Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass by Randy Mosher, Michael Jackson (Foreword)

Radical Brewing takes a hip and creative look at beer brewing, presented with a graphically appealing two-color layout. Editorial Reviews From the Publisher Radical Brewing: The New Classic of Beer Literature History, humor and homebrewing converge when the creative and prolific mind of Randy Mosher explores the expressive side of beer in Radical Brewing. Mosher sees homebrewing?and by extension craft brewing?as an antidote to corporate, mass-market beers. Over two decades of brewing and beer research, he has probed the depths of beer history in both his reading and his brewing. Radical Brewing displays the many unique ales and lagers that have resulted from his celebration of beer while serving as a vehicle for discussing a creative, outside the lines approach to modern brewing. Through it all, the reader is treated to MosherÂ's irresistible love of beer and brewing as well as some very humorous asides on beer history. The infectious spirit of homebrewing is hard to resist when one reviews MosherÂ's recipe for Electric Aunt Jemima Maple Buckwheat Ale, checks out the section on (Not so Dumb) Blonde Ales or chuckles through his fanciful description of the birth of beer featuring the ancient HarlÂ'eh-riding UrÂ's Angels. Best of all, the two-color visually rich content comes in self-contained segments that instantly engage readers no matter what page they turn to. Typically, modern brewing books focus on the science of how to brew?and Mosher has mastered all of that. But in Radical Brewing, he focuses on the creative, expressive opportunities available to those with a brew kettle. Each chapter offers techniques and recipes as well as ideas for independent exploration of new brewing frontiers. The result is a text that both informs and inspires experienced brewers while providing an engaging and intelligent introduction to the hobby for newcomers. Famed beer writer Michael Jackson once called Mosher some kind of homebrewing genius and in the forward to Radical Brewing, he further lionizes this genius, saying His activities are probably a threat to our morals. Passion, imagination and tenacity are a challenge to the established order. These two masters of beer have collaborated in the past, as Jackson notes when he tells how Mosher accurately recreated the flavor of a now-lost beer style that even Jackson had only once tasted himself. And though JacksonÂ's accolades for Mosher are great, one can only imagine that they will pale as practicing brewers of all stripes begin to digest MosherÂ's treasure-trove of beer ideas and render their own reviews of this delightful book. From the Inside Flap From the Foreword, The Marvel of Mosher, by Michael Jackson: The world desperately needs more Moshers. If only we had more Moshers, the Tasmanian tiger might return from extinction. Mike Tyson at his peak would be able to step into the ring with Muhammad Ali. We would be able to see and hear the great performers who pre-dated the recording of sound. I might even now be sipping a pre-Prohibition beer and checking whether Buddy Bolden could be heard across Lake Ponchartrain. Or I might be sampling Harwood's Porter in a London pub, or an India Pale Ale aboard a clipper heading for Calcutta. About the Author A master of brewing science, Randy Mosher (Chicago, IL) applies his restless curiosity and creative energy toward the art of brewing. As a veteran and award winning brewer, Randy Mosher knows the rules of brewingDand when to break them. He is the author of The Brewers Companion (Alephenalia Publications, 1994), the homebrewing columnist in All About Beer, a regular contributor to Zymurgy (the Journal of the American Homebrewers Association) and is a frequent lecturer on beer across the country. He is also on the board of directors of the American Homebrewers Association and the Chicago Beer Society. With a background in advertising graphics, Mosher has been a creative force in homebrewing for more than 20 years. In Radical Brewing, he shares his many discoveries and secrets (try the recipe for Tangerine Porter) with an amusing tone and gently bent approach that will engage new brewers and captivate creative thinkers of all types. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. From Chapter 1, An Embellished History of Beer: A Mostly True Beer History Timeline 10,000 B.C.E. Glaciers melt, barley pops up everywhere. Neolithic people take flat rocks and pound it into hearty nourishing gruel. 