YearlyLesson.com » Media

What Does Zymurgy Mean?

Brian — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:50:22 +0000

I just got back from an awesome, week long vacation which, if you have been watching the blog, is the reason why there have been no posts lately. The first thing I noticed in our giant pile of mail when we returned home this afternoon was that I finally received my first issue of Zymurgy magazine which is published by the American Homebrew Association. A subscription to the magazine is included when you join the association.

I know the magazine is about beer and homebrewing but I really had no idea what the word meant so I looked it up. What does Zymurgy Mean? Well, zymurgy or zymology is quite simply the scientific study of fermentation. The word had been used to describe the study of those specific scientific processes but is now used as a term to describe the brewing of alcoholic beverages.

You can read more about the American Homebrewing Association and sign up to get their magazine at Beertown.org

Beer Nutz TV Show Part 2

Brian — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:09:22 +0000

I finally got around to watching the second DVD of the Beer Nutz TV show. I didn’t watch the show when it came out, I got the DVD’s via Netflix when I started my year of beer and watched them all at once. I wrote a small review of the first half of the show when I first started my year of beer. You can check it out at Beer Nutz TV Series.

That first viewing should have been enough for me to stay away from the second DVD but I just had to finish watching it. I am going to keep this follow up review short. The bottom line is, the breweries and bars they went to visit were all pretty cool but the hosts didn’t have a clue. Their Beer Nutz rating system continued to annoy me, they had no real insight into the beers they tried and worst of all, the one host couldn’t tap a beer. That’s right, he was in search of the ultimate beer nut and the guy couldn’t even tap a beer. He tried in at least 5 episodes and failed miserably each time.

I don’t know much, but I know this, if you are going to do a show about being a huge beer fan, KNOW HOW TO TAP A FRIGGEN BEER!

Brew Your Own Magazine

Brian — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:34:18 +0000

I got my first issue of Brew Your Own Magazine today. I was pretty excited to finally have one of the things I subscribed to show up at my door. I have only just paged through it at this point but I am impressed, it’s a great magazine. I think it will be a real asset in my quest to learn more about homebrewing. If you are not getting it, do what I did and request a free trial issue. If you like it, do nothing and they will continue to send you new issues along with a bill for your subscription (minus the free issue). If you don’t want it, you can call them up and cancel it. Personally, I have already decided it’s well worth it to keep up the subscription. Check out the free trial offer of Brew Your Own

Beer Wars Has Arrived

Brian — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:21:46 +0000

I am excited, I have heard a lot about this documentary in the last few weeks so I decided to order it. I got home from work and it was on my door step. It’s a documentary about the big and small breweries in America battling it out for space on the shelf and at the bar. The film maker is distributing it herself which has to be a pretty tough hill to climb but it seems like a lot of people are buying it. I am going to watch it this weekend and will write more on this DVD later.

Beer Nutz TV Show

Brian — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:31:56 +0000

When I started my Year of Beer, one of the first things I did was do a search on Netflix to see if there were any documentaries or TV shows that would be worth getting to help me in my journey. Beer Nutz is one of the first things that showed up in my search so I added it to my ridiculously long queue and bumped it up to the top. After it already shipped, I went back to look at it and the reviews were not good. Oh well, it was too late at that point, the 1st DVD of the series was already on it’s way.

I just finished watching the first DVD (there are 2 in total) and it’s not as bad as what some of the reviews said but it’s not great either. The places they visit are really neat, lot of great breweries and lot’s of great beer. I think the places they picked were among the best those cities had to offer but the information they provide is rather shallow. They taste the beer but rarely give you an insightful look into what the beer tastes like. You never see them really describe the beer in a meaningful way. They have this wacky Beer Nutz “keg” rating where they rate each person or place they encounter and determine just how much of a Beer Nut that person is but it seems like a completely arbitrary rating. They assign a rating based an enthusiasm more than quality of beer. Every time they rated anything, it took away from the show rather than added to it.

All in all, I am glad I watched the first disc but I am not sure I will bother getting the second.