Several months ago, there was an obscure posting in the Brewers Forum from Charlie Papazian. He was passing on a request he’d received for a brewer to speak about sustainable brewing issue at a conference taking place in San Francisco. Since I’ve written about organic beer and green breweries several times now, it piqued my interest. The conference was EcoCity World Summit, and it took place April 21-26 at various location in the Bay Area. I wrote to them to get press credentials on the off chance that a brewer did participate, and also because I was curious to see what else might come up related to the recent agricultural shortages with barley and hops. It turned out that Greg Koch, from Stone Brewing, had agreed to be on one of the panels, on Saturday April 26. His panel was titled “The Future of Food For Cities.”

After a gala opening at the Herbst Theatre and two days of academic seminars at Berkeley’s Extension Center at Third and Mission, the remaining three days of the conference all took place at the Nob Hill Masonic Center on California Street. A number of the panel discussions focused on the future of various infrastructures, and had titles that all began “The Future of …,” with future glimpses of transportation in cities, energy to power cities, consumption, population, equity, architecture and urban design.

Below this interesting mural were a couple dozen tables with local organizations, media and other related ecological agendas with fliers, magazines and books. There was quite a lot of interesting stuff to see and read.

The first speaker on “The Future of Food For Cities” was particularly interesting. Eric Holt-Giménez, Director of Food First, which is also known as the Institute for Food and Development Policy, gave a lot of information about the myths surrounding the current food shortage. The most important of these is that he doesn’t believe it’s a shortage at all. He pointed out that the many food riots taking place around the world are not even riots, but rebellions. They aren’t being staged by starving populations, but by the poor angry about how quickly food prices have risen, about a growing entitlement gap and lack of democracy. Worldwide, average food prices have gone up a staggering 83% over the last three years, and 45% in just the last nine months. We all know about barley and hops, but wheat is up 130% and rice 66%.

At the same time, the big food companies are reporting record profits: ADM 25%, Monsanto 45%, General Foods 61% and Cargill 86%. But Holt-Giménez claims there is no shortage whatsoever, that reserve stocks are fine. To account for the higher prices he goes to say that across the board the rising prices are and will continue to blamed on the following:

1. Climate change: droughts, floods, etc.
2. Consumption: greater demand
3. Yields: 2005-06 were down, but not 2007
4. Energy: higher oil prices
5. Agrofuels: half of corn being used toward, demand rising

I’m not quite sure what to make of that. As he was ticking them off, I noticed they were pretty much the exact reasons that we’ve been told barley prices are rising and are some of the reasons for hops, too. With hops, having fewer acres planted — especially of aroma hops — is undoubtedly the primary cause and yields are still down as a result. But it’s hard not to wonder if some of the rising costs are due to some chicanery on the part of what Holt-Giménez refers to as the Industrial Agri-foods Complex.

He gave a lengthy explanation of the root causes, but the ones that seemed the most problematic to me were these. The so-called Green Revolution of the 1960-80s concentrated ownership of the world’s land into just a few very large corporations. As a consequence, we’ve lost 75% of food diversity to the point where cotton, maize, wheat, rice and soy account for 91% of all crops grown. That makes for a vulnerable food system where a problem with just one crop could have a ripple effect across the entire economy. Some of the other things he cited included the removal of transit barriers, dismantling marketing boards, free-trade agreements and food subsidies to the tune of $1 billion per day.

What Holt-Giménez sees happening is a collapse of the food and fuel systems into one, except that the biofuel solution is no solution at all. He calls it the “Grand Mythology,” that we “can’t consume our way out of over-consumption.” There a couple of essays at Food First that go into a bit more detail about this, if you’re interested. I’d suggest The New Green Revolution and World Food Prices, The Great Agrofuel Swindle, and Pouring Fuel on the Food.

Greg Koch went last, telling a receptive audience a story familiar to all of us, but which was largely new to a good portion of the crowd. Koch talked about how “the U.S. is now the most exciting place for beer in the world, bar none.” He told the story of beer’s history, from the golden age to its recent renaissance.

He discussed the malt and hops shortages of late and the statistic about the average American living within 10 miles of a brewery. Koch also brought up his own brewery’s efforts to be green, then delving into a broader examination of what many others were doing as well, painting an honest picture of just how green the craft beer community is.

After each panelist spoke, the three of them, took lively questions from the audience. From left, Greg Koch, Carol Whiteside, President of the Great Valley Center in Modesto (and Modesto’s former mayor), and Eric Holt-Giménez, from Food First.

It was certainly an interesting experience and I was glad to see craft beer playing a role in thinking about the future of humanity and we should go about securing it.
 

We already know that the price of barley has doubled over the least year, but according to a scientist from New Zealand, global warming may keep that situation from getting any better and will continue to hamper efforts to increase the supply of barley to be used in making beer.

From the AP story:

Jim Salinger, a climate scientist at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said climate change likely will cause a decline in the production of malting barley in parts of New Zealand and Australia. Malting barley is a key ingredient of beer.

Speaking at the Institute of Brewing and Distilling ’s 30th Asia Pacific Section Convention, Salinger predicted “the price of beer is likely to rise in coming decades because climate change will hamper the production of a key grain needed for the brew — especially in Australia.”

Though Salinger was talking about only his native New Zealand and Australia, it’s not hard to extrapolate that the same climate changes will have similar effects in other parts of the world, too. He finished his talk on this cheery note. “[C]limate change could cause a drop in beer production within 30 years, especially in parts of Australia, as dry areas become drier and water shortages worsen.”

Lucky number thirteen, the beginning of year two of the Sessions. This time around our host, Chris O’Brien, the Beer Activist, chose a topic near and dear to his heart, organic beer. It’s one I’m fairly familiar with as well. I wrote a feature story on green breweries for All About Beer magazine in January of this year that covered both organic beer and the green ways in which breweries operate. As I’ve been traveling a lot the last few weeks, my session post is a bit of a rehash, let’s call it recycled. That’s more green.

To me, one of the main issues about organic beer is its perception and what exactly makes a beer organic. Unsurprisingly, it’s the ingredients used to make whatever product is going to be called or labeled “organic.” Several years ago, the standards for organic products varied from state to state, but in 2002 the federal government instituted the National Organic Program (NOP) that standardized the requirements for organic labeling nationwide. This made it easier for companies to sell across state lines without having to worry about individual and possibly conflicting standards between states. Some states did complain, of course, because it undermined their own efforts at defining what it means to be an organic product. The standards in Oregon prior to the NOP, for example, were more rigid than the national standard adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But this intervention did make it easier for regional and national breweries to more easily meet the requirements for a larger market.

The USDA does not do the certification process directly, but rather they have “deputized” independent certifying agents, which in some cases do include the former state certifying agencies. Currently, there are about sixty such agencies. Among these are the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and the Oregon Tilth. In addition to the actual certifying, they also investigate noncompliance complaints and check records, monitor label usage, etc. There are now essentially four levels of organic labeling: “100% organic,” “organic,“ “made with organic materials,” and “some organic ingredients.” The differences in these four are listed in the table below:

While this is undoubtedly a good step, the fact that there are four of these and they sound so similar it seems to me this is still confusing for consumers, especially the casual consumer who is not likely to be familiar with the precise differences. The “made with organic ingredients” designation, for example — which only requires 70% of its ingredients to actually be organic — seems to convey a false impression of how organic the product really is, at least in my opinion. A company could use 30% of complete crap and still make a consumer believe their purchase is organically sound. This undermines the very idea of organic products. It seems to me products should either be organic or not. This slippery slope of degrees is bound to cause nothing but confusion and perhaps even ill will. The FDA has approved some sixty plus chemicals for use in the manufacture of beer. Are they all bad? Certainly not, and even craft brewers use some of them on occasion. But health and beer is all about perception. A brewery could theoreticaly use many of them and so long as it’s less than 30% of the total ingredients say their concoction is “made with organic ingredients.”

All beer is in effect natural, especially those that use only the four basic ingredients. This begs the question of how much better is organic beer vs. a typical craft beer? I’d say in the end it has to do with how it makes the customer feel on an emotional level. I think that’s true of almost all organic products. People buy them because it makes them feel good, like they’re doing something good, both for themselves, the environment and perhaps even society as a whole. They feel like they’re helping out small farmers. This is why the labeling is so important. And not just the organic designation but also the truthiness of the entire package. A customer should be able to feel good about what they’re buying, but if details are left out — no matter how legal it is to do so — then this damages the emotional response that is so central to buying organic.

This is the very reason big companies hide behind dba’s and buy up health food companies. Colgate recently bought Tom’s of Maine. Will that make Tom’s a bad product now? Probably not, unless Colgate takes over production and relaxes standards. But some people will likely still think twice about buying Tom’s knowing it’s just another product line in Colgate’s massive portfolio. It’s all a matter of what perception will be created in the mind of the consumer based on that new information and what the change of ownership means to them. Some may not care at all, of course. But what happens if this information is not disclosed on Tom’s packaging? At that point it goes beyond simple ignorance and becomes a calculated lie-by-omission.

There will almost certainly continue to be a market for organic and healthier products that maintain a small niche within the wider market. What will allow it to grow is directly proportional to the confidence that the market has for the products within the niche market. That’s the exact reason the labeling standards are so important. But doing the minimum required for purely business reasons in order to sell a product is just not enough. Common sense standards will also have to be adhered to as well in order to gain customer confidence. This will vary from company to company but makes sense in relation to the product. For example, an organic farmer who refrains from using pesticides but hires slave labor would not be adhering to a common sense standard, in my opinion.

By and large, I think the majority of organic beers available today do adhere to a good set of standards, both the mandated ones and the common sense ones. But as larger companies begin to compete for these niche markets, the line becomes blurred. Some will leave the smaller companies they’ve purchased alone and some will swallow them whole. New ones created within larger companies will suffer the same problems. And then who knows what will happen to common sense standards.

There’s a great series of charts on Michigan State’s website showing how many organic products of all stripes are currently owned by large corporations hedging their bets and trying to appear socially conscious.

Excerpted from my All About Beer article: The problem with the USDA’s definition is that every beer is 5% alcohol and roughly 95% water plus a fractional amount of flavor compounds (including vitamins, minerals and trace elements), dietary fiber, carbohydrates, hop oils and resins, and proteins. When brewing beer, for every 10 pounds of malt, only a few ounces of hops are used, almost regardless of style. This means that a beer could use organic barley and no organic hops and still technically fit the USDA’s organic definition, as long as the USDA has been satisfied that the particular type of hops used in the beer is “not commercially available in organic form.”

Until very recently, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ingredