IPA is just a little harder then just plain old pale ale: you just have to roast some grain in the oven and use more hops than usual. It has always turned out great. Well, almost always. I overhopped it once and it tended to make you pucker up.

It sounds as if there is some interest in strange fermented drinks here, so I thought I’d suggest one that is supposed to be easy to make, but not so easy to accept intellectually!

The Mongols, back in the days when they were conquering most of their known world, were a nomadic horse-mounted warrior culture. As befitting warriors, they liked to drink. Their drink of choice was Coumis. It is still consumed in Mongolia today.

Being nomadic, they have ready access to grains or fruit, other than what they looted from the people that they conquered. So they came up with something different and arguably better. Coumis.

Coumis is fermented horse milk; which is pretty high up on my list of disgusting edibles! They carried it around in skins. Sheep? Pig? I don’t know.

You would think that the product of fermenting milk would be something like rotten buttermilk. Not so. It is apparently a golden liquid that has no milk-like attributes whatsoever. Milk contains milk sugar (lactose) rather than the plant sugars (destrose and fructose) that are the basis of beers and wines. The yeast cells don’t care what kind of sugar they process to make alcohol. I assume that the butterfat is skimmed off before the fermentation and perhaps used to make butter for their tea (another !!). The milk solids probably settle out along with the yeast sediment.

Genghis Kahn kept a herd of white mares just for making his Coumis. How’s that for a status symbol?

It is possible, I have read, to make a Coumis using cows’ milk that is pretty good using beer-making techniques. Using champagne bottles is recommended as for some reason it continues releasing CO2 longer and at a higher pressure than regular beer.

During my years of beer-making I occasionally considered brewing up some Coumis, but never got around to it (or maybe never got up the nerve). I gave up beer making a few years ago and promptly lost 25 pounds: be warned you neophyte brewers. Home brew, done right, is so far superior to commercial beer that you can become gustatorily addicted.

Some advice for newcomers to brewing:

Everything must be scrupulously clean to avoid bacterial contamination that makes flavors go off. Soak everything, from fermentor to bottlecaps, in a dilute bleach solution. A new garbage can is a good investment. Soak everything overnight before use.

Keep the temperature up to room temperature for ales (he-men drink ale) by putting a light bulb under the fermentor and using a floating thermometer. Lagers are made at a cooler temperature and take a lot longer. If you don’t know the difference, ales are “top-fermenting” and lagers are “bottom-fermenting” which means just what you would think it means.

Once you get into it, get a small keg of beer (full, to start) but don’t return it for the deposit. Buy a CO2 canister, pressure regulator, and gauges/valve setup that connects to the keg and decant your whole batch into it. It keeps your beer under pressure. I think I spent about $100 for the whole setup. (You can exchange the CO2 canister when you run out at a welding supply.) You will then be able to pour a pitcher and put it in the refrigerator for while to get it down to a temperature acceptable to Americans. If you aren’t an American you can just drink it out of the tap, which tastes better anyway. Your beer will never go flat, and you won’t have to mess around with bottles and caps.

If you should happen to make some Coumis, I’d like to hear the results!



First Post. Sorry to write such a long one, but I didn't have time to write a short one.

Well I'm glad your first foray into the forums was to enlighten us with a lovely explanation as to what Coumis is. I was sort of hoping you actually tried to make the stuff. I wonder if it makes you hallucinate.

Where would one actually get horse milk, aside from horses, of course?

One of our Australian users here, Tutti, has a few horses... Perhaps we could get her to give Coumis a shot.

I'm definitely a huge fan of IPA's and if I could brew one myself, I'd be in beer heaven. I've had it before but not for a while, so I was quite happy when over the weekend I found a spot that sells Rogue's Dead Guy Ale. It's a little sweet and not as hoppy as I normally like but it is a delicious beer none the less. It's almost worth picking up for the bottle alone. For anyone who hasn't tried it you, I most certainly recommend it.

The back reads: Gratefully dedicated to the Rogue in each of us. In the early 1990s Dead Guy Ale was created as a private tap sticker to celebrate the Mayan Day of the Dead (November 1st, All Souls Day) for Casa U Betcha in Portland, Oregon(or something to that effect). Think they're Dead fans?



You're also very much correct in the observation that beer does add to the waistline, something I've discovered to much shagrin. I thought switching to good vodka might help in that area but now I just find myself drinking both vodka AND beer.

Very much correct! We're making a place for bacteria to live. Let's make it a place for the right bacteria to live. Iodine based cleaners are also very good. This is another reason to make a starter. It gives the brew yeast the upper hand. Superior numbers.

Welcome to FM Bad Bird.(good brew) Nice to have a fellow brew fan aboard.

Several members here are beer enthusiasts, some who make their own.

I have made loads of beers and ales, with IPA being my fave.

I have access to some beautiful hops, thru a friend who owns a micro-brewery in Santa Fe, NM. I adore his ESB (bitter ale) and of course, my fave (IPA). He owns 'Second Street Brewery' if you're ever around these parts. 'Blue Corn Cafe' and 'Chama River Brew Co' all make wonderful local brews. All carry everything from IPA's, Stouts, and even Pils. Authentic Czech Pilsner Hops, which I secured for Second Street originally, now buy by the truckload, straight from the Deutschland and from the Czech's.

