Hard Times Call for Hard Seltzers: The History of Seltzer
By Mark Bowers Hard seltzers have been the next new thing for several years now in the world of alcoholic drinks. Hard seltzers from macro brands White Claw, Truly, Bud Light Seltzer, Bon & Viv, Diageo and Corona Seltzer have become near ubiquitous; the growth in sales of these popular beverages has gone from near […]
The Story of Hops Part Two: Breeding meets Science
By Mark Bowers (continuation of The Story of Hops Part One) From Roadside Attraction to Mainstream Crop With the expansion of commercial beer in the 1800s, especially the later part of the century, hops too became big business. However, farming hops still was a risky proposition for farmers. For example, in the 1800s a hop […]
The Story of Hops Part One: What the Fuggle are Hops?
By Mark Bowers Seriously, What are Hops? What exactly are hops? Why do brewers all around the world add them to beer? And why does it seem like everyone and their uncle is smitten with them? When I was growing up before I could legally drink beer (I won’t tell you when but it was […]
How to: Brew a Pumpkin Ale at home!
By Matt Priaulx The Night Before Get your brew kettle, another large pot, and one final smaller pot. Fill the BREW KETTLE and larger pot with 2 gallons of water each. Fill the smaller pot with one gallon of water. Boil all the water for 3-5 minutes and leave the two large pots on the […]
How to: Brew a Witbier at home!
By Matt Priaulx The Night Before Get your brew kettle, another large pot, and one final smaller pot. Fill the BREW KETTLE and larger pot with 2 gallons of water each. Fill the smaller pot with one gallon of water. Boil all the water for 3-5 minutes and leave the two large pots on the […]
History of Witbiers
By Mark Bowers Witbier Style Originated in Belgium, Witbier means simply “white bier” in Flemish (the Dutch language spoken in the Flanders area of Belgium). It is also known by its French name biere blanche. Witbier is an unfiltered pale cloudy ale made with a high proportion of wheat and ofttimes oats. It is traditionally […]
History of Lagers
By Mark Bowers The history of beer itself is nearly analogous with the history of “ale.” There is archaeological evidence of beer-making from as long ago as about 7,000 years with some evidence suggesting that it could be as long ago as nearly 14,000 years. These beers were almost certainly ales. Lagers did not arrive […]
Meet the AeroBrew: Sister Alva
By Mike Smith Sister Alva Style: Belgian-Style Ale ABV: 6.0% Color: Deep gold/light amber, clear Malts: European Pilsner Malt, White Wheat, Munich Malt, Medium Crystal Malt Hops: US Chinook and Cascade, German Hallertau Blanc and Hüll Melon Yeast: WLP510 “Bastogne Belgian Ale Yeast” Short Description: Dry-hopped golden ale fermented with fruity Belgian yeast Sister Alva […]
History of the New England India Pale Ale
By Mark Bowers New England IPAs are arguably the most important recent trend in brewing–both currently and for the foreseeable future. Wrapped in controversy since their very beginning, NEIPAs have had a well-storied path to acceptance by the brewing community as well as many beer aficionados. Even the name is contentious: there is no official […]
Beers in the Stars
By Maggie Mullard and Nina Garcia Ever wonder what the stars say about which Aeronaut beer is your kindred brew? Wonder no longer, friends! This in depth Hop-oscope will introduce you to your innermost beer personality. Make sure to check out your compatibility with other styles as well! We here at Aeronaut know as well […]
Future Feature: brewed for the FUTURE of WOMXN!
By Juleidy Peña International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. In the craft brewing industry it is the day when breweries around the world come together to participate in the Pink Boots Collaboration Brew Day. Here’s a little history to set the scene: “Pink Boots […]
Backyard Birds and Beer
By Ronn Friedlander Aeronaut has had a strong connection to birds ever since we opened. Although this is partly because of my interest in them, it’s also because birds are the original “Aeronauts.” During our first few years, we released several beers with bird names, including “Lark and Linnet,” “Lyrebird Porter,” “Jackdaw,” and “Capercaillie.” Over […]
History of the India Pale Ale
By Mark Bowers The IPA as a style is nearing 200 years old and its origin is caught up in controversy. The short and oft repeated story of its beginning is that George Hodgson and his Bow Brewery in London invented the highly hopped IPA in the mid 1700s because the typical beers sent to […]
How Aeronaut uses molecular epidemiological tools to prevent bad beer
By: Steve Reilly Now that every news article includes the words ‘testing’ and ‘infections’, we’re all looking for distraction from this health crisis. Over here at Aeronaut, we thought we’d explain how we use similar science to check on the health of all our yeast. If you can’t escape stories about nasty microbes, why not […]
Meet the AeroBrew: (Into The) Citra Galaxy
By: Mike Smith (Into The) Citra Galaxy Style: NE-style Session IPA ABV: 4.6% Color: Hazy Gold Malts: European Pale Ale Malt, Flaked (Unmalted) Oats Hops: American Citra and Australian Galaxy Yeast: London Ale III (Wyeast 1318) Short Description: Soft, hoppy ale. Notes of tangerine, hints of peach. (Into the) Citra Galaxy, while not a fruit […]
Butternut miss this one!
Gather close, dear reader, and let me tell you a tale of our latest saga: the makings of our first ever production batch of Lagerfeuer, a smoked butternut squash rauchbier. Though we brewed this beer in September of this year, the story really starts back in September 2013. Construction hadn’t even begun on Aeronaut Brewing Co., […]
Sumac Attack
O brave new world that has such berries in it! Our beer experimentation has taken us to strange new places. This weekend, we are introducing our sumac beer, which we’ve named “Field Day” for reasons that should become apparent. The concept for sumac beer came about around a year ago, back when we were still prototyping beers […]
Co-hoperation
Making a fresh-hopped beer is in many ways like performing an organ transplant (except lower stakes). It’s all about timing and coordination. The whole object is to get the hops harvested and into a beer in as short a time as possible, while handling them ever so gently. We decided to make an IPA featuring […]
Myrcene’s in the air
It’s that time of year! Hops are getting heavy on the bine and need to be cut loose. Hops are widely known to be one of the four classic beer ingredients (along with yeast, barley malt and water), but are still probably the most mysterious to many beer drinkers. I believe the reason is that hops do […]
Building Aeronaut: Cold box-mounted draft lines
To serve our beer in its freshest state, we decided to put our draft lines right into the side of our cold storage box. It ended up being a fun project for us, which we’ve now done twice–one for each set of draft lines. Here are some photos of the process.