On Sunday, May 3rd I grabbed a pint of homebrew and hopped on Google Plus for a Hangout with one of today’s most well known homebrewing bloggers, Marshall Schott aka the Brülosopher (brulosophy.com). Known for his well executed homebrewing “exbeeriments” and witty writing style, Marshall’s experimental approach to homebrewing has generated quite a bit of discussion amongst homebrewing all over the US and internationally as well. In turn, I felt compelled to interview him in order to both share his approach and homebrewing knowledge with even more homebrewers and to give all those who have already benefited from his blog a more personal perspective on the content that he produces and posts. I hope you all benefit from the content of this interview as much as I did from conducting it. Cheers!
Notes: 1. Due to the length of the interview I decided to split it into two parts. 2. below you’ll see a list of topics that were discussed in each “part” / half. Feel free to skip to topics that interest you most if you’d rather not watch the entirety of each video. 3. Both parts contain a mix of both personal and general topics. 4. We both were a bit nervous while asking questions and giving answers during the interview. So please excuse both of our saying the words “you know” quite often throughout it. Thank you!
Topics Discussed:
- How did you get in to homebrewing? [0:40-1:53]
- Inspiration for starting Brulosophy.com and goals for the outcome of his “exbeeriments”. [1:54-3:46]
- How do you as the person who carries out all of the exbeeriments react to their commonly not statistically significant results? [3:47-5:57]
- Bloggers helping homebrewers brew better beer vs. laying out the results of various exbeeriments and letting homebrewers decide how to interpret them based on their brewing process constraints / abilities. [5:58-9:21]
- The Brulosophy lagering method [9:22-14:00]
- The Hop Chronicles: An upcoming series on Brulosophy.com [14:01-16:27]
- The process of conducting a Brulosophy experiment. [16:28-19:14]
- Part One outro…
Topics Discussed:
- 5 key factors to consider when you’re looking to improve the quality and consistency of your home-brewed beers. [0:22-4:09]
- What inspired me (Barry-The Brewed Palate) to start manipulating my brewing water and how doing so has significantly impact both my and Marshall’s beers [4:10-6:24]
- The homebrewing scene in Fresno, CA. [6:25-8:34]
- The benefits of being a participating member of your local homebrewing community. [8:35-9:59]
- The impact of homebrewing blogs on the homebrewing hobby / community and the sense of responsibility that bloggers have to produce / post useful content. [10:00-12:44]
- How did Marshall get to the point where he was ready to share his homebrewing “exbeeriments’ and experiences via a blog? [12:45-15:54]
- Balancing brewing new and old beer recipes for the sake of creating desired flavor profiles and the experimental side of Marshall’s brewing. [15:55-18:52]
- Marshall aka the Brülosopher @ NHC 2015 in San Diego, CA. [18:53-20:32]
- Closing remarks. [20:33-21:12]
- Part two outro…
thebrewedpalate.com 
You said the goal of homebrewing is to brew the best beer possible. That’s simply not true. As my blog points out, for many homebrewers the goal of homebrewing is to save money while still brewing good beer. Quality is one consideration, among several others.
I agreed with your points. However, what I mean by “brewing better beer” or brewing one’s best beers is the following. As one delves deeper into the hobby of homebrewing he or she benefits from reading blogs and books which serve to help improve his or her brewing skills, especially brew day processes involved with brewing consistent beer that contains minimal off flavors. By slowly mastering brewing processes and techniques over time, the quality of one’s beers can become more consistent whether they’re brewing to save money or for the enjoyment of creating specific flavor profiles, or both for that matter. I hope this clarifies things. Cheers!
Yep, totally agree Barry.