Experimental Brewing Podcast Episode 64 - Hopping Down in New Zealand

Denny’s back from New Zealand and boy, the stories he has to tell! And of course, we’re back to our usual format - thank you for sticking with us as we planned our way around absences and April Fool’s day. In this episode, we cover a rough few weeks in the beer world and some new guidelines for everyone to argue over, look at some lambic myths, Drew’s stupid brew day and Denny’s recap of the New Zealand Homebrewer’s Conference including their unique competition format before we hit the hop fields to learn some New Zealand hop secrets. All of that plus we answer your questions, hit you with a hot tip and hotter wings too!

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I’m confused, earlier in the show you say you’re just expressing your opinion. Later, you say that I want to go to New Zealand. This is confusing, because I want to go to New Zealand. Denny, in your podcast, are you expressing your opinions or mine? Having a little trouble with this.

Enjoyed hearing the bit about hop growing, always a good reminder that any commercial pursuit is balancing tradeoffs.

I think Drew should interview Matt Riggs of Riggs Brewing in Urbana. He talked at my homebrew club last night, really interesting. Former Marine who trained in Germany, producing German & American style beers. Going to be 90% solar powered, and grows a lot of their own grain. They’re doing a lot of interesting work partnering with the University of Illinois (ILL!) to find varieties of wheat/corn/barley to grow for brewing in IL. Very interesting hearing about the challenges of working with grain that isn’t optimal for brewing.