cadre of go-to breweries or recipes on which they focus most of their attention, but they are also ready and willing to step outside their comfort zones and let their freak flags fly. Being adventurous is what makes the wide world of beer so thrilling. There has never been a more exciting time to be a beer lover. There are now more than 1,800 commercial breweries in the United States alone; this number recently surpassed the pre-Prohibition high, and the average American now lives within 10 miles (16 km) of a local brewery. As consumers, we finally have a huge variety of commercially brewed, diverse, and flavorful craft beers at our fingertips. And yet the homebrewing movement has never been more vibrant and innovative. At first glance this might seem counterintuitive. There are more styles of more brands of high-quality world class craft beer available in stores and on tap at restaurants than ever before, and yet people are gravitating to homebrewing in droves.

In the 1970s, when the modern homebrewing movement began gaining momentum, a driving factor was the lack of diversity and the lack of intensely flavorful American beers available in that era. It was part of the DIY approachif you cant buy something, make it yourself. Fast-forward to today: Store shelves are bursting with choices, craft brewery marketshare is at a record high, but homebrewing continues to grow as well. I believe the reason for this growth goes back to this ideal of promiscuitythe joy that comes with pushing the envelope and stepping outside of your comfort zone. As a homebrewer, you are not limited by what beers are available to buy; you are limited by what ingredients are available to buy, and if you consider the entire culinary landscape as your playing field, you are then truly only limited by your imagination.

Theres a passage in Colman Andrewss fine biography, Ferran, about the eponymous chef who is rightfully recognized as the patriarch of the molecular gastronomy movement, which I believe also defines the raison detre of the extreme brewing movement: On one occasion Ferran rather cryptically remarked, Why do we have coffee and then an egg at breakfast, while at lunch we eat the egg and then have the coffee? If you understand that, you can do avant-garde cooking. What he meantI thinkwas that if it occurs to you to notice such contradictions in the way we eat, youll be more likely to question the common culinary wisdom and then be able to imagine ways to countermand it. Ferran wants us to eat with our brains.

Extreme brewing, to me, means using your own brain and not someone elses idea of brewing tradition to make extremely flavorful beer. Not just the four common ingredients pounded down our throats by the largest global brewers with the force of billion-dollar ad campaigns. Its about refusing to accept the idea that beer can only be made with barley, hops, water, and yeast. Flipping accepted practices on their head, deciding for ourselves as brewers what the widest definition of beer can be, and helping to more broadly define beer by exploring the outer edgestheres avant-garde art. Theres avant-garde cooking. Why shouldnt there by avant-garde brewing?

Tristan Tzara, one of the papas of Dada and the avant-garde art movement, wrote in his manifesto, The new painter creates a world, the elements of which are also its implements, a sober definitive work without argument. The new artist protests: He no longer paints a reproduction of what he sees but creates directly in stone, wood, iron, tin, boulderslocomotive organisms capable of being turned in all directions by the limpid wind of momentary sensation.