Pittsburgh's Craft Beer Homebrew Club

The New Yorker did an excellent piece on Dogfish Head on November 24th, 2008.  A friend of mine suggested this to me and I’m now suggesting it to all you beer lovers and aspiring brewers.  It’s an excellent read for those who are passionate about brewing and seek inspiration from people who have become sucessful.  It starts out describing the creation of palo santo, covers a little history of Dogfish Head and craft brewing, and moves on to describe Dogfish’s run at making sahti, a rustic juniper-flavored beer originating in Finland around the 9th century.  I recommend everyone give this a read!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=1

A little from the article:

Then again most brewers don’t make beer with rocks. When sahti was first brewed, in the Middle Ages, Calagione told me, Finnish farmers used wooden kettles. The wood couldn’t be set directly on a fire, so the brewers heated up rocks and threw them into the mash, caramelizing the barley and giving it a smoky flavor. Calagione wanted to use the same method, but he wasn’t sure that he had the right material. “I told my maintenance guy to get rocks without a lot of quartz in them,” he said. “Otherwise, when they get hot, they’ll explode in your face.”