5 Tips For Starting a Succesful Homebrew

Our kettle, home made wort chiller and a couple frothy glasses of Lower Thompsonville Rouge (LTR).

The line between passion and obsession is often blurred. Never has that been more true than when I dove into homebrewing. What started as a weekend hobby to brew a couple of cases has occupied most of my down time this past few weeks. Now that things in the Real Man Travels brewery are operating smoothly, its time to drop some knowledge on the would-be brewmasters amoung the Real Man Travels faithful.

But first, a short quiz to see if homebrewing is for you:

1: Do you like beer?
YES - you should brew beer!
NO- see question 2

2: Do you you like cooking/baking?
YES - you should brew beer!
NO- see question 3

3: Do you enjoy science experiments?
YES- you should brew beer!
NO- see question 4

4: What the hell is wrong is wrong with you? In truth, I should have asked this after you said NO to question 1.

Taking a gravity reading before fermentation can help determine alcohol content.

Now that we've weeded out those who cannot be trusted, I'm going to be using some brew lingo in these tips (yes, brewing has its own special language to make things more complicated fun.) Luckily, the internet is smarter than us all. I recommend John Palmer's How To Brew to help you make sense of it all. Now that we are all ready, here's my five tips for starting a successful homebrew

Tip 1: Do yourself a favour and buy a starter kit. The fine people over at Toronto Brewing and Ontario Beer Kegs have several packages to choose from ranging from a simple extract brewing set up to the more advanced "all grain" set ups. Basically you wind up with everything you need to get your new obsession rolling.

A cold water bath is a primitive way to bring the wort down to "pitching" temperature.

Tip 2: Buy the biggest brew kettle you can find/afford. Fact: you can boil five gallons of water in a 10 gallon pot, but you cant boil 10 gallons of water in a five gallon pot. The last thing you want to do is out grow your kettle (its really just a big pot) shortly after your purchase. That said, you also don't need to drop a g-note on a 55 gallon kettle when you are only making five gallons of beer. If you decide five gallon extract brewing is for you, then get a six gallon kettle (20% extra to prevent boil over).

The wort chiller at work in Sir Fredericks' Ale.

Tip 3: Clean like your life depends on it. If there's one thing that will crush your homebrew dreams it will be poor sanitation. Everything needs to be cleaned and sanitized to hospital standards to ensure your beer's success. I can't stress this enough. no cutting corners. Use a high quality sanitizer like Star San.

Tip 4: Know your yeast. Yeast plays a very important roll in your beer's journey from boiling water to delicious nectar of the gods. Each variety of yeast may shape your beer's flavour differently, but it will also require a certain optimal condition to "get things moving." Temperature is an important factor to take into consideration. Some yeasts require 55 -71 degrees Fahrenheit where others can be happy right up to 100 degrees. You can "start" your yeast to ensure everything is alive and kicking before adding it to your wort. To do this add a table spoon of sugar to a cup of water and boil it. When it has cooled to "pitching" temperature (65F-100F depending on the yeast you've chosen) add half of your yeast package and cover. in 5-10 minutes you should see some activity. three days into fermentation add the remainder of the yeast. This will help prevent coming home to an awful mess, as well as ensure you have plenty of active yeast for bottle carbonation.

Fermenting a batch. A blow off tube can prevent an awful mess.

Tip 5: Patience, young grasshopper. After you brew you will want to try your beer - that's only natural. However, make sure your fermentation has finished before moving onto bottling (or kegging!). Then of course you will want to pop a top on one of your creations as soon as you feel its ready to go. This will again test your patience as every day of carbonation adds more flavour to your beer. As a rule of thumb give your beer a minimum of two weeks from bottling day you sample it. This should allow for adequate carbonation. If it doesn't taste quite right, leave it for another week.

There you have it. Just enough information to make you dangerous at your local home brew supply shop. If you have any questions please feel free to ask; if you've got some tips for us, we'd love to hear from you!

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Walk, Talk and Drink Beer with Local Tours Montreal

I recently visited Montreal with my girlfriend for a wedding (original post here) and we decided to make a weekend trip out of it to explore the city and what it has to offer. Any reader of Real Man Travels will know that we all love beer, so naturally I signed us up for a walking Brew Pub tour which Local Tours Montreal graciously let us participate in for free. The Brew Pub tour was hosted by our guide Phillipe Blouin (Phil) and he was extremely knowledgeable about beer and Quebec history. The tour would see us visiting 3 different establishments in Montreal and stopping off at local historic attractions. After it was all said and done, the tour was much different than I expected, but in a very good way.

