Posts

What makes a craft brewery?

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According to the American Brewers Association definition, a craft brewery is a small and independent brewer. Small means an annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less. Beer production is attributed to a brewer. Independent means that less than 25 percent of the craft brewery is owned or controlled by people who are not a craft brewer. The brewer is registered with the Tax and Trade Bureau and makes beer. In British Columbia, Canada, the Craft Brewers Guild restricts membership to those who produce under 200,000 HL annually and the company must be at least 51% BC owned.     Vermont Pub and Brewery in Burlington, Vermont during COVID Our instructor, Nick Poslowski, at the University of Vermont Business of Craft Beer School, asked us, his students: What makes a Craft Brewery? My fellow students answered: quality/ experimentation, local-ness, and community: Quality and experimentation “The most resounding themes in craft brewing are continued learning, quality over quan

Calculating per cent alcohol from Specific Gravity

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The University of Vermont Business of Craft Beer School is not about teaching us how to brew. They assume the students know the basics of brewing before getting into the business! I am learning the basics of making mead from my friend Julie Nitschke and from many different sources on the web. Percent alcohol is always of interest. I found a calculation to turn the Specific Gravity readings into an approximate estimate of the percent alcohol at https://www.instructables.com/Measuring-Alcohol-Content-With-a-Hydrometer/ They have a nice clear description of the whole measuring process. They explain: ‘For an approximate estimation, the magic number is 131.25. Your percent alcohol can be given by the formula: ABV(%) = (Initial Gravity - Final Gravity) * 131.25. So if your initial gravity was 1.108, and your final gravity was 1.041, your beer is approximately 8.79% alcohol by volume.’ The carboy holding Mead 2 for 100 days. Note the yeast at the bottom. Small bubbles stil

Creating a marula supply line

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    Asali Society is developing beverages - meads, liqueurs, sodas and juices - made of honey and indigenous fruits. We are developing recipes using delicious, amazing, nutritious, under-valued indigenous fruits such as marula, mtandamboo, mbungo, and mtopetope pori. Table. Indigenous Renewable Plant Resources to be used by Asali Society Meadery   Name of plant English Swahili Part of plant to be used Adansonia digitata Baobab Mbuyu Seed powder Carissa spinarum native currants Mtanda-mboo Fruit, leaves Saba comorensis Bungo Mbungo Fruit Kigelia africana Mwegea Sausage Tree Fruit Sclerocarya birrea Marula Mgongo Fruit Tamarindus indica Tamarind