Stir Plate

Malta Goya

Malta Goya is a carbonated, non-alcoholic, malt base beverage.  It is just about as close to beer as you can get without actually being beer.

Malta Goya has water, malted barley and hops, which by the original text of Reinheitsgebot, the 1516 German Purity law, is what you need to make beer.  The missing ingredient in Malta Goya is yeast, and without yeast, there is no fermentation.  Without fermentation we can't call this drink beer.

I stumbled upon four bottles of Malta Goya at the local dented can store.  At a price of four for a dollar I was willing to risk the $.25 a bottle to try it out.  It has a beautiful dark color and foamy off-white head.  The aroma is distinct to any homebrewer; sweet wort.  I was surprised at how good it tasted, most of the wort I try after I have brewed a batch is not very good; its just sickly sweet and harshly bitter. Malta Goya was very refreshing.  It has a sweetness from the malt, but also other sugars behind it that help to balance the drink.

If I find more at the grocery store I'll probably buy them, even if it's only to give them to fellow beer drinkers and homebrews to try.  If you interested in getting some of your own Malta Goya, check the ethnic food isle at your local supper market.

Hops Strainer

I try to limit the amount of hops floating freely in my boil kettle because it helps to keep my beer clearer when I transfer to the fermenter. In the past I've done this by individually bagging each hops addition in straining bags. While this works well for malty, low hop beers that only have two of three hop additions, it becomes a small amount of work for an IPA and an insane task for a Double IPA.

This hop strainer is build out of a PVC coupling, three stainless steel I-bolts and a few washers and nuts.  Put the bag through the center of the PVC coupling and secure it with a large hose clamp.  Now all of your hop additions are simply dumped in the strainer.  Remove the strainer at the end if the boil and you'll take most of the hops with you.

Photos by Jeremy Drey