Local Montreal Tours Logo and Brew Pub Tour Logo

I think it’d be important to first state the difference between a Brew Pub and a Micro-Brewery. As our guide Phil informed us, a micro-brewery makes and distributes their beer into SAQ, convenience stores, Beer stores etc, whereas a Brew Pub can only make and sell their beer on their premise. That means that all the beers I will describe below can only be found at each location! That is a pretty good enough reason to make sure you visit them if you are a beer lover!

Our first stop of the Brew Pub tour was L’amère à Boire located at 2049 Rue Saint-Denis. This establishment had a great classy rustic look to it and it was here that we met our group of 18 on the private terrace in the back. Our first beer of the day was a German Hefe Weizen; at the mention of this a lady from New York clapped in joy as it was her favourite type. Phil immediately put us to the test and asked us what fruit and spice we tasted in the beer. After all of us guessed wrong it was revealed that there was banana and cloves that created the spicy aroma and fruity taste. Our second beer tasting was a Czech Pilsner, the pride and joy of this establishment as the owner had gone through great lengths to acquire and maintain his yeast. I don’t want to spoil the great story behind the yeast but it involves communism in Europe and doomsday-esque storage, so be sure to listen up during the tour at this point.

One of the first beers we tried, obviously I had to be reminded to actually take a photo before drinking it all!

With two tasty beers down the gullet it was time to move on to Brew Pub number two. But first we made a pit stop at the Grande Bibliothèque (Grand Library) where Phil gave us a great rundown of Quebec’s history and why this building is so important to French heritage. After the history lesson we shuttled through an alley way filled with beautiful murals and ended up at our second stop of the day in the Quartier Latin at Le. Saint Bock.

Just a fraction of the group at Le Saint Bock drinking and eating.

Le Saint Bock, located at 1749 Rue Saint-Denis, was a far more modern bar with a huge selection of beer. In fact the selection is so large that they have a catalogue dubbed the “Beer Bible”. We are talking over 600 beer choices with 44 of those on tap. We began our tasting with a Brown Ale that was paired with melted brie, maple syrup, bread and roasted pecans. I have to say this was as tasty as it gets! Our second beer was a double I.P.A. During this tasting Phil had delivered a lesson on the process of brewing and what factors make for different brews. We also had a chance to smell and taste some roasted malt and smell a jar of hops. Although I was familiar with the brewing process, Phil gave a great rundown of how it is done and a definite must listen to anyone considering home brewing. 

Looks messy, tastes amazing! Melted brie with maple syrup, roasted pecans and bread.

The rest of the tour would see the group through the St. Louis Square (dubbed "the closest thing to a European neighborhood square you'll find this side of the Atlantic" by the Project for Public Spaces, a non profit situated in New York). After that we ventured down an alleyway filled with little shops, bars and more that was a hidden gem and a highlight of the trip.

The next Brew Pub was Benelux located at 245 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest. Benelux as well is modern in style and offers a handful of beer. The beer you will taste here varies for each trip but because we had a bachelor party in our group Phil wanted to bring out the big guns percentage wise for them. We tried a 9% beer called Zoot which is an Abbey Tripel so it was hoppy in the finish which was great. And the last beer the group would have was an American Ale, something refreshing to finish the day.

Nectar of the gods. 

Unfortunately this is where the tour ended, but after scoping out some other bars and brew pubs along the way, we had an idea of where to go next! Thank you to Local Montreal for hosting us on this fantastic tour and to our guide Phil who was not only fun and engaging, but very knowledgable and willing to answer any question. If you are ever in the Montreal area and have 3 hours to spare I would recommend signing up for this tour!

Next time you are in Montreal be sure to book a tour with Local Montreal Tours via their website, They also host a Bachelor Party tour and a Mile End Food tour so be sure to check out their Twitter page for any updates.

Thanks again to Montreal Tourism and Local Montreal Tours for setting us at Real Man Travels up with this great experience! If you have been to any of these establishments or have done the walking tour be sure to let us know in the comment section below, on Twitter or on Facebook.

Cheers,
Ed Arsenault

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