place/local/ingredients/sensory

Monday beer links: Stone beer, DNA silliness & that word that’s not going away

MONDAY BEER & WINE LINKS, 12.19.2016

Editorial note: Weekly links will be on unpaid leave the next two Mondays. Regular service will resume Jan. 9 (01.09.2017 or 09.01.2017 depending on where you live).

Craft: The Lost Word.
So let’s head into 2017 with the optimistic thought we’ll quit talking about the word we put before beer and talk about beer itself, brewing, culture, ingredients, geography, or anything that does not involve bickering about a definition of something that which refuses to be defined. [Via Boak & Bailey’s Beer Blog]

Beer tailored to your DNA: London brewery creates the perfect pint based your genetic code.
No. Just no. I sense this story has legs, so wherever you read your headlines you’ll keep seeing it, often enough that you might believe that somebody has done a little investigating and established there’s a reason to pay going on $32,000 for 317 gallons of beer. (That’s the equivalent of 3,381 12-ounce servings, so almost $10 for each one.)

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Monday beer links: Diversity, blogs through the ages & GMO questions

MONDAY BEER & WINE LINKS, 12.12.2016

Is Craft Beer Still Too White?
[Via Vinepair]
Addressing Diversity in Beer: A Q&A with Julia Herz.
[Via This Is Why I Am Drunk]
Addressing Diversity in Beer: Seeking Action.
[Via This Is Why I’m Drunk]
Opinions about this filled my Twitter feed last week. Among suggestions was one that the Brewers Association provide scholarships to people who are not white males to attending brewing school. Nothing wrong with that idea. But the Brewers Association is, well, an association of brewing companies. One of the reasons that there are more local breweries is that they are part of communities, regularly making connections with people in those communities. Shouldn’t they reflect the, and pardon me for using this word, demographics of that community? Shouldn’t the members be allowed to hold them responsible to do that?

Hello From The Blog’s Back End – And The Road …
Alan McLeod nicely summarizes the phases beer blogging has been through, easier for him to do than most because he was there at the beginning. [Via A Good Beer Blog]

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Meet me in Kansas City Saturday

We’re headed to Kansas City this weekend. We’ll be eating smoked meat, drinking beer, meeting up with friends, and I am told there might be some shopping.

I might miss most of that shopping stuff to hang out with brewing friends. Feel free to join us.

Stop No. 1 will be at Glass to Grain Grain to Glass at 1 p.m. I’ll talk a little bit about essential oils, including some new discoveries related to hops and how other plants may be used to create hop-like aromas and flavors (with an assist from yeast). Stop by, listen, ask questions, bring any books (preferably ones I’ve written) you’d like signed. There will be books for sale, but that part is strictly optional.

Round No. 2 begins at 3 p.m. at Crane Brewing in Raytown. The brewery was under construction when I was there in the summer of 2015, so I’m looking forward to a tour from Michael Crane.

Under construction - Crane Brewing Co., Raytown, Mo.

I think everybody will be welcome to join in. After that Michael and I will talk about foraging for yeast and brewing with local yeast. We should be around there until about 6 p.m. Once again, bring questions as well as books to be signed. And there will be books for sale — holiday shopping made fun.

Beer history geek alert. Monday. Boulder.

Nestor's Cup, Avery BrewingThis press release from Avery Brewing in Colorado just landed in my inbox:

Did the Greeks brew beer? Our Beer Archaeologist and Special Projects Brewer, Travis Rupp, believes they did! Join us this Monday, September 19th at 6:30 pm for an examination of Bronze Age Brewing paired with Ancient Greek foods. During the dinner Travis will present and discuss evidence for brewing in the Minoan culture through a recreation of Mycenaean beer, Nestor’s Cup, the first in Avery’s Historical Ale Series!

This inaugural guided tasting will be paired with a series of Nestor’s Cup beer. Monday, September 19th at 6:30pm. Tickets are $30/person in advance and include three versions of Nestor’s cup beer served with three Greek influenced plates. Order tickets below. Call 303-440-4324 for more information for this special event.

The dinner is at the brewery in Boulder. Ticket details.

Travis spoke immediately before I did at Ales Through the Ages last March in Williamsburg, Va. Pro tip: If you find yourself making a presentation an event where Travis is also on the agenda ask for a spot other than directly after him. He killed it, as he has in two seminars at the National Homebrewers Conference.

The only thing that could have made them better is some recreated beer. And now Avery has remedied that.

Monday beer links: Yeast family tree, peaches and ‘selling out’

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 09.12.2016

Beer yeast is tame. Wine yeast is wild. Draw your own conclusions.
[Via The Washington Post]
Why we’re so good at making BEER: Study reveals how humans harnessed microbes to create the perfect drink.
[Via Daily Mail]
Domestication and Divergence of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Beer Yeasts.
[Via Cell]
If you are feeling brave you may dive right into the third link (peer-reviewed academic/scientific research). Otherwise opt for the newspaper translations (first two). Quite honestly, this stuff if way above my paygrade. Fascinating, but I need serious handholding from people who know what they are talking about to write about it with any confidence. Chapter 6 of Brewing Local is about foraging for yeast, but is downright basic (written in a way I can understand) when it comes to wild versus domesticated. Nonethless, I would call The Washington Post headline oversimplification. You’ll also note that the researchers sequenced only Saccharomyces cerevisiae (top fermenting) strains, leaving Saccharomyces pastorianus for another paper — although it turns out (page 1398) that 10 of the S. cervevisiae strains were used to produce lager beers.

Analysis of farmhouse yeast (kveik).
And then there is the matter of non-industrial yeast strains.

Muri is identified as either lager yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus) or its close relative Saccharomyces bayanus. That’s consistent with an earlier analysis White Labs had Accugenix do, but very surprising. How did lager yeast wind up in the innermost arm of Nordfjord, right up under the glacier? Did someone at some point get yeast from a lager brewery? Or is the story more complicated? S. bayanus and S. pastorianus are both cold-tolerant species. Do they live wild in Norway? It seems unlikely, but I’m not sure anyone has ever checked carefully enough to answer with a clear yes or no. (Note: this isn’t the first time lager yeast has shown up where it wasn’t supposed to be.)

[Via Larsblog]

The craft beer project that grew from Masumoto Family Farm’s peach trees.
“Hey, Stan, why isn’t this farmer in Brewing Local?” Sorry, no excuses, David “Mas” Masumoto should have been. [Via Los Angeles Times]

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