During my recent, forced time off due to "winter" storm Albert, I found myself yearning to brew. Since Nick and I haven't been able to get together to do a proper brew, I decided to dust off the old Mr. Beer kit and throw together one of my nearly "expired" batches. I decided to make a brew that I've made before, their "Octoberfest" marzen-styled amber lager. For those who don't know, Mr. Beer is an all-extract "fake and bake" type of kit that yields a paltry 2-gallons of beer. I don't want to knock it too hard at all, since Mr. Beer provided my first brewing experience. What I want to know is, what's your take on the legitimacy of extract kits like Mr. Beer, all-malt deals like professional brewers and avid homebrewers utilize, or combo packs such as the ones Nick and I have used from Maltose Express in Monroe (shameless plug). Check this video of brewing legend Garret Oliver using (and even COMPLIMENTING) the Mr. Beer brewing process:

So, now that you've seen this testimonial, what's the opinion of the Collective and others alike? Do you vehemently deny that anyone should participate in all-extract brewing? Should I chuck my other Mr. Beer kits and coordinate a real brew date ASAP? Extract, all-malt ......... both? Bueller?  |Gambrinus|

I'd like to kick things off with a comment about the most recent addition to the Brass Hat Brewing catalogue, our "Smokey The Beer", a smoked amber ale based on a Northern Brewers extract kit. Out of all the beers we've made to date, this is the first to come up limp. The rest have been nicely carbonated and produced bountiful heads and lacing, but this one is very tame to say the least. It tastes so good that I still enjoy it a lot, but I'm wondering what went wrong here considering we think we followed the same procedure for every beer. Having tried a few, Ron & I don't think the caps were poorly applied on all of them. Any ideas on why this would happen? Suggestions? Craig