Beer Thoughts

Once seen as a key differentiation between better and mass marketed beer, the 2-row barley malt may now be the least important ingredient in a brewery.  Malt has disappeared from our beer conversations.  There are still palettes stacked high with 50 lb bags, and fork lifts. By weight, it's still beer's second largest ingredient, after water of course.  However it's lost our attention, and its contributions intentionally minimized to better showcase on the other players - most typically hops and Yeast (or other microflora). The mighty hop has always been a lead character in American craft beer.  There's something in our soil that makes hops express pungent aromas and aggressive flavors.  European brewers traditionally considered these hops too vulgar to feature prominently in a beer's finish.  They kept quiet about cost savings from the use of american hops to bitter.  American craft brewers found ways to feature these piney, resinous flavors as virt...

It's impossible for traditional crafts to exist in a vacuum, isolated from the innovations and discoveries of the modern world.  Brewing is no different.  It's a craft rejuvenated by home brewers returning to the traditions of the past, and entrepreneurs who followed their passions into a battle against Goliaths of commerce and misconception often romanticizing the individual artisan while celebrating the greatness created when the brewer's art embraced industry in Bohemia, Britain, and Germany.  The pace of scientific discovery and technological change has only hastened.  Today scientific discovery and technological improvements are influencing beer through its ingredients, brewing processes, and marketing. Technological changes to beer ingredients are both the most frightening, and the most exciting sources of science driven innovation available to the modern brewer. While a good beer may be transcend the qualities of its components, it's difficult to artfully ...