Blog Posts — Under the Jenfluence

I Tried It: Calculating My Malt Bill By Hand

Like most people, I rarely rely on my own knowledge to recall anything and I almost exclusively rely on various software, apps, and algorithms to determine how I move through my daily life. This reliance naturally extends to my homebrewing.

I'm Trying It: Drinking My Beer Cellar

Let's call this year twenty consolidate-teen.

Jen BlairJanuary 9, 2018New Year Resolutions, NOMO FOMO, FOMO, fear of missing out, beer cellar, rare beer, consolidate, consolidate teen, vertical tasting, Cicerone, BJCPComment

I Tried It: Beer & Food Pairings or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Pair Doppelbock with Everything

The virtue of whatever dish I'm making is that the individual ingredients taste good when you cook them into one dish - I'm not making toothpaste and orange juice casserole.

Jen BlairNovember 28, 2017beer and cheese, beer and food, Beer Pairing, The Brewmasters Table, Garrett Oliver, Julia Herz, Gwen Conley, Doppelbock, Tripel, Saison, Dr. Strangelove, Porcini Linguine, pizzaComment

I Tried It: Beer & Halloween Candy Pairing

As an adult, some nights I spend my time looking over open enrollment paperwork, trying to decide which plan really feels like "me." Other nights I tell my husband not to fill up on dinner because we have seven different kinds of candy to pair with beer while we watch Stranger Things 2.

🍌 Isoamyl Acetate is Bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S 🍌

Let's get bananimated about esters!

I (Re)Tried It: Belgian Strong Ales Blind Tasting

"To-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."

I Tried It: Not Buying All the Beer

Having just posted about my progress on my New Year's Resobrewtions, I made a decision on my plane ride to San Diego: I would not bring back any beer.

I Tried It: BJCP Beer Judging Exam

I held out on becoming a BJCP judge for a surprisingly long time for someone who is obsessed with getting points and advancing ranks. There are plenty of times, even for me, when I want to just. drink. a. beer. Not evaluate it.

Jen BlairJuly 18, 2017BJCP, BJCP scoresheets, BJCP Guidelines, BJCP judge, beer judging, Beer Judge Certification Program, so you want to be a beer judge, Under the Jenfluence, CIcerone Certification Program, Cicerone, The Simpsons, Homer SimpsonComment

New Years Resobrewtions: Halfway There

Now that the year if halfway finished (what? how did that happen?), I decided to revisit my seven beer-related goals for 2017 about which I wrote at the beginning of January.

Jen BlairJuly 9, 2017Advanced Cicerone, BJCP, Under the Jenfluence, resolutions, wine, Beer and Food, Food pairings, Veruca SaltComment

I Tried It: 100% Brett-Fermented Homebrew - Part 2

It's been 77 days since I brewed my 100% Brett-fermented beer and I'm happy to report three things.

Jen BlairJuly 9, 2017Brett, brewing with Brettanomyces, homebrewing, Under the Jenfluence, horse blanket, Armin Tamzarian, The HostComment

I Tried It: Beer Gummies

Lately I've been seeing gummies popping up made of wine, booze, and now beer. Curious about how to make them, I started researching recipes. As it turns out, beer gummies are super easy and quick to make.

I Tried It: Extract Brewing

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 Tried It: Backwoods Bastard Vertical

There are a lot worse things you can do on a Tuesday night than drink a four year vertical of Backwoods Bastard from Founders Brewing Company. Like anything else, because four bottles of this delicious barrel aged Scotch Ale is a pretty sweet Tuesday night.

How I Asheville

Ah, Asheville - the place that makes everyone who visits look at local job openings and contemplate what it would take to move there. Usually while drinking a beer.

Putting the Rad in Radlermass: How Quick Thinking Invented a New Beer Style

Kugler named his drink Radlermass - radler means cyclist in German and mass is an old Bavarian word for liter. Thus, the cyclist's liter was invented.

Jen BlairMay 21, 2017radler, radlermass, summer beer, shandy, best beers for summer, Deisenhofen, Kugleralm, Franz Xaver Kugler, Munich, Munich Helles, Helles, Bavaria, Bavarian helles, Under the JenfluenceComment

I Tried It: Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow

It will likely surprise no one that I routinely won the "Most Book Reports" award when I was in elementary school. I regularly cashed in my Book-Its points for personal pan pizzas at Pizza Hut, wearing my giant purple Book-It pin as I chowed down on my pizza.

Jen BlairMay 15, 2017Wild Brews, Jeff Sparrow, Brettanomyces, Brett, corks, Under the Jenfluence, Book It, book reports, Advanced Cicerone, Cicerone, CIcerone Certification Program, mixed fermentation, wild fermentation, Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer's Yeast, Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition, Belgian wild aleComment

I Tried It: Stout Beer Barbeque Sauce

So smoky, so barbeque saucy, and so firm. Truly, I think I could turn any tofu skeptic into a tofu believer with this tofu and barbeque sauce combination. I served it with green beans and pimento mac and cheese, which is pretty amazing in itself, but the ingredient list is not for the faint of heart (among other ingredients, the recipe calls for a literal stick of butter and a quart of whole milk. It also lists the cheese needed in pounds, so...probably not for anyone counting calories.)

Jen BlairMay 2, 2017Tofu, The Beeroness, Barbeque Sauce, Stout barbeque sauce, stout beer barbeque sauce, barbeque tofu, how to prepare tofu, Under the Jenfluence, New Holland Brewing, The Poet, Oatmeal Stout, Milk Stout, Brooklyn Brown Ale, liquid aminos, all smoked everything, Red Rocks Hickory Smoke Seasoning, vegetarianComment

I Tried It: 100% Brett-Fermented Homebrew - Part 1

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.