BrewTALES from the road - How is this made?

Our book, The National Geographic Atlas of Beer is in the final proof stage. It's full of geography, history, and culture of beer, as well as stories told to us by brewers. Here is one interesting story, among many you will find in our book, which will be for sale in mid September, 2017.   

A year ago, we had the chance to travel to South America to visit breweries and learn more about the beer culture. We had tried chicha before in Colombia, but now knowing how it's made, we might have second thoughts.

What would you do with your beer if someone spat in it? Chicha is the original fermented beverage made by the local populations in Latin America before the arrival of the Europeans. It is a corn based beverage, that starts with people chewing kernels of corn and relying on the enzymes in saliva to begin breaking the starch into sugars. People are essentially malting the corn in their mouths! The resulting paste is then spat into bowl. Water is added and then the mixture is boiled and once cooled, yeast settles into the wort and fermentation begins.  Today, chicha is still made in this manner in indigenous villages, but it also made using commercially malted corn, thereby skipping the chewing and spitting steps. Bottoms up!


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Standing out in Spain's craft beer industry

Our book, The National Geographic Atlas of Beer is in the final proof stage. It's full of geography, history, and culture of beer, as well as stories told to us by brewers. Here is one interesting story, among many you will find in our book, which will be for sale in mid September, 2017. 

Brewmaster Liz Luyben

Take internet dating, goats, red tape, a 6 foot blonde, mix in a passion for brewing, and you end up with La Cabra Azul (The Blue Goat) brewery. Meet Liz Luyben. As a college student in the Netherlands, Liz got her hands on a brewing kit and became quite good at changing water into beer, especially with Belgian tripels. Then along came love. She and her husband not only met on the internet, they subsequently founded the largest free dating site in the Netherlands, which meant no time for her brewing hobby. With the success of their website, they relocated to the mountains outside of Malaga, Spain to enjoy life. But good beer was hard to come by in her remote village. 

So Liz dusted off her brewing kit and started to brew American IPAs. A local bar owner tried one and invited Liz to brew at his bar, where he would sell it. Mountains of red tape later, La Cabra Azul was born. The brewery was named after the blue skies of Andalusia and the goats that graze on the hills. The use of local ingredients whenever possible is essential. Liz has even started to grow hops (Emerald, Simcoe and Citra) for her beers! Berliner Weisse is her next big project. When asked what it is like to be a brewer in Spain, Liz said, “I am a six foot tall blonde, pretty much all Spanish brewers are short guys with beards. That does tend to make me stand out just a little. Then again I am not easily overlooked, which is a good thing!” Agreed. Like Liz, her tasty beers should not be overlooked!

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BrewTALES from the road - Two beers, one river

Bon voyage Paris!  The Beer Doctors have moved on to one of the most beer-loving countries in Europe - Germany! We arrived in Cologne, a 2,000-year-old city spanning the Rhine River in western Germany.  Its beer geography should not be understated - it is the home of the Kolsch beer style. But there is a catch... with what flows downstream.  Watch the video and learn about another tale of two cities and the importance of location.

Kolsch

Altbier

Which beer is brewed downstream?

BrewTALES from the road - la cave à bières

Strolling around Paris (isn't that what you do in Paris? Stroll?), we stumbled across a nook of a beer cellar ("la cave à bières") called Le Binouze. The name of this beer bottle shop, as we learned from another Frenchman in a nearby pub, is a slang for beer in French.  Two opposing walls were high with various glass bottles of beer, representing brews from Paris and beyond. The two young gentlemen working there - the one being a classic cliche of a college student who is earning his degree in cinema while working this "odd" job in order to make ends meet - unfortunately, were limited in their knowledge of beers and brews. And considering the dearth of knowledge in Paris regarding beers, they should know more.  How else does one pick out a beer but by the label?

Le Binouze beer shop in Paris

 As professional educators, beer drinkers and the latest inductees into the North American Guild of Beer Writers, we took it upon ourselves to teach these lads a few things about beer.  And no better way of doing that than with their stock of beer - we spent the next two hours pulling from their stock of bottles and opening then one by one, giving them an identity and explaining the nuances like each was... well, a French wine.  The terrior of the hops, the types of yeast and the resulting tastes. How to train the palate for bitter, for sours, and for maltiness.

During this time, several customers stopped by. Some were local Parisians curious to try something new or on an assignment to pick up a specific beer brand. Others were tourists who knew a bit about beers, and sadly at times, looking only for ones from their country of origin.  Some however, began asking us questions about beer and we even had one take home a special Lambic we think they'd like (even though they were German - the couple, not the beer).

In the end we shared six different beer styles - two IPAs (to compare the use of hops), a true lambic, a faro (to understand the use of sugar in beer), and an American wild ale (to underscore the role of yeast) - and took another five with us to drink later, while watching Parisians stroll the rues - a bier de garde, a "spring" ale, a lambic, a flanders style ale, and a hoppy amber French beer.

I'm sure these guys have a great story to tell their college buddies... (Now imagine the next part in French) Ah oui, remember that time that American and that Canadian started opening these crazy beers off the shelf and making us drink them while they went on and on about what makes a good beer...? 

BrewTALES from the road - Organic Beer

Last Christmas (2015), I had the opportunity to go home to British Columbia. While I was visiting a local pub, the bartender told me I needed to go see this brewery called Crannog. I decided to go pay the brewery a visit, and this is a story I was told. Hope you enjoy it.

Crannog Ales Brewery. Photo courtesy of www.bartowel.com

Crannóg Ales is a small (10 hectoliter/8.5 barrel system) brewery located in Sorrento, a small town of 1200 nestled in the interior of British Columbia. Its remote location helped the co-founder Brian MacIsaac and become  start the first certified organic farmhouse microbrewery in Canada.  But finding organic ingredients, particularly malted barley, wasn’t an easy task when the brewery first opened in 2000. The malster company providing the organic barley told Crannóg’s brewer that the low demand for organic malted barley would not justify increasing its production. So Brian embarked on a west coast road trip, visiting dozens of breweries from Vancouver to San Diego. When he visited each brewery, he talked to brewers and not only was he able to get to them to commit to buying and using organic malted barley in some of their beers, if he could find a company willing to grow it. The road trip was a success, as Brian got enough brewers to commit, and convinced his barley supplier to increase its production of organic malted barley to meet the growing demand. In the 6 years since Brian’s road trip, sales of organic beer increased from $9 million (2003) to $41 million.

Beeronomics 2015

The Beer Doctors at the 2013 Beeronomics conference

Almost 2 years ago, we attended at conference in York, UK called Beeronomics. Academic papers were
presented during the day, but in the evenings the real fun began. For our first night there, the conference committee rented an entire pub!!! We were able to sample about 10 different English beers.

The following night, about 10 local brewmasters came and gave a 5 minute talk each on one of their beers (see photo on left). As they talked, we were given a glass of that beer to sample. It was quite an educational and fun evening. Afterwards we were taken to the York beer festival. All in all, the conference was a hit with us. We are planning on presenting a paper on Sustainability trends in the craft beer industry at the next Beeronomics conference in Seattle in Sept. 2015. Mark your calendars!