A class at 8th & Roast
I don’t know about you, but when I hear someone talking about “home brewing,” my thoughts immediately turn to beer. (And unfortunately to the swill I made in the kitchen during high school that led to more exploding bottles than actual drinkable beer.) However, the master coffee brewers behind 8th & Roast have a much better plan for you with their upcoming Home Brewing Crash Course on Saturday, Jan. 20, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The course will take place at the company’s roastery and education lab in Woodbine at 2637 Grandview Ave., and if you’re interested in learning how to make better coffee at home, this is a mandatory event. Whether you’re a full-on coffee nerd or want to move on from K-Cups, this class will cover fascinating topics including:
Coffee origins/processing
Home brewing essentials
Equipment recommendations
Brew ratios and basic recipes
Extraction explanation and manipulation
Deciphering coffee bags and labels
To demonstrate the difference that technique and brewing equipment can make, the instructors will take the class through the process of brewing the exact same coffee using four different techniques to show how flavor extraction changes.
The class costs $45, which includes a free 1-pound bag of coffee to take home and practice with. Plus you can drink your homework! Sign up today at 8th & Roast’s event website.
In Wedgewood-Houston, Fait la Force Brewing continues to make waves as a different sort of brewer. The noted beer industry website Hop Culture recently named Parker Loudermilk and Zachary Sowada’s amiable “little brewery that could” as one of their best new breweries for 2023. Among the 11 breweries named on the list, most of them came from the West Coast or overseas, with Fait la Force joining other breweries in Texas, Illinois and Florida as members of the august group receiving recognition. (I feel compelled to point out that we here at the Scene were a year ahead of the rest of the beer world in singing their praises.)
I reached out to Loudermilk for comment on the young brewery’s achievement and he was deservedly chuffed, replying: “With the rapid pace of new brewery openings currently and the sheer volume of new breweries to choose from, it's truly humbling to be one of only three breweries east of the Mississippi to be selected. It's such an honor and one we couldn't be more thankful for. We're looking forward to continuing to make classic European beers for the city of Nashville for hopefully many more years to come!”
In more Fait la Force news, the brewery is already getting a head start on that promise of making even more of their unique European-style beers with the recent addition of two new horizontal lagering tanks that increase the tiny brewhouse’s lagering capacity from 40 barrels to 60 barrels of fermentation space. If you’ve ever peeked in through the window to the production side of Fait la Force, you can only imagine what a feat it was to find a way to maneuver those new tanks into the crowded room.
More beer from good people is always great news, and we wish the best of luck to the Fait la Force team!
