Karl E. Lutzen and Mark Stevens guide you through the best tools for all your brewing needs, from DIY homemade versions of commercial brewery equipment to simple devices that make brewing easier and safer. Learn which gadgets and gizmos work best for measuring, mashing, bottling, kegging, and more. With the proper tools close at hand you’ll save both time and money, leaving you free to focus on enjoying your homebrewed beers.

    And that’s just since the Halifax musician started making records of his own in 1999. For a decade before that, he was one-quarter of Thrush Hermit, a band of scrappy Superchunk disciples who became hard-rock revivalists and one of the last survivors of the ’90s pop “explosion” of major-label interest in Halifax.Canada’s east coast has never been much of a pop-culture mecca. Most musicians from the region who’ve ever made it big moved away. But armed with a stubborn streak and a knack for great songwriting, Plaskett has kept Halifax as his home, building both a career and a music community there. Along the way, he’s earned great respect: when he plays shows in Alberta, east-coast expats literally thank him for staying home.Nowhere with You is the study of how he pulled this off, from the origins of Canada’s east-coast exodus to Plaskett’s anointment as “Halifax’s Rick Rubin.” It’s a story about what happens when you call a city “the new Seattle,” about the lessons you learn playing to empty rooms in Oklahoma, and about defying radio-single expectations with rock operas and triple records. It’s about doing what you want, where you want, no matter how much work it takes.

    Alcoholica Esoterica presents the history and culture of booze as told by a writer with a knack for distilling all the boring bits into the most interesting facts and hilarious tales. It's almost like pulling up a stool next to the smartest and funniest guy in the bar. Divided into chapters covering the basic booze groups--including beer, wine, Champagne, whiskey, rum, gin, vodka, and tequila--Alcoholica Esoterica charts the origin and rise of each alcohol's particular charms and influence. Other sections chronicle "Great Moments in Hic-story," "Great Country Drinking Songs," "10 Odd Laws," and "Mt. Lushmore, Parts I-V." Additionally, famous quotes on the joys and sorrows of liquor offer useful shots of advice and intoxicating whimsy.Did you know...that the word bar is short for barrier? Yes, that's right--to keep the customers from getting at all the booze.that Winston Churchill's mother supposedly invented the Manhattan?that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock because the sailors on the Mayflower were running low on beer and were tired of sharing?that you have a higher chance of being killed by a flying Champagne cork than by a poisonous spider?that the Code of Hammurabi mandated that brewers of low-quality beer be drowned in it?that beer was so popular with medieval priests and monks that in the thirteenth century they stopped baptizing babies with holy water and started using beer?

    Hewitt has even been the inspiration for some of Weller's songs - and he has extraordinary in-depth knowledge of the inspiration behind the rest.Once, when Hewitt interviewed Weller for a music magazine, he complained - 'I don't know why people ask me all these questions. All the answers are in my songs.' Largely unnoticed, Weller has used thirty-years of lyrics to explore his personal history and beliefs. Taking as his starting point these lyrics, alongside a lifetime's friendship, Paolo Hewitt shows us the real Paul Weller, the man inside the music.