You want hop flavors? Here are 107 to choose from

Hopsteiner lupulin pellets
This is how Hopsteiner introduces its new Lupulin Pellets

In case you can’t read Jeff Alworth’s tweet (above) from Wednesday, this is what it says:

“Trends shift, fashions change. Reading @StanHieronymus’s latest hops newsletter about development of new hops and I began to wonder if fruitiness will continue to dominate preferences. Spice and herbs have a long, august history in hopping. Might they become the next big thing?”

As is often the case, it takes some clicking around (start by hitting the date) to follow all the comments, but there were some people agreeing with Joe Stange (“Selfishly, hedonistically, I hope so”) and some interested in taking the conversation in another direction.

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Kveik: Disruption, tradition and authenticity

Lars Grashol examines juniper

Lars Garshol, left, and Bjørne Røthe, discuss the freshly cut juniper Røthe will use to brew a beer in the 18th century out building behind them.

On the train ride to the Dyrvedalen Valley in western Norway a couple of years ago with Lars Garshol “disruption” was among the many things we talked about.

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Is it possible to be ‘a little too New Orleans?’

Dixie Brewing 2016Abandoned Dixie brewery, five months after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans

The New Orleans brewing company formerly known as Dixie announced this week that its new name is Faubourg Brewing.

The name comes from the French term for settled areas outside a city. As New Orleans grew in the 18th century expanding neighborhoods were called faubourgs and many still are, such as Faubourg Marigny and Faubourg St. John.

You’ll recall that in June, Dixie was one of several brands (think Dixie Chicks becoming The Chicks or Uncle Ben’s rice becoming Ben’s original) to retire its old name. The company asked consumers to submit possible new names (5,400 did) and conducted focus groups.

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Second annual Beer Culture Summit: Nov. 11-14

Hop pickers

The second Beer Culture Summit begins Nov. 11 with “Yes…I’ve heard of you: A conversation with Dr. J Jackson-Beckham and Garrett Oliver” and concludes Nov. 14 with “Beatles, Bowie, and beer.”

Between those presentations are 30 Zoom sessions, as different from each other as the opening and closing ones. Of course, the event hosted by Chicago Brewseum is virtual. Three quick examples of what to expect:

– Nate Chapman and David Brunsma, who answered questions here last week, will discuss their book, “Beer and Racism,” and then lead a panel discussion with Alex Kidd, Ale Sharpton, Shyla Shephard and Garrett Oliver.

– Michael Roper of Hopleaf and Hagen Dost from Dovetail Brewery will demonstrate “beer poking.”

– “A motley crew of current and former beer professionals sit in front of their laptops in their respective homes and discuss the virtual beer community informally known as Beer Twitter – the good, the bad, and the borderline absurd.”

One more thing. I’ll be there on a panel talking about hops. Thus the photo at the top.

Some best and otherwise Very Important Beers

American Brewer magazine 1999

Back in the day I yielded to temptation and posted lists. I also railed against them. So you might figure there is no reason to trust me.

But two lists (the second is really multiple lists) that showed up last week sent me to the files to dig out a couple from the days of print that I will share them here.

The headline on the first—The 25 Most Important American Beers of All Time—screams bring back a Jay Brooks takedown (another back-in-the-day thing in which Jay would dig deep, point after point, about something written). I commented in one Twitter thread, and otherwise have three questions.

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