Author: kallen

Beer consumption is popular at social events, athletic events and at pubs. Of course, the variety of beer is widespread based upon individual preference. Generally speaking, beer can be categorized as light beer or dark beer. These two kinds of beers are always in demand throughout the year.

In comparing the light versus dark beer, the appearance of each kind is what differentiates the two. Light beer comes in different colors ranging from light amber colored to clear, white color. The appearance of dark beers will also vary from a dark, amber color look to a brown coffee colored appearance.

The next comparison is fluid density. Light beers are usually lower in calories and are easier to drink down since they are less filling as compared to dark beers. It’s more common to see people casually drink dark beer as opposed to downing the drink since it is a denser liquid. Examples of light beer include pilsners, wheat ales and beers. Examples of dark beers include stouts and porters.

In general, light beers have more hops flavor while dark beers are heavier on malts. Malts typically have flavors that are similar to coffee, chocolate and toffee which are not present in the lighter beers. Preference between light and dark beers can also be based on the seasons. For instance, light beer is commonly associated with drinking in the summer while consumption of dark beer is more prevalent during the winter periods. In summary, light and dark beer offer the consumer a difference in taste, which ultimately gives the consumer more variety when choosing their favorite drink.

Author: lukeporterbeer

Everyone who loves beer has their own preferences as to the best brands and the best tastes. Some of the most popular beers in the world are unique-tasting brands which are recognisable to all and have a legion of fans who enjoy them. there are many people who feel however that the readily available brands lack a certain something. The range of different lagers which are popular with millions are considered bland by many, who term them as being almost like water.

When brewing your own beer, you could make a near replica of any one of the bottled or canned brands available in stores. You could, however, go for something a little different. There is such a wide range of different tastes that you can go for. There is practically no limit to what you can do with the right ingredients, in fact. However, it should be remembered that just because you can do something, it does not mean you should. You could, theoretically, make a beer that tastes of just about anything, but some of them will taste horrific. Brewing flavoured beer is as much about restraint as it is imagination.

For example, it is possible to brew beer to taste like chocolate. It is entirely possible to brew very good chocolate beer, but many people make the mistake of looking at the recipe, thinking “that would be great with a little bit more chocolate” and amending the recipe only to find themselves with a frankly sickly brew that tastes more like sour chocolate soup than anything else. You can buy chocolate malt to achieve a result that tastes enough like chocolate and enough like beer to suit all palates.

The importance of restraint in brewing flavored beer is crucial. As there is a lot of fun to be had trying out different flavours, you will be hard pressed to find something that you cannot make into a beer. You could, theoretically, make a beer that tastes like cheese, but it would be horrible. It is also worth remembering that adding a product to the brewing process does not mean that the beer will taste like that item. Sometimes it is worth adding a flavouring that tastes like the intended product rather than adding the product itself.

Whatever you do it is important to recognize that just because you like chocolate and you like beer, it doesn’t mean that you will like chocolate beer. By all means experiment with different flavourings, but try to get the right balance of difference and quality. A fruit-flavored beer is a good place to start, but do not make the mistake of thinking that because the fruit itself is an organic ingredient that it should be added unrefined.

Brewing flavored beers depends on getting the results whatever it takes. It’s not cheating to add extract of fruit to get a fruit flavor When it comes down to it, remember that there is a limit to what you should do, and work happily within that limit.

Author: T.A. Mccuin

A party is not a party without a frosty cold beer. The unusually pleasurable effects of Beer adds to the life on every party. Beer companies know this by proof of their billions of dollars in revenue every year. However, few of us realize the consequences of beer drinking. There is link between drinking large quantities of beer and developing what is referred to as a beer belly, but it certainly isn’t the only cause of an expanding waistline in men and women.

Scientist have stated that beer drinking is not a direct cause of belly fat. However, beer drinking is an indirect reason for belly fat. Meaning, beer alone will not make you fat unless you drank cases of it regularly which is totally unhealthy. Beer contains no fat, but it’s packed with calories (between 100 -200 per 12oz can). Liquid calories, and Liquid calories make you gain weight faster. Alcohol is a source of empty calories, meaning it has almost no nourishing value.