9999 B.C.E Neolithic people sick of gruel. Wonder what else they can do with barley. 9998-9000 B.C.E. Tried everything: gruel loaf, gruel au jus, gruel fritters, gruel pate, gruel in aspic. Charred meat is still by far the most popular food. 8999 B.C.E. Final contestant in barley cook-off comes up with a winner: crock-aged festering sprouted barley-cake bisque with bitter herbs, actually much more enjoyable than it sounds. Dubbed beer, it's much better than gruel. The formerly neglected Goddess of Gruel becomes fashionable new Goddess of Beer, now in big demand at parties everywhere across Fertile Crescent. From Chapter 8, Lager On: The stereotype of Germany is of a country where everything fits into scrupulously tidy compartments, utterly regulated, suiting the tastes of the residents like a pair of custom- fitted lederhosen. I've heard brewers there bemoan the situation that brewing a beer outside of well-established styles is not only frowned upon, but in some cases simply not permitted.This is belied by a strong interest in such Americana as free jazz and the artistic oeuvre of David Hasselhoff. And if you look carefully, you might see an eccentric beer that slips outside the carefully constructed framework of allowable brews. Black, roasty, caramelly schwarzbier is such a product. From Chapter 12, Hops Are Just Another Herb, Mon: In the long, broad history of beer, the hop is a relative newcomer. Hops began to be used in beer about 1100 C.E. in Europe, and much later in the British Isles. For a few centuries, herbed beers existed side-by-side with hopped beers before they were superseded by more modern fashion and banned by edicts such as the Reinheitsgebot. Many lingered on until fairly recently. During the nineteenth century, spiced beers still lived, albeit in the margins. Heather ale was being brewed in the hills of Scotland; an anise beer called swankey was made in Pennsylvania; rustic spiced country brews were slowly winking out in England. Some survive to this day. A cloudy, delicately spiced Belgian wheat beer called wit vanished for a few decades, then was resurrected. In Berlin, the local wheat beer, a light, yogurty brew called weisse, is still commonly served with a dash of syrup made from an herb called woodruff, while in the same region other spiced white ales such as gose and kotbuss still linger. North into Scandinavia, strong, juniper-tinged beers provide a delicious link to the past for the enthusiastic caretakers of the style. From Chapter 14, Bent Beers: In violation of one of the most sacred principles of quality homebrewing, I'm going to recommend that you add that evil, dreaded bogeyman--sugar--to your beer. Not just any sugar. High-performance sugar. This is the dark, gooey crystallized sweetener that bears as much resemblance to the white stuff as homebrew does to industrial beer--the other purified white stuff. Specialty sugars with a variety of ethnic origins are available these days, and contrary to what you might have been taught, they really can add to a beer. From Chapter 17, Forward Into The Past: On Danziger Jopenbier: First, a thin white film of mold formed, then changed to bluish green, which accounted for the first two weeks. Then, bubbling gas started coming up from the wort and broke up the film, which, in turn, further sped up the fermentation. This proceeded very vigorously for ten to fourteen days, and provisions needed to be made to retain and return the overflow to the fermenter. In the third phase, the yeast kind of settled out. Then another film formed on the surface--white at first, then dark brown, then at last green, growing and thickening, folding itself up into great ridges as it floated on the surface. From Chapter 19, Save the Bees: Many scholars believe mead may have been the first fermented beverage. And the fact that the same Indo-European root word, medhu, means honey, sweet, and drunkenness is further evidence for this. Honey won't ferment in its natural concentrated form, but as soon as it is diluted--when combs are washed out, for example--it starts to ferment. There is, in fact, no ancient technology capable of stopping it more than temporarily. With no cooking or crushing needed, it's the simplest alcoholic beverage to make, and probably appeared just as soon as humans created something to put it in. The rock art of one Neolithic society, at Tassili-n-Ajjer in Algeria, prominently features a zoomorphic bee-man, which is suggestive of their familiarity with the other sort of buzz that bees create. Never mind the fact that he is covered head-to-toe with magic mushrooms as well.