I’ve had multiple friends pick up the hobby, who never showed interest before and I’m mentoring them via text. Because there’s a lot of people who are new to home brewing. I always try to keep my mistakes around to see how they might evolve.Īt the beginning of COVID, there was a huge spike in my YouTube views. But it leveled out a year in - that smoky taste dropped out. I made a golden chai stout and used way too much smoked malt in it, so it just tasted like a campfire with no real substance. One way I fix an IPA is to add a bunch of fruit. On the flipside, I’ve made a ton of IPAs that ferment too hot because we live in an apartment in LA and I didn’t know about temperature control yet. You wait around two weeks to a month before you can try it and it’s honestly magic how it happens. It’s so rewarding, which is why it’s addicting. All the beers I started doing early on are beers I’d want to drink.

I also make a black IPA, Irish stout, and cherry saison that is super popular at festivals. My favorite beer I make is called Road Soadie, which is a Mosaic and Simcoe IPA. It was the first time I was like I can make a beer I can actually drink. There is so much tangerine juice, zest, lime juice, coriander, and lime leaves. We went to that brewery constantly, and they told us how they make their Great White Wheat beer, adding coriander and lime leaves to it, so I thought we have to try it. I grew up drinking Lost Coast’s Tangerine Wheat - it is to die for. One of the first recipes I created was a tangerine wheat. Back then, it was all white dudes just talking to each other in a bubble. I couldn’t imagine starting to homebrew back in the ’90s. People are making a major push to be more inclusive with BIPOC and gender. I got started in the homebrew club SoCal Cerveceros because they were trying to diversify the gender of their club. I hold myself accountable and learn more every time I brew and post. Now people see my value as more than just a pretty face. It used to be worse when I first started, especially on Instagram, when people used to be more sexist. It’s typically super male-dominated, but it’s becoming way more accessible and you’re seeing more diverse home brewers every day. In the beginning, I got mansplained a lot. I’m more of an experimenter and love being able to try something out, and if it doesn’t work out, it’s just a $30 project. I’m not a huge baker because you have to be more rigid. I’ve always cooked, so it spoke to me in that same way.

Home brewing is an easy way to bridge creativity with science. I always wanted to get into science - my mom’s a science teacher, my dad’s an engineer - but I went to school for art and now work for an art gallery full-time. I got my husband a homebrew kit for one of his birthdays and he never touched it. I’m the type of person that won’t let things sit around.

Lost coast tangerine wheat recipe