If you’re trying to lose belly fat drinking more than 4 – 7 drinks of alcohol per day is not good for you. Why?

Beer drinking delays fat loss – Beer is a depressant. Depressants slow down the bodies metabolism resulting in your body burning less calories.

That nice head of foam – on that ice cold beer has a price. That foamy heady carbonation increases your hunger.

There’s estrogen in the beer. – Hops, a main ingredient in beer is one of the most powerfully estrogenic plants on Earth. Estrogen in men causes a direct lowering of testosterone levels.

Beer drinkers exercise less. It’s no surprise that inactivity can add to an expanding waistline.

Many times after a night of drinking you might find yourself visiting your favorite fast food restaurant gorging yourself with burritos, burgers, and fries. As mentioned earlier, drinking alcohol often goes hand-in-hand with eating large quantities of unhealthy foods. Beer drinkers tend to enjoy snacks, chips, and high fat content finger foods. To add to the issue, many bars offer free, unhealthy food to encourage to flow of drinking…beware!

One formula that grantees you will gain weight is if, your consumption of calories exceeds your burning of calories. You will always ends up with extra body fat. A diet rich in fat, carbohydrates, and high caloric processed foods will lead to weight gain in the belly. If you are consuming these foods while drinking, the carbohydrates will be turned into fat much faster because your body is processing the alcohol. Men tend to develop the rounded bulge or beer belly, where as the fat gain on women tends to be distributed between their thighs, butts, arms, and bellies. But a beer, all by itself, won’t significantly affect your weight one way or another.

In a perfect world I recommend that you don’t drink if you’re trying to lose that beer belly. But, this is the real world and people are going to indulge in alcohol. Here’s some tips to help keep your belly-fat-loss-plan on track when you know you’re going to let lose and toss back a couple.

Drink lots of water – Alcohol dehydrates you, (this is the main cause of the dreaded hangover) Drink water and plenty of it before during and after your night of libations.

Eat more Proteins and Less Carbohydrates – Cut back on bad fats and sugar based carbohydrates such as pastas, cakes, and white bread. Fat contains 9 calories per gram while in contrast proteins contain 4 calories per gram.

Develop a Workout plan- In order to reshape your body you must gain more muscle. Muscle burns more calories. Add strength and cardio training to increase your fat burning efforts. Having a few beers can make even the most energetic of us a bit lethargic balance it out with an up-tempo workout plan.

Abdominal Exercises – In order to get wash board abs you need to first trim your belly fat. Crunches alone will not give you six pack abs.

Listen up. The effects from having that extra belly fat around the midsection will surprise you. There are a number of illnesses that are caused or aggravated by beer belly fat. Aside from directly causing a number of health issues, having a beer belly can also increase your likelihood of developing long term health issues. Look, I’m not saying give up beer.. just the beer belly. Belly fat is unhealthy.

A beer belly is the result of the quality and quantity of food eaten during and after beer consumption. Beer bellies don’t happen over night, it’s a long and delicious road. In reality, the beer belly we get often times has less to do with beer and more to do with the high fat accompaniments. For most men and women their beer belly is more a result of lifestyle than a frosty cold one.

Beers with the highest calories per 12oz serving

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot: 330
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: 231
Sierra Nevada Stout: 225
Steel Reserve: 222
Olde English High Gravity 800: 220
Anchor Porter: 209
Samuel Adams Boston Lager: 180
Guinness Extra Stout: 176
Pete’s Wicked Ale: 174
Harpoon IPA: 170
Heineken: 166
Killian’s Irish red: 163
Long Tail: 163
Molson Ice: 160
Busch Natural Ice: 157
This list will never be exact due to brewers changes in recipes. Do not use it for exact dietary calculations but as a guide.

Author: lukeporterbeer

Beer making equipment may look like complicated gadgets, some you’ve never encountered since your last chemistry lab.

However, as they say, looks could be deceiving as after all, your equipment surely comes with a set of instructions of what to do and what not to do with it. As long as you are sure it came from a trusty company and the package comes with information printed in a language you can understand , as long as you follow the instructions religiously, it would be very easy to make it yield to your convenience.

