Back in September I attended a GTA Brewclub meeting at Rainhard Brewing Co. and sampled a ton of fantastic beer. There was one beer in particular that really stood out to me: a Belgian ginger-saison that was brewed by a man whom I had mistakenly assumed was Australian because he had an accent and an an awesome Akubra hat:

Yes, that's him! Yes, the one who looks Australian!

... so anyways he's British not Australian. I think I was just enamoured by his wicked Aussie-style hat and jean jacket. He's been brewing for over fifteen years, and his beer quality was on a different level. The ginger flavours were fresh and bright, and left a subtle kick as it went down. He explained his process. I listened attentively.

Fast forward a couple months - I met him again at the West GTA Beer Advent Calendar exchange. I bugged him for his recipe, and he happily obliged. I started the brew yesterday.

Hot water from the white pail flows through tube to colander to rinse grain of sugars.

Sugary wort flows out into boil-pot and will soon be ready for hops!

What the heck is going on here, you ask? It's actually not too crazy. The orange mash tun steeps the malted barley in hot water (in this case its 149F) for about an hour to release the available sugars for the yeast to later ferment into alcohol. The white pail holds additional hot water that trickles over the grain bed through the colander to rinse the grains of any additional sugars as it is pulled through and drained out to the boil kettle. This step is called sparging.

People often complain that it's hard to brew in small spaces. I don't find this to be true. As long as you're organized, and thorough, you should have no problem. Sure, if all you have is an electric stove, it takes a bit longer to heat everything up, but even still the brew day only took six hours (including setup and cleanup) which is pretty typical.

I'll share more regarding this particular brew a little later. Thanks to John S. Tyler for the recipe. I assume the S. stands for Silly because he seems like a really confused Brit, what with his Aussie hat and everything... though I'm probably just an idiot for not being able to distinguish accents.

Cheers!

Edit: *** "...for the record it's Stuart" said Mr. Akubra