Craft: The Lost Word.<\/a><\/strong> Beer tailored to your DNA: London brewery creates the perfect pint based your genetic code.<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n Yes, genetics play a significant role in determining how we perceive different odor compounds (that our brains turn into what we call aroma, which many will argue makes up 90 percent of flavor). And if you read the story you’ll see the mention of a gene called TAS2R38, which is associated with bitterness and what’s referred to as supertasting. But the relationship isn’t all that simple<\/a>. 23andMe<\/a> does a good business providing anscestorial information and for $199 they’ll flush that out with additional information about various traits. But don’t you already know how much you like, or do not like, bitterness? If you really want a custom made beer don’t you think you’d be better off telling the brewer what else you like or don’t like? <\/p>\n Science has plenty to offer brewers, and more all the time. There’s value in understanding the genetics involved in all the raw materials used to brew beer as well as how we perceive all aspect of flavor. Science is good. But this is silly. [Via Daily Mail]<\/strong><\/p>\n How stone beer was brewed.<\/a><\/strong> Adding stones to boiling wort (at Scratch, the photo above, stones were the only source of heat for boiling) came later. Fred Eckhardt wrote about “America’s Own Stone Beer”<\/a> in All About Beer<\/em> magazine. “Modern stone brewing was first revived in Germany in 1982 by Gerd Borges of Rauchenfels Brewery in Neustad, Bavaria. He had found the 1910 Austrian brewing text mentioned above and then had the astoundingly good fortune to find the son of the last brew master of one of those breweries. The old man, who died in 1965, had made an audiotape of the process.” [Via Larsblog]<\/strong><\/p>\n The hunt for wild hops.<\/a><\/strong> I most often sort out and assemble these links with the help of music playing, sometime loudly. Right now I am listening to the latest from Shovels & Rope.<\/a> That I haven’t been during the last two months is an oversight — we saw them shortly because “Little Seeds” was released, went to Australia and, well that’s my excuse. I am listening now, and you should be too. It’s a bit chaotic. Like beer these days.<\/p>\n Why amateur wine scores are every bit as good as professionals’.<\/a><\/strong> Urban Wineries Drawn to Seattle\u2019s Industrial Core.<\/a><\/strong> What was “Musty Ale”?<\/a><\/strong> Turning Left in a Right World \u2014 Suarez Family Brewery in Livingston, NY.<\/a><\/strong> IPA, IPA, or Would You Prefer an IPA?<\/a><\/strong> As is often the case, passed on not for the individual tweet but for the conversations. So click on the date associated with each one to see what I’m referring to.<\/p>\n The first is a reminder that the notion we’ll ever move past arguing about what is craft is naive. The second because I don’t trust beer judges who spit (sorry ATJ<\/a>). And the third, just because.<\/p>\n Top selling craft beer brands (yes, many are now owned by the big guys) over the past year pic.twitter.com\/DjaYa6LaY2<\/a><\/p>\n — Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 14, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nSo let’s head into 2017 with the optimistic thought we’ll quit talking about the word we put before beer<\/em> 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]<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nNo. 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.)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/images\/20160803-scratch05.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nSo back in August<\/a> brewers from Scratch Brewing and Jester King Brewing were not exactly replicating the way stone beers were made in most of northern Europe for a very long time. Lars Marius Garshol details how it was done,<\/em>concluding, “Based on this, what you’d expect to find is that people in ancient times used the hot stones to heat the mash, and didn’t boil the wort at all. Later, when they got metal kettles, they started just heating water or juniper infusion and pouring it on the malts instead. Then, some places they started boiling the wort, and other places they never did.”<\/p>\n
\n[Via Craft Beer & Brewing]<\/strong>
\nMeet the Wild Hop Hunters Saving Your Beer from Climate Change.<\/a><\/strong>
\n[Via Outside]<\/strong>
\nI wrote a book about hops and a book about foraging. I certainly wish I could have made these stories part of either, or both. And we lived in New Mexico and I know the terrain where the adventures take place. So you know that FOMO that infects some beer drinker? That’s me and stories that involve beer and agriculture.<\/p>\nDIGRESSION<\/h5>\n
WINE<\/h5>\n
\nPerhaps I should have simply emailed the link to Bryan Roth<\/a> to consider when he compiles and seeks to make sense of the 2016 “best beer” lists. Anyway, the authors conclude that consumers might be better off spending their money on wine than on scores from experts, because: “It looks very much like the enthusiasts actually do a better job of agreeing with the experts than the experts do with each other. That might sound odd, but out of thousands of wines we analyzed, only a handful contradicted this pattern. Simply put, if you want to know what the experts think, the best place to look appears to be, of all places, CellarTracker.” [Via Vox]<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n“We found music was a great way to disarm people. Instead of being intimidated talking about wine, people can talk about music and what they want to listen to. It makes them more comfortable and relaxed, and then we can talk about the wine.” [Via WineEnthusiast]<\/strong><\/p>\nBACK TO BEER<\/h5>\n
\nSometimes learning about beer is a journey. Case in point: after starting here, move on to here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. [Via Beer Et Seq]<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nA love story that begins at Murray’s Cheese in Greenwich Village. There’s a lot about beer, too. [Via Good Beer Hunting]<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nWelcome to 2017. [Via Boak & Bailey’s Beer Blog]<\/strong><\/p>\nFROM TWITTER<\/h5>\n
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