Frequently, I hear from brewers who would like to write an article for Brew Your Own (BYO), but don't know how to go about it, or even if BYO accepts unsolicited manuscripts.

First of all, Brew Your Own needs writers. We have a group of enthusiastic homebrewers writing for us, but more writers is always better than fewer writers. The more the merrier, as the hackneyed saying goes. (And incidentally, avoid hackneyed sayings when writing for BYO.) So, if you are thinking of writing an article for us, or are interested in being a writer who contributes articles on a regular basis, drop me line ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). You do not need to be a published writer to apply — being an enthusiastic homebrewer with interesting information to share is all that is required.

Secondly, prospective writers sometimes wonder what types of articles we are looking for. I'll discuss a few specific article types later in this blog entry, but — in theory at least — this is an easy call; we are looking for articles about brewing beer at home.

Anything that deals with making better homebrew or making homebrew more efficiently is welcome in BYO. Most of our articles deal with either ingredients, techniques or equipment (including how-to-build articles). We also publish articles covering beer styles.

We do not cover commercial beer brands, commercial breweries, beer brewing regions, brewing history or "beer mayhem" (such as drunken pub crawls, or similar stories). These can be interesting topics, and may be touched on in articles that otherwise have a strong homebrew angle, but they are outside of our "editorial vision." 

In addition to being about homebrewing, we also have a few other requirements for our articles:

The topic of the article should not have been covered recently in the pages of BYO. Our usual rule of thumb here is not to revisit a topic if we've published something on it in the last three years, but we'll bend that rule if something new and interesting comes to light.

The article should contain new information (from primary sources) and not simply rehash information that is widely known in the homebrewing world. We aren't, for instance, looking for writers to summarize chapters of John Palmer's book for us. We are interested in homebrewers talking to professional brewers, maltsters, equipment fabricators, hop farmers, barley farmers, yeast "ranchers" or brewing scientists and bringing useful new information to our readers. (For example, in our recent series about dark malts, writer Kris England spoke to maltsters at Briess and get some good, basic info on how these malts were made.)

So, if you have a specific idea for a how-to-homebrew article, what should you do? The best approach is to write me a query letter. Tell me what your idea is and I'll tell you if we might have a use for it. The best query letters include not only the basic idea of the article, but what sub-topics will be covered on and what new information the article will bring the reader. 

Here are some article types we are looking for: 

1.) Build-it Articles — Have you built a piece of homebrewing equipment that is useful or interesting for some reason (including, being better designed than currently available alternatives, being cheaper than the alternatives or being easy to build.)? If you can take pictures of your build and give step by step instructions for our readers, get in touch with me. Recent homebrewer builds featured in BYO include Lonnie Mac's Brutus 10 and Tony Profera's multi-tap homebrew dispenser he built for his homebrew club.

2.) Describe "Your" Technique — Do you have a technique that you do all the time and can describe well? If it's interesting and something many homebrewers would benefit from, let me know. A few years ago, we let Denny Conn explain batch sparging — something he had extensive experience with — in our pages. He also included instructions on how to build an inexpensive mash/lauter tun to use with the technique. 

3.) Ingredient Articles — Is there some unusual ingredient you've used with success? Or, do you know something about a particular malt, hop variety or yeast strain that is worthy of an article? Past BYO ingredient-focused articles have included brewing with chocolate (in one of my Techniques columns) and using rye malt (Denny Conn again).

4.) Beer Styles — Is there a beer style you know of — whether a historical type or a regional specialty — that is not well known? Alternately, do you have any new or interesting information on an established beer style? For example, we recently published a story by Horst Dornbusch, detailing the industrial sabotage that was involved in developing Vienna Lager. 

5.) Clones — Do you know a commercial brewer who brews great beer and is willing to share his recipes and talk a little bit about brewing in general? Homebrewers love clones and we're always looking for this type of article.

4.) Homebrew Science or Experiments — Learn something new from a brewing journal or homebrew exeperiment that would benefit homebrewers? 'd love to hear about it.

5.) Last Call — The final page of our magazine is for human interest type stories . . . as long as the humans are homebrewers. If you think you have an interesting story, send it in. (Please, no "my pot boiled over the first time I brewed" stories. This happened to everyone.)

6.) Anything Else a Homebrewer Might Be Interested In — If you have an idea, run it by me. 

If you think you have an idea, write me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and let's discuss it.