The International Bitterness Unit (IBU) wasn't invented to tell beer drinkers how bitter a beer would taste. It was invented to help brewers make more consistent beer. Somewhere along the way, the brewing industry's quality control measurement became a consumer-facing marketing number—and that's where much of the confusion began.

The very best way to think of the difference between extract brewing and all-grain brewing is to think of the difference between using a cake mix and baking a cake from scratch.

I imagine that the trajectory homebrew has taken in my household is akin to parents with babies - at first, everything has to be clean and sanitized nearly to the point of being sterile to protect your offspring/homebrew; after awhile, though, you realize that your baby will live even if it eats Cheerios off the couch cushions and that your beer will still be drinkable even if you forgot to sanitize the scissors you used to cut open your yeast packet.

Even allowing for the fact that much of what we know about topics such as medicine and longstanding popular commercial products was the result of old-timey people saying "I wonder what this does. Death? Okay, then let's not do it quite like that anymore. How about when I do this?", getting from a fish to its bladder to use of said bladder in clarifying beer seemed like a huge leap. Like how many other things were people dumping in beer before they got around to thinking of drying a fish's bladder and then tossing it into beer?

My favorite term for a hangover is the jim-jams. So let’s say you find yourself with the jim-jams. What do you do? Like hiccups, most people have their own “cure” for a hangover. Here’s the deal: there is no cure or remedy for a hangover. The only remedy is time, i.e., your hangover is probably going to be your whole day. However, there are several things you can do to lessen the effects of your hangover.

I’ve heard and read a lot of stuff about what you should and should not do the morning of your Cicerone tasting exam: don’t eat, don’t drink coffee, don’t smoke, don’t wear perfume. I’m a brat when it comes to being hungry.