Author: Marshall Schott

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It’s hard to believe another year has passed and Brülosophy is moving into its 4th year of existence. From irregular blog posts about the experiments I was doing to keep myself interested in brewing to producing regular content that reaches hundreds of thousands of people around the world, this has been a hell of a ride. As overwhelming as managing all of it can be, the rewards far outweigh any downsides, particularly being a part of what I truly consider the coolest hobby and community on the planet. It’s no joke that Brülosophy would not be what it is today if it weren’t for the support and encouragement we so regularly receive from our fans, as cheesy and cliche as it may sound. We truly appreciate every read, listen, click, comment, like, and share, as it’s what allows us to continuing doing what we do. So, from the bottom of our collective beer drenched hearts– thank you!

2017 | A YEAR IN REVIEW

I started Brülosophy back in early 2014 on the encouragement of folks who thought it’d be cool if there was a place they could easily access my brewing experiments. I learned throughout that year that my intentional attempts to screw beer up was appealing to many homebrewers, presumably those less willing to engage in such shoddy brewing processes, and so I made a commitment to publish at least two xBmt articles per month in 2015. With the help of a few new faces, we accomplished that goal and committed the following year to publishing xBmt articles weekly. Unable to leave well enough alone, for 2017 we aimed to continue publishing weekly xBmts while also pumping out another weekly article and starting a podcast.

I’m happy and admittedly somewhat surprised to report we’ve met all of these goals. In addition to the over 100 articles published, 52 of which were xBmts, we were able to release 20 podcast episodes. It’s been a busy year!

Contributors

It goes without saying that meeting our goals couldn’t have been possible with the dedication of Brülosophy’s crew of curious contributors. Jake Huolihan, our newest addition at this time last year, not only hit the ground running and pumped out a ton of great content, but quickly assimilated with the existing crew of Ray Found, Malcolm Frazer, Greg Foster, and myself. With the growth of Brülosophy, it was apparent we’d need to bring on even more contributors in order to keep up with all of our commitments, ultimately leading to Matt Del Fiacco, Brian Hall, and Jason Cipriani joining the ranks.

These dudes are Brülosophy. From the outside looking in, it may not seem like what we do requires much, but there’s a ton that goes into this that’s easy to miss. On top of daily discussions about variables and xBmt design, each article requires not only brewing beer, often 2 batches simultaneously, but taking photos of the process, organizing data collection sessions, drafting articles, responding to comments, and perhaps most difficult of all, dealing with me. It’s pretty nuts, especially considering the ROI.

There’s no telling how things will change in the future, and while I remain open to making further additions if necessary, I’m confident this crew has what it takes to continue producing not just the content we’ve become known for, but some new projects we have in the works as well!

The Brülosophy Podcast

People began cajoling me to start a podcast about a year after the website was introduced, something I resisted due primarily to concerns about the amount of time it would require. Setting my fears aside, I bit the bullet and started The Brülosophy Podcast earlier this year with a goal to release an episode every-other-week. The learning curve was steep, but we’ve stuck to our guns and I’m finally starting to feel like I’m sort of getting it. The feedback and reviews for the 20 episodes we’ve released this year have been very encouraging and it’s been really cool to learn that we’re reaching an entirely new audience, folks who prefer to consume their brewing information in audible rather than written form.

Due entirely to the support from our incredible sponsors, listeners, and Patrons, we will be moving to a weekly production schedule starting in January 2018. It’s gonna be crazy, but I’m excited to see what comes of it.

Event Roundup

In March, I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at the New Zealand Homebrewers Conference with Gordon Strong and Michael Tonsmeire. My wife tagging along, we first stopped over in Sydney, Australia where in addition to typical sightseeing, we were treated to some killer brewery tours with local homebrewers. From there, we headed to Nelson, New Zealand and a had an ineffably good time visiting a hop farm, judging BrewMania, and drinking great beer with Kiwi homebrewers. An unforgettable experience, to be sure.

I was also invited to be a guest speaker at the 2017 Southern California Homebrewers Festival, which awesomely combines a homebrew event with family camping. I spent 2 days bouncing around with fellow guest speaker Drew Beechum, chatting with other California homebrewers, and talking to a crowd about approaches to experimenting with their own brewing.

Homebrew Con 2017 in Minneapolis, MN was a couple months later and started with a pre-conference party Brülosophy threw in collaboration with Chop & Brew. Fellow contributor Malcolm Frazer and I gave a talk on homebrew experimentation with our friends Drew Beechum and Denny Conn from the Experimental Brewing podcast that was a lot of fun. Overall, the conference was amazing– the seminars were super interesting, the unending flow of beer was mostly super good, and the unplanned after parties were super… super! Minneapolis/St. Paul is an incredible beer city and turned out to be a fabulous location for Homebrew Con.

