Jamil Zainasheff Collaboration Brew of Tasty's Janet's Brown

Jamil Zainasheff co-authored Brewing Classic Styles with John Palmer and is one of the world's most decorated home brewers, having scooped over 500 brewing awards across all style categories and twice been named winner of the coveted Ninkasi Award by the American Homebrewers Association. Jamil is known for being very generous with his knowledge and went on to co-author “Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation” (with Chris White). In addition, he hosted The Jamil Show on The Brewing Network and has a website online entitled Mr. Malty. Jamil also turned pro a number of years ago, starting his own commercial brewery, Heretic Brewing (Fairfield, California) which he has since sold to new owners.

When Andy caught wind of Jamil visiting London to deliver the keynote speech at the 2022 Brewer's Congress, he wrote him somewhat of a speculative email asking if there was any chance Jamil fancied visiting little old Finchampstead to brew with us. After Jamil's good friend Sean Knight (Head Brewer, Siren) put in a good word for us, a date was set - Friday December 16th 2022!

"So Jamil, what would you like to brew?" asked Andy. We love everything about the West Coast, IPAs - Red, Brown, Black, all of them!

"When I hear brown ale, I think of Tasty's Janet's Brown Ale." said Jamil. Mike 'Tasty' McDole was one of the most prolific and influential people in modern homebrewing and a good friend (and TBN co-host) of Jamil's. His Janet's Brown beer was featured in Jamil's book and went on to become one of the best known and loved homebrewing recipes out there, brewed the world over. Tasty sadly passed away in 2020 after a battle with cancer.

In tribute to Tasty, we're going to take his recipe for Janet's Brown and bring it bang up to date by fermenting it with WHC Labs Hop Unlock, a so-called ‘thiolised’ yeast which can unlock aroma compounds. We'll be mash hopping with Cascade (to promote bound thiol levels) which will hopefully lead to a super aromatic and tasty American Brown Ale. We'll be making a donation to Macmillan Cancer Support in Tasty's name and our good friends at The Malt Miller will be producing kits that will be released alongside the finished beer in January, so you can brew along at home!

Jamil will be in the Elusive Brewing Tap Room from 2-5pm on Friday December 16th. From 2-4pm we'll have a bit of a bottle share and informal chat, so bring down your brews for Jamil and Andy to taste. From 4-5pm we'll host a sit down Q&A through which you'll hear all about Jamil's brewing philosophy and have a chance to ask all those burning questions.

Around 6pm we'll be heading to The Fox and Hounds in Caversham (Reading) where Siren will be holding a big old Christmas tap takeover and launching a remote collab West Coast IPA Sean did with Jamil. So if you can't make it out to Finchampstead, why not join us for a pint at The Fox afterwards?

We're ticketing the formal Q&A to help manage numbers (those who've visited will know it can get crowded) and the £5 fee will be 100% donated to Macmillan. CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS