How to Brew
In April 1998, Moritz Kallmeyer read out the text below at a Wort Hogs meeting. I think that it is the best thing ever written about brewing. Moritz didn't write it, but in my head I hear his voice whenever I read it.
How to Brew - Randy Mosher
Brew as if beer is a gift from a benevolent universe - because it is.
Brew as if it's a magic spell. Incant the names: barley, hops, water, yeast, fire. These primal elements converge in a miraculous way to create beer. Just because you understand how enzyme molecules catelyze complex chain reactions in every stage of the brew, it doesn't make their million-to-one reaction energy lowering ability any less astounding. Every time you brew, you invoke an uncountable number of miracles.
Brew like a good shepherd with billions of tiny creatures at your mercy. The yeast you sprinkle on your brew is not inert muddy goo. It's alive, and each cell claims a proud royal lineage, nurtured for millennia by our brewing forebears. Give it a comfortable home, with plenty to eat, and it will do its part without hesitation.
Brew as an act of benevolence. For all of recorded history, beer has had the power to soothe, to please, and to bring people together. It was, and still is in places, a nurturing staple made by brewers of faith, by the cloistered few whose main concern is to contemplate the universe. Beer brought civilisation to nomads, succour to countless travellers, and even a revolution to our own young country, with dark plans and brilliant declarations hatched in public houses, sealed with a pint. Or two.
Brew like an artist, with your senses and your whims. Brewing is not engineering; there are no equations for flavour. You have to grope your way through every new brew with an intuitive sense of what's good, with rhythm, harmony, and contrast, and then get all the parts to transcend their individuality and add up to something sublime.
Brew with balance. Play the sweet malt against the bitter hop, but also consider the rough bitterness of roasted malt, the spiciness of ale fermentation, the fatness of well-lagered Munich malt. As the universe is balanced, so should be your beer.
Brew with simplicity. Those four Reinheitsgebot substances: malt, water, hops, and yeast, have the power to create a spectacular range of flavours, textures, and sensations. Paring it down to the minimum needed to achieve a great result is the sign of a true master. Even with these limited ingredients the brewing toolkit is huge: malting, kilning, mashing, boiling and fermentation giving you unlimited options for shaping your brews.
Brew with reckless abandon. Over the millennia nearly every foodstuff and herbal substance known has been put into beer. Magic beers with mystical - and often psychoactive – ingredients were part of the ancient classical mysteries. Beer has a central role in ceremonial occasions around the world. Berries, roots, bark, seeds, mushrooms, even chickens, eggs and oysters have all been thrown into the brewpot in the quest for some unusual taste, sensation, cure, tonic or magical effect. And while our need to chemically connect with the spiritual dimension has diminished in our modern society, there remains much to explore for the sake of flavour.
Brew with meaning. Beer is deeply intertwined with our humanity across the globe. Yes, brewing can be a job or a hobby, but also an act of certifying your participation in the family of mankind. Beer brings people together, as you will find once you have a steady supply of homebrew at hand.
Brew beer with all of this in mind, and the world will continue to be an amazing place.
This comes from Randy Mosher's book, "Radical Brewing". Buy it.