Eureka: My name is Sam and I am a homebrewer since 2006 and live in Switzerland, the chocolate, cheese and clock country. I have a strong scientific background and studied Molecular- and Cell/Cellular biology and furthermore have a BSc in Chemistry (& work as a scientist). Due to my scientific background, I tend to prepare and carry out my beer related experiments and batches in a rather scientific way. I am therefore not afraid of using science… And I have to mention that English is not my native language.
My passion are sour and wild beers (any kind), Porters, Stouts, and Belgian and French beers in general. Plus some lost beer styles like Berliner Weisse, Gose, Grätzer, Mumme, Lichtenhainer etc. A further passion of mine is cultivating yeasts, isolating and brewing with souring organisms such as Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, Pediococcus and others. At the moment I am most interested in establishing methods to cultivate, isolate and identify different Brettanomyces yeasts.
With this blog, I would like to share my methods, experiments, experiences and recipes. For further information and the background of my home brewery visit the respective page.
Feel free to comment, share your opinion, add corrections, add your own experiences or any other things you like to share with others. I am open for any discussions. Please respect that I have to approve all the first-time comments to prevent any inappropriate comments and avoid spam. Once you are an approved commenter your comments will be published right away.
If you want to get in touch with me, shoot a mail to contacteurekabrewing@gmail.com
Copyright by Eureka Brewing Blog [2012-2015]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eureka Brewing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Cheers!
Sam
Eureka Brewing 
Interesting. I couldn’t tell English wasn’t your native from the way you write. Good job! Actually English isn’t my native either 🙂
I am very happy about your lines. Thank you very much. Sometimes it is very difficult to write in English, sometimes not. But English is actually the easiest foreign language I speak… And I hope that all the writing helps me to improve my speaking abilities as well.
It’s interesting that you have the very strong scientific background. I’ve already noticed the way you write and capture details is very similar to a brewing friend I have who is a pharmacist. He also tends to be very scientific and very thorough at detailing what he does.
…and Cheers to being multilingual as well. Such a great asset. I stumble around in French, but not much else. There’s not much reason to know any other languages around here.
Sometimes, the writing style can be very confusing to others…
Being multilingual is pretty neat. Unfortunately, my French is pretty bad… Although I had to learn French before English at school. I guess this is an advantage being in a multilingual country such as Canada or Switzerland. In Switzerland we have four official languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh). The first language you learn at school is a second official language. French in my case since I am a native German speaker (although not the same spoken in Germany…). This is yet another story 😉 The next language is English or Italian. I chose both… At the end of school, I had four language exams (German, French, English and Italian). Languages are very important. At least in Europe. In nearly every country in Europe, a different language is spoken…
Cheers, Samuel
I’ve always found German fascinating, but learning another language here would useless unless I got to travel more. I’d never use it and forget it quickly. I rarely have to use any French and only remember a fraction of what I had learned in school.
I just have to ask why your site is called “Eureka Brewing”. I grew up in Eureka, California, but I’m guessing you’re not naming the blog after my home town.
Hey there real Eurekan,
unfortunately for you, no connection to your home town… I’m sorry for that. I once posted about the “history” behind the name in the following post: https://eurekabrewing.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/16-eureka/
Cheers
Thanks for that. There’s a real connection to my home state, so that will have to do. Happy Brewing!
What part of Switzerland are you in? I recently moved to Zurich and I am brewing. Would you be interested in doing a beer exchange/ tasting? Currently I have 4 beers ready.
Regards,
Elias
Hi Elias,
I live near Bern and would be very interested in some exchanges. Shall I write you an email to your gmail address?
Cheers, Sam
that works. Let me know how we should do it.
Cheers,
Elias
greetings from Slovakia, pretty nice blog, thanks a lot for very usefull informations you share with other homebrewers. /especially the posts on yeast propagation/ Keep on going ! I will follow your blog for more 🙂
Thanks a lot. Such comments keep me motivated to write further posts.
I’m just…I’m just speechless :)!!! After reading few of your entries (but almost all about yeast), I can’t express more of my applause and respect! It’s just simply HUGE, knowledge source for people like me, starting “Dancing with yeasties”.
I’m intermediate AG homebrewer, and slowly thinking about starting my own yeast bank, ‘farm’, etc. 🙂 I really appreciate (and I’m sure that all of readers) your efforts, hard work and approach to ‘the stuff’ which you’re writing about.
Keep up the excellent work! Thank you!!!
PS. I’m not a microbiologist, therefore no lab experience. But along with “Yeast” book, such sites as yours are extremely helpful, friendly and inspirational for the rest of Our Homebrewing Family 😉
Thank you very much for your feedback. I am just really excited about the whole yeast topic and like to share as much of my experience as possible 🙂 Further posts concerning yeast will follow in the future. However not about yeast ranching anymore.
Good luck with your yeast bank. And you don’t need any lab experience for that. Just keep cleanliness and sterility in mind. In my opinion the most important two things in yeast banking.
Cheers, Samuel
Hello,
I found your blog by chance but it cannot be a simple coincidence.
Your English is pretty good. I wish I could speak/write like that 🙂
My biggest dream is to became an entrepreneur selling a new probiotic drink for healthy lifestyle freaks. Something between beer and kefir.
I have also a scientific background (MS in biotechnology, PhD student in pharmaceutical microbiology), but your blog (I believe) will be for me a great source of information.
I know that in Switzerland exist one company, which distributes products of American Cultures for Health. Including batches of my holy drink. I have problem with receiving pure cultures from private households, so I want to ask you. Are you interested in buying starter and sending part to me?
Best wishes from Poland, Martyna
Hi Eurekabrewing,
I found your structure of 4*(mannose 1-6 mannose). What is the orignal source of the structure? Do you have a reference or are you the artist of the image? I would like to correctly site the figure as I am preparing in a future manuscript.
Rafael
Hi Rafael,
if not otherwise stated/cited, all pictures, structures, graphs etc on my blog are from myself. This includes the mannose structures as well.
Kind regards, Sam