Beer Diary...

On this years trip to San Miguel I only brought a few vital brewing ingredients including a couple pounds of specialty grain, 3/4 pound of hops and a few dry yeast packets. For the bulk of my base malts I was relying on one of the relatively new homebrew stores down here that sell on-line, in this case Fermentando out of Mexico City(?). It was easy using my Pay-Pal account and I received my order within a few days or ordering. I was very pleased and would highly recommend them. They also seem to have the largest selection of ingredients and equipment and an easy to navigate website that has an English option. The following are the three beers I brewed. In each case I used a single infusion mash in a plastic bucket at approximately 150f. for 60 minutes and because the water here is moderate to hard I included 5 gallons of bottled water along with the tap water to achieve a beginning boil volume of 7 gallons. I also used an ice bath to chill each to 65f. b...

Brewer/owner Jorgé Torales New friend and homebrewer Antonio (owner of The Beer Company) and I took a road trip this past Sunday to look in on a microbrewery in nearby Queretero to see how a small Mexican brewery operates and maybe taste a few small batch samples. As we reached our destination, we were not sure if it was the right place. We were parked in front of what appeared to be an abandoned building in a questionable neighborhood. The front had a couple of rusted and padlocked roll-up doors covered in grafitti. But as we looked around and considered the odds of getting caught up in a knife fight with a roving street gang, our host arrived. Jorgé Torales is probably the youngest professional brewer I've ever met. Thin and energetic he comes across as unassuming, but passionate about brewing. He and his brother who have been brewing for close to ten years, own and operate the smallest brewery I've ever come across. Toro (a play off his name, Torales) brewing or Cervec...

When I left California for Mexico in December I had no intention of teaching homebrewing down here like I've done in past years. I brought enough hops, yeast and specialty grains with me to brew a couple batches of beer for myself. After teaching some exhaustive five week courses at Cabrillo College, I just wanted to relax and give myself a break. Shortly after arriving in San Miguel, I discovered that's not what I wanted. I really enjoy sharing what I know about brewing with other people. It's very satisfying for me to teach a skill that I have a passion for and at the same time make connections with strangers who share in a love of brewing. What I really wanted, was to do it (teach) differently. What I came to find is that it's the way that I conduct classes that needed to be changed. 20 peso beers about $1.40ea. A caguama is slang for the large bottles of corona, literally means large turtle After just a few weeks of warm wea...

It's been awhile that I've posted the stats for Beer Diary... Not since this post back in 2009 when the top search inquiry was for my Duvel clone recipe and my beer tasting evaluation sheet . Well, times have changed and so, in the interest of passing on more totally useless information and maybe giving the regular readers a glimpse into what (for the most part) homebrew people are Googling, here is a page view from my Google analytics for Beer Diary... hits. As you can see, 'Make your own keggle site glass' is overwhelmingly the most popular subject and most of this support comes from online searches. Seems the brewing community wants to figure out how to make these themselves rather than pay the $60 or so to buy one. This does not surprise me since from personal experience I know how cheap we homebrewers are, but what is surprising is the second line item, Pulque. Spending a few months each year in Mexico for the past several years, I've witnessed the gro...

One of the craft beers that are more available through larger production and better distribution than most here is Cerveceria Minerva. Sandwiched between the two beer giants, they get a small allowance of real estate on the shelves at some of the larger grocery stores. That said, the main convenience store chain Oxxo (the 7-11 of Mexico), is owned by Femsa (Coka Cola) who also owns Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc-Moctezuma (Bohemia) and includes Heinekin. Naturally, Oxxo only sells Moctozuma brands and Coke, not Pepsi, and so even though there are a million of these stores you will never see a craft beer in any of them. So, against all odds, the 'big boy' of the craft beer movement in mainland Mexico is Cerveceria Minerva   out of Guadalajara, with their line up of five popular beers including: Colonial which claims to be like a Kolsch which I'll talk about in a minute, Vienna, Pale Ale, Imperial Stout and their idea of a Pi...