Wednesday, February 15, 2012

But, Where Are the Flying Cars?

This morning came across two articles about—THE FUTURE OF BEER (In my head that was said with a booming echo.) 

The first story comes, thanks to Max the Beer Philosopher, via Facebook. We all know that beer only needs four ingredients—water, malted barley, hops and yeast. All are relatively easy to grow, harvest or cultivate, and with those ingredients, beer making is a fairly simple process. But, it's the "malted" bit of "malted barley" that causes an issue—the malting process is expensive, and to make matters worse, there's a finite number of maltsters world-wide. Alex Goldmark of GOOD.is—an online and in-print magazine which comments on all things hip—found a Minnesotan brewer who figured out how to cut out the malty middleman. Get the whole story here—and thanks again to Max for finding the story in the first place. 

Yes! I knew it!
The second story came across my Google News feed. It focuses on beer's spicy friend the hop—specifically Oregon grown hops. Martin Cizmar, of Portland, Oregon's Willamette Week, reports on two Willamette Valley citizens who are trying to reinvigorate that area's hop industry. Gayle Goshie, a third generation hop grower, and Jim Sodberg, a Mark Cuban-esque, ex-Nike exec, have stared Indie Hops. The bulk of the hops grown in the U.S. are sold to the big boys of American brewers, but In 2008, after the AB-Inbev merger, Bud began looking to the, arguably, lesser quality, but definitely less expensive hops of Washington State's Yakima Valley. Who else uses hops? Craft brewers, and that's who Indie Hops has decided to cater to. This upstart hop conglomerate, in conjunction with Oregon Sate University, is focusing on funkified, hybrid hops that push the envelope on what brewers expect from Humulus lupulus—think flavor notes like coconut and blueberry—as well as an updated hop processing infrastructure for the Willamette Valley. You can check out the whole story behind these two entrepreneurs and their hoppy friends, here.

Okay, these articles aren't exactly Jetsonian, but who can argue with possibly cheaper, funky beer? Besides, I like a future filled with hops and barley (malted or otherwise), rather than the one the Mayans have in store.   

9 comments:

  1. There are a couple of things from that article about bypassing malt that don't quite add up, but now that you talk you mention AB-InBev in same post there is one more, and pretty big, thing that doesn't quite add up. If this method is so clean, efficient and, very important for the likes of AB-InBev, cheap and you can still produce cheaper beers out of it, how come the Brazilians aren't using it yet?

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    1. Oops! I wanted to say "decent beer" and not "cheaper beer".

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    2. That "decent" bit remains to be seen, doesn't it?

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    3. OK, let's leave it at "drinkable".... Some beers can be pretty "indecent".

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    4. Beaumont will have your head for using that word

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  2. when I grow those malts in that "grow you own beer garden" I got for Christmas, how do I turn them into beer?

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    1. Grow the barley, harvest the barley, wet the grain, wait for germination, dry the grain, lightly roast the malt. There you go pale malt. if you continue to dry roast the malt you'll go from pale to amber to brown to black malt. If you wet the malt and toast it, you'll get crystal and then chocolate malt.

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  3. P.S. please turn that damn captcha off. X(

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