Beer making equipment may be purchased as part of brewing kits or they may be purchased individually. Those in the kits come with a set of instructions and these normally have been fashioned to suit the procedure stated. In other words, it may not be that flexible enough to accommodate the experiments you plan to do with your brew. For example, if you want to up the ratio of your ingredients, the containers in the kits may not be huge enough to allow the increase of its contents. In this case, you would want to purchase brewing materials beyond the kit.

Kits also normally have a standard ratio of ingredients. So again, if you would want to do more, you should consider buying other home brewing supplies. This should not be very hard as there are home brew specialty shops and many owners would personally give you tips on what to do especially if you are a newbie.

There are just a few pieces very necessary in beer making – the boiler, the fermenter, the bottles – or some would prefer the keg, the caps, the capper, the bottle brush and steriliser that – because it is very necessary to keep your materials very clean to avoid other bacterial growth, spoon, funnel and priming measure. If beer brewing is more than just a leisure or relaxing activity for you – you have perhaps begun collecting all manners of implements in beer brewing invented since the time of the Egyptians – or you are very meticulous and you want your procedure to look like a guide books’ illustrations, then the expensive materials at the specialty shops are the ones for you. However, if the equipments you would use really don’t bother you and you believe that the end justifies the means, some materials could be improvised. Paint buckets with HPDE 2 guarantee for example can be used in making your beer. These are a lot cheaper than the buckets sold at the brew specialty shops.

You would also want your brewing equipment to last long so you have to keep them in good shape all the time. If not in use, they should be cleaned from time to time to avoid unwanted growth or other unknowns that come with storage and dirt. Also, the dos and don’ts that come with your package must be respected. You cannot expect overheated materials to perform its expected lifespan. With proper care, you can maximize your beer making equipment either for profit or for personal consumption.

Author: lukeporterbeer

When Dionysus created wine, he must have been enamored by the taste of grapes that he forgot to proclaim “let there be beer!” and thus the absence of home brew beer in great mythologies. However, I don’t mind this short sightedness on the god’s end because ancient cultures such as those of Egyptians and Sumerians more than made up for it when they created their own versions of the delightful beverage. Since then, beer has become one of our favorite drinks and today, aside from those that are manufactured by companies like Heineken USA, we have what we commonly refer to as the home brews.

Home brew beer, as its name suggests, is beer that we create in our own kitchen (or anywhere in our own backyard) using our own beautiful hands. Of course the process takes long and is usually difficult at first. Over time though, home brewing becomes second skin particularly with the help of quality beer making equipment and brewing kits. In fact, home brewing is very interesting and easy to learn that it is advocated by many people and is fast becoming a hobby. Furthermore, home brewing is also gaining popularity because beer that is domestically produced is usually cheaper than its commercial counterpart and people generally favor cheaper things especially if they are just as good as the more expensive stuff.

But how do we initiate the beer making process? The very first thing that we have to consider is the equipment that we want to use. If we are new to the activity, it would be best if we start with brewing kits because they always have the things that are essential for the process. Along with starter kits, we need home brew recipes which we could use if the idea of experimenting on flavors does not appeal to us. There are a number of sources that offer us recipes for creating a variety of home brew beer that would tickle our senses.

We might wonder about the taste of home brewed beer. Many individuals claim that homebrew tastes like heaven. Some say that it tastes just like the way a master creates it. Perhaps these descriptions are true. Perhaps they are a little bit exaggerated. What we know for sure is that home brew beer is made of an assortment of flavorsome ingredients that it can taste like anything – from something fruity to something with a hint of cinnamon and honey. It can also be strong and bitter which is palatable to certain beer lovers. However it tastes, home brew is good so long as the person is able to perfect its creation. And with practice, anyone can surely perfect the home brewing process.

So the next time our urge kicks in and we feel like drinking a bottle of beer or a keg of it (if our ultimate goal is to get drunk), let us toast home brew beer and together let us yell “let there be home brew!”