Fuhmentaboudit!

John La Polla is the co-owner of the extraordinary Brooklyn homebrew shop, Bitter & Esters. Bitter & Esters is the only brew-on-premise homebrew store in New York City with a focus in brewing education. Mary Izett invites John into the studio for this week’s edition of Fuhmentaboudit! to talk about his initiation into the homebrew world, and why he decided to ditch his job as a sound engineer to open a homebrew shop. Hear what experiments John conducts at Bitter & Esters in order to taste different hop varieties and malt blends. What are “adjuncts” used in brewing? John and Mary talk about different types of sugars they have used in their brews, and how they have affected the fermentation processes. Thanks to our sponsor, Whole Foods. “Living in New York City, I knew we needed to make smaller fermentation vessels that could be kept in coolers.” [8:20] “If you add a lot of simple sugars like sucrose and fructose, the yeast will eat all of them up, and you will get a stuck fermentation.” [22:00] —