About This Course

This course includes 69+ minutes of video

In this 69-minute course, Beachwood co-owner and brewmaster Julian Shrago shares his best advice for approaching, brewing, and mastering any beer style—especially any style that’s relatively unfamiliar to you. Along the way, he discusses:

  • why you should treat everything as an ingredient and nothing as an additive
  • his flavor-first approach to recipe design
  • why you should go to the source, if possible, to taste a style at its best
  • how judging beer can help you get to know a style
  • the helpfulness of tasting other award-winning beers
  • getting out of your comfort zone to improve your predictive sensibilities
  • why you can never have too many reference points for a style
  • getting to know milk stout—and then winning multiple medals for it
  • tasting raw ingredients and wort as well as finished beer
  • hitting the dry, aromatic, effervescent target of a winning saison
  • why you should consider bottle-conditioning Belgian styles for competition
  • working with diastatic yeast strains to get the desired result
  • the origins of the award-winning Mocha Machine imperial coffee porter
  • making a great coffee beer by treating coffee as an ingredient (not an additive!)
  • bonus tips on selecting great coffee, infusing it, and adding cocoa nibs
  • taking the flavor-first approach to develop a new sub-style: hyper IPA


Instructor

Beachwood Brewing & Blending in Los Angeles has proven it can tackle virtually any beer style and win. Consider: Since its first full year in 2012, the brewery has medaled every year at the Great American Beer Festival—taking home a total of 22 medals in 12 different categories, ranging from coffee and chile beers to Belgian-style lambic and black IPA. Likewise, over the same span, Beachwood has picked up 13 World Beer Cup medals in eight different categories, including golden ale and milk stout.

Julian Shrago

Co-owner and brewmaster, Beachwood Brewing & Blending

Course Curriculum

  • 01

    Introduction

    Show Content

    • Welcome to the Course
  • 02

    Conception and Research

    Show Content

    • The Flavor-First Approach to Recipe Design

    • Research the Style (and Drink It!)
  • 03

    Exploring the Styles

    Show Content

    • Mastering Milk Stout, Piece by Piece

    • Mastering Saison, Element by Element

    • An Example: Redesigning a Saison Based on Judges’ Feedback

    • Mastering Coffee Beer, Bean by Bean

    • Bonus Tips: Selecting Great Coffee, Infusing It, and Working with Cocoa Nibs

    • Meet Hyper IPA
  • 04

    Tying It All Together

    Show Content

    • That’s a Wrap
  • 05

    Bonus Tracks

    Show Content

    • Podcast Episode 204: For Julian Shrago of Beachwood Brewing, There Are No Additives, Only Ingredients

    • Podcast Episode 348: Keys to Successful Beer Fermentation with White Labs, Russian River, and Beachwood

    • Recipe: Beachwood American Black Ale

    • Recipe: Beachwood Amalgam-ish IPA

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