I agree, as would anyone with 'brews' on their minds, that cleanliness is next to even more cleanliness (therefore Godliness)

There are so many micro-brews available, that I've stopped making my own, and when I can't buy 'Growlers' (Gallon jugs from my micro dude), I enjoy the Redhook IPA, out of Seattle and New Hampshire. Available almost anywhere now, in bottles, although I prefer draught, fresh, by miles.

Arrogant Bastard is good, Steamworks is good, and on and on.

I too, would be curious to taste the 'Coumis' if someone were to make it.

Let's get Ain't to try it .. He'll try anything, even things Mikey won't, Lol.

(as an aside .. IPA stands for India Pale Ale, (most but not all know this) and the reason it got so popular during Englands wars with India, was simple. It travelled well. And Warriors indeed deserve their 'grog' after battle. IPA remained incredibly stable, even over the long hauls))

That's the hops that made it keep so well.

Rahr and Sons Storm Cloud IPA is the only IPA I've had that I liked. Most of them try to kill ya with hops.

Speaking of, there is a hop shortage on now. Seems the past few years, last year especially, were not kind to the hops crops. This, combined with an overall decrease in hop farming, has home brew ingredient suppliers limiting the amount they will sell to each customer and some are not selling to new customers or customers who do not buy a full set of ingredients to go with them. The cost of beer may also rise. Surely, a shooting war is not far off.

I haven't made any yellow beer, yet. Seems the challenges there, compared to dark beers, would be clarity and purity of flavor. People expect to be able to read the newspaper through a translucent yellow beer, like an IPA. It's going to be important to let things settle very very well to get that amount of clarity. Irish Moss is supposed to help. Yellow beers also do not have the robust complexity of flavors found in dark beers. That big flavor can hide or even accentuate mistakes that a yellow beer could not. My buddy's Classic American Lager, made from an extract kit, came out great.

I did my boil on Friday. It's the Bavarian Bock kit from The Home Brewery. Not having my buddy's turkey fryer this time, I did a two part boil. 3 1/2 gallons in one pot, 1 gallon in another, with the ingredients haphazardly divided among the two. After loosing some wort to evaporation during boil, I had to top off with 1+ gallons of plain water. That's worked out well so far. I don't have a wort chiller, so I cool the wort in the sink with ice and water. It should be cooled to 75-70 F before pitching the yeast or yeast starter. Cooling this two part boil was faster than cooling nearly 5 gallons at once. It's important to cool as fast as possible so air borne bacteria don't set up shop in the wort. It's also important to stir in any top off water very well into the primary fermenter or brew pots. For best results, all the liquid must become one with the wort. Stir like mad.

Being a Southerner, I could not have big boiling pots on the stove without adding all sorts of stuff. To this boil was added a few cups of brown sugar and some hefty dashes of cinnamon. I have no idea how it will turn out. It's no longer Bavarian style Bock. It's Aintla'exican style beer.

Given that the beer fermented with such fervor as to blow apart my 3 piece airlock, twice in 24 hours, I think it's gonna kick ass on the booze scale. Starting gravity was 1.053.

Stone, I got into this for around $200, including two cases of bottles, a 4 gallon stainless brew pot, the Irish Stout kit and shipping. In hind sight, I could have spent less on the brew kit and a little more on a turkey fryer that is 5+ gallons and done full boils all the time. Partial or two part boils are completely acceptable and people do it all the time. If you've got a stove big enough to boil the wort, most residential stoves are fine, that's all I have and it's a 1970s model electric, and a small closet or dark corner for the fermenters, you can do extract brewing too. The fermetenters must be kept in a cool dark still place. Light and heat skunks beer.

Aintla'exican?? Can I apply for patent on that name for you?

The first beer Dax and I ever made was a Canadian Pale Ale from a kit, and it came out GREAT! Our very first try, and of course that terrific result was very encouraging. We bottled it all... I forget how many 6-packs 10 gallons came out to, but it was a hell of a lot of beer for two people. We gave some away a few 6-packs to some folks as a gift and they left in in the back seat of their car on a real hot summer day after a long bumpy drive. (grin) And you know who got the blame? Some people have no brains at all!

We made lots of beers, both light and dark. I always found the dark ones too bitter for my taste. I love aroma hops, but not the bitter flavor hops, and I'd always hold back some on those and throw in extra aroma hops, and my yellow beers were always refreshing and zesty without being bitter.

We haven't made beer in a few years, mainly because when we moved to our house here, one of the things that was lost in the move was our big 20 gallon stainless steel kettle, among other precious things. Just..... *poof*, gone. And we've been so busy laying around running a website, attending college and eating potato chips that we haven't had time to run out and buy a new one, but.... someday.

KA-BOOM! Oh, yeah

Me and my evil twin made rotten scupernogs in water with sugar this one time. We made it in big plastic Gatorade bottles, the kind with ribs. The ribs were bulging out when we took it out of my trunk, in August, in New Orleans. We tried to ease off the cap. psssst-BOOM! The bottle ceased to exist and the... concoction vaporized. The next day in school, the chic who lives 2 blocks away was asking what we did.

Good times.

Damn, that sounds soooooo good!!! I am going to make my way to the suppliers and get the equipment and ingredients that I need for this venture. Also want to make some wine in the near future, too. Can this stuff be legally shipped by home brewers/vintners?

Of course... It's covered under the Don't Ask Don't Tell law. It's a federal law so all states are required to abide by it.