Finally, contributor Brian Hall joined me in Yakima in September to hangout with our friends from Yakima Valley Hops during the hop harvest. We got to participant in hop selection at Bale Breaker Brewing, rub hop cones at Cornerstone Ranches, tour the lab at Hollingberry & Sons, and drink tons of great beer at local breweries. All of that on top of nightly karaoke and other shenanigans.

Indeed, 2017 was a great year, but we’ve got some plans for the coming year that are going to be out of this world. For example, we’ve partnered with Yakima Valley Hops, Imperial Yeast, and Mecca Grade Estate Malt to bring attendees of Homebrew Con 2018 in Portland, OR a completely unique and borderline crazy experience. We’re also working with Yakima Valley Hops on some other cool ideas we’ll be announcing soon, so stay tuned!

| TOP VIEWS OF 2017 |

It’s only natural that some topics we write about are going to catch the interest of readers more than others. In addition to introducing our newest Short & Shoddy series, we covered some pretty interesting stuff in 2017 judging by reader response. Here are some lists of our most popular articles and pages broken down by series:

xBmt Articles

Holding its place as the most popularly viewed xBmt article is The Gelatin Effect, our very first look into the impact gelatin has on beer. With nearly 12,000 more views than its closest competitor, it would seem beer clarity is something brewers are interested, which is curious seeing as xBmts focused on the hazy New England IPA also made the list.

1. The Gelatin Effect
2. The Impact Of Flaked Oats On New England IPA
3. Dry Hop Length: Long vs. Short
4. Biotransformation vs. Standard Dry Hop
5. The Mash: High vs. Low Temperature

The Hop Chronicles Articles

The Hop Chronicles series is intended to provide specified information on individual hop varieties based on the perceptions of regular craft beer drinkers. It’s been really neat to see the varieties that line up nicely with existing descriptors, as well as those where our blind participants detect something a little different.

1. Huell Melon
2. Mosaic
3. Azacca
4. Lemondrop
5. Magnum

Short & Shoddy Articles

I published the first Short & Shoddy article at the end of 2015 thinking it’d be a one-off thing. The intrigue of readers matching my own, we began intermittently experimenting with different styles, which yielded a curiously positive response. Earlier this year, we decided to turn Short & Shoddy into its own series where we brew every BJCP style using less than conventional methods, and the results so far have been quite promising.

1. Oatmeal Porter
2. American Light Lager
3. Pilsner/Amarillo SMaSH
4. British Golden Ale
5. Saison

Product Reviews

Since starting Brülosophy, we’ve reviewed over 30 brewing products we think are super rad! Here’s the 5 that got the most attention this year.

1. Bräu Supply Unibräu 120V BIAB Electric Brew System
2. Intertap Forward Sealing Faucets
3. Ss Brewtech Stainless Steel Brew Bucket
4. Grainfather All Grain Brewing System With Connect Controller
5. BrewHardware HotRod Heat Stick

Other Articles

In between The Hop Chronicles, Short & Shoddy, and Product Reviews, we occasionally publish other non-experimental articles. Here’s a list of the most viewed “other” articles of 2017.

1. Sparkle & Fizz: Carbonation Methods
2. A Slightly Less Simple Keezer Build
3. Brewing With Gas | Thoughts On Homebrew Burner Options
4. A Few Of Our Favorite Things | 2017 Gift Ideas For Homebrewers
5. Nothing Matters! | Reviewing the first 150 exBEERiments

Pages

Predictably, the exBEERiments page was viewed more than any other yet again for 2018, racking up over 107,000 total views, over 50,000 more than the second place page.

1. exBEERiments
2. Quick Lager Method
3. Harvesting Yeast From Starters
4. The Brülosophy Podcast
5. Fermentation Methods

Recipe Pages

For as much hate it gets in certain online forums, my unconventional take on a classic Munich Helles was yet again viewed more than any other recipe on the site, for the 3rd year and counting.

1. Munich Helles
2. Brülosopher’s Best Blonde Ale
3. (m)Oktoberfest
4. Tiny Bottom Pale Ale
5. A Lil’ Slack IPA

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As fantastic as 2017 has been, I trust 2018 is going to bring even more excitement and fun. Thanks again to everyone who has supported us by reading and listening.

Please feel free to share any thoughts or questions in the comments section below!

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