Category: Production
Expert Topic Understanding Online Brewery Auctions
The emails seem to come a bit more frequently these days. Previously used brewery equipment going on the auction block. Get your bids ready. Own a piece of a brewery’s history and make it part of your future. Business auctions are nothing new, of course, but the last few years of trouble for the brewing industry couple with the sheer volume of brewers has meant that more stainless steel equipment than ever before is coming to the marketplace.
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Expert Topic Questioning the Pros and Cons of New vs. Used Equipment
Take a scroll through social media these days, or browse the forums on this site, or simply open your email and you’re likely to come across previously used brewing equipment for sale or that is going up for auction. For the breweries where expansion or adding extra capacity is in the cards, there is a lot of choice and a lot to consider. What are some of the things you should consider when making the decision on purchasing something new versus previously owned? Here are some questions that can help you make the decision.
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Expert Topic Considering Automation In Your Brewhouse
Brewing is often a physical job, one involving interactions with hot elements, slick surfaces, and heavy machinery. Craft brewers have long touted the “hand-crafted” nature of their lower volume operations, suggesting it somehow improves the flavor or character of the beer. When it comes to most brewery operations, however, the intense manual labor involved in moving liquid around a brewery just stresses the bodies of workers rather than improves a beer’s body or nose.
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Expert Topic Assessing Lab Needs, What You Need, What To Wish For
Starting a brewery is an exciting, nerve-wracking, whirlwind experience for many, with much of the focus on finding the perfect location, keeping costs down during buildout, and crafting recipes and brand identities. Breweries also need to keep an eye on beer quality as the competitive beer marketplace won’t support off-flavors and aromas for long. That means focusing efforts on critical but less visible operations, such as testing your brewery’s beer.
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News BA Addresses Safety of Non-Alcoholic Draft Beer
The rising popularity of non-alcoholic beer has prompted many brewers to consider entering the category. But concerns have risen recently over the prospect that non-pasteurized beer without the natural protection of alcohol may be subject to the growth of pathogenic bacteria, and a significant health risk to consumers.
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Expert Topic New Year, New Hops, New Flavors
A new year means another opportunity to get excited about newly named hops hitting the marketplace as well as a slew of innovations in the hop industry. There are nearly a dozen newly named hop varieties available this year and a push into oils that can play a big role in the hotly emerging category of hop water.
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Expert Topic Hops and Climate Change
Climate change has long been on the minds of folks in and around the beer industry. Whether relating to water use, recapturing carbon dioxide, managing spent grains, or even dealing with the fallout from storms, floods, and fires, the beer industry has soberly viewed weather related issues as challenges to be addressed. Access to quality raw ingredients is just another in a long line of climate based concerns.
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Expert Topic The Future of Fruit Beers
Chris Hodge has seen a lot of change in the 30 years he has worked in and around the American craft beer industry. Whether in his roles working for distributors and importers or as the CEO of Worthy Brewing, Hodge has seen trends come and go. After seven years in his role as Director of Sales for Oregon Fruit Products (OFP), he has watched craft beer’s relationship with fruit evolve.
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News 2023 Hop Report Released – Production Up 2% From Last Year but Value Down 9%
Hop production for Idaho, Oregon, and Washington in 2023 totaled 104 million pounds, up 2% from the 2022 crop of 102 million pounds. Despite production being up, the total number of acres of harvested hops actually decreased by 10%. Although total acreage was down, growers had a better yield this year at 1,915 pounds per acre, up 221 pounds from a year ago.
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Sponsored Fermentation Analysis – Understanding Free Amino Nitrogen (FAN)
Free Amino Nitrogen (FAN) is a critical parameter in beer analysis that leads to a healthy fermentation, and thus better beer quality. It is a measure of the concentration of amino acids and small peptides that are essential for yeast metabolism. In simpler terms, it is an indicator of the amount of food that is available for yeast, helping them convert sugar into alcohol during the brewing process more effectively.
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Expert Topic Genetically Engineered Yeast Leads Innovation in the Category
When it comes to the raw ingredients in beer, hops get all the hype. Malt is increasingly shown the love, and water is universally respected. Yeast has its fans, and there is no underestimating its importance, but it doesn’t come up in conversation with brewers in the same way hops do.
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Sponsored QC, Scheduling & Flexibility: Software Strategies for Success with Randy Smith of Vicinity Software
In the beginning of a brewery’s life span, the ownership and employees juggle several tasks and responsibilities across departments. Using the proper tool to store your data will take you a long way in your growth. But what you started using in the beginning may be missing the mark now.
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Sponsored Increasing Brewery Efficiency and Beer Quality with Production Data with Brynn Keenan of Grist Analytics
Production data is one of the most under-utilized assets in craft brewing. With a relatively minor amount of work, this data can be used to increase throughput, efficiency, raw material extraction, and beer quality. Learn how to utilize your production data through statistical process control, and turn it into something valuable.
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Expert Topic Brewers are Innovating in New Beverage Spaces
There was a period of time, and it wasn’t too long ago, when craft brewers were urging other brewers to stay in the beer lane. Focus on the beer, don’t think about flavored malt beverages, or other liquids, some industry leaders said. Be beer manufactures, stick to the mission, they urged.
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Expert Topic Understanding Uncommon Adjuncts
Craft brewers hated adjunct beers and told everyone willing to listen. They derided beers made with rice and corn, claiming they cheapened the industrial lagers they were used in. Opposition to adjuncts helped define an early era of craft beer. Then that all changed.
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The Brewery That Pickle Beer Built
Pickle beer helped build Martin House Brewing. Located near downtown Fort Worth, the brewery recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, during which time it has grown to become one of the largest independent breweries in Texas and the largest self-distributor. The brewery makes the usual suspects, including an IPA, a Pils, and being the Lone Star State, a Bock of course. But it was a simple and unsuspecting collaboration with a location pickle brand that really helped Martin House grow.
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News Brewery Creates First Commercial Beer Using All Unmalted Barley
Cool Cousin Brewing in New York had made a beer entirely from unmalted barley, instead creating wort by adding an exogenous enzyme cocktail in the mash. The process is ostensibly to save water and carbon dioxide in the brewing process.
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Brewing Beer with Tea
There are endless ingredients available to brewers these days, from fresh fruits and herbs, to candies, salts, coffee, and more. Tea is a fascinating ingredient, but not often used by brewers. It can bring depth of flavors to nearly every style and the varieties in the tea realm bring unexpected character to the glass.
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News Craft Maltsters Guild to Hold 2024 Conference in Davis, Calif. – Seeking Speaker Proposals
The Craft Maltsters Guild has selected the University of California Davis Conference Center in Northern California as the location for the 2024 Craft Malt Conference that will be held on February 23 and 24, 2024.
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Expert Topic Sustainability and Hops, Protecting Waterways and Preserving Beer
The Pacific Northwest is home to America’s most important hop producing region, one that locals work every day to promote and protect. Changes to the climate and concern over preserving the future viability of the storied agricultural land is leading farmers, brewers, and conservationists to team up to better inform drinkers of the importance of shielding its water sources.
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