Secondary Fermentation East Carolina Beer and Brewing

Joe and Nick have been loving the addition of the new Lowes Foods store in town, and the famous Beer Den that lies within. The Lowes Foods Beer Den is a small taproom within the store, where you can get a pint to sit and sip or take around the store as you shop. They also have a vast to-go section for both local and national craft beers, including Beer Den branded brews! This spurned today's topic of "which grocery store chain is best for finding a good craft beer selection?" We review two of the Beer Den beers (contract brews with Foothills Brewing), "Juno" and "Robin Hood", while going through a blog post from TastingTable.com. Let us know if there is a store that should've been on the list!

Joe and Nick both pulled an aged bottle of beer from their respective collection for this episode, which is all about how to properly cellar/age your beer. The guys both learned what they should've done differently with their own cellaring process, and discuss the consensus recommendations for maturing a beer. To round things out, LC's Pick of the Week tries to stump the guys.

Joe and Nick are talking about the "magic" of yeast - what it is, what it does, how different yeast strains are used for different styles of beer, and more! As we now know, yeast is responsible for converting sugars to alcohol during the process of fermentation, but what might not be concerned as often is the role yeast plays in other facets of brewing and the final product. Flavor, aroma, mouthfeel, and other aspects are influenced by the strain of yeast used, and science has really come a long way in a relatively short amount of time since yeast was discovered. After getting nerdy about yeast, the guys finish with LC's Pick of the Week (sans LC). Cheers!

In this final installment of beer history, we approach the years of Prohibition, and the effects it had on the beer industry, even after it was repealed. We discuss the innovations and changes to the beer industry and how the growing popularity of homebrewing led to the rise of craft beer in the U.S, before wrapping up with some modern craft beer facts.

We're picking up Part II of our Beer History miniseries with the rise of hops in the middle ages and how this led to beer having a longer shelf life, thus increasing export opportunities and commercialization of the product. This trends upwards through the 16th and 17th centuries, and eventually times call for improvements to the efficiency of brewing. Cue the Industrial Revolution!

In this first installment of our attempt to summarize some monumental moments in the history of beer, we go back as far as the Neolithic period, Ancient Egypt, and when beer was first introduced to the Romans and Greeks. One could say that beer was essential to early civilizations that shifted away from a nomadic way of life, and it helped build the pyramids. Tune in for some other fascinating information, and be on the lookout for the next part of this series!