What's this all about then? A beer made from steam! Must be the latest in cutting edge brewing - a tipple you can inhale, and designed by brewers to open up and exploit the lucrative vape market I’m guessing…Well not exactly. Steam beer actually finds its roots in the Bavarian Dampfbiers which were brewed at high temperatures in the 1800s - and it is most definitely liquid.It’s thought the Germanic descent of early settlers/brewers in the US introduced this style to the country and, in this respect, it is very much the precursor to the Californian Common.The Californian Common is...

The question of what is the perfect Xmas ale is one I have often asked myself, but as luck would have it, last year a chance encounter with Saint Nick himself (as I sat in front of the box watching Die Hard on Christmas Eve) finally laid the question to rest.What follows is a transcript of the short beer conversation we had (Santa seemed in a rush… something about NZ being his first stop of many).Me: Santa, this really is a fabulous surprise - thank you so much for agreeing to have a chat on the topic of the perfect...

Although the beginning of the eleventh century technically saw the end of the Dark Ages - it was nonetheless a dark time for beer, and most notably for hops.When hops were first used in brewing is pretty unclear. There is documentation of hop cultivation as early as 763 in Hallertau in Germany and a recipe for hopped beer that was written in 822 AD by the abbot of a Benedictine monastery in Picardy, France.However, beer’s early history as a mass consumed commodity is very much about gruit.Gruit is essentially a herb mixture used for bittering and flavouring beer - an...

If you’ve ever had an honest chat with a brewer over a beer or two about the financial feasibility of running a brewery, you’ve probably heard the line - don’t get into brewing if you want to make money. It’s a competitive industry for sure and the capital involved in starting up is significant.However, the recent flurry of new members in the International Trappist Association seems to paint a different picture of brewing’s current commercial viability - with five out of 12 of the official members having started brewing since 2012.Manual labour plays an important role in Cistercian spiritual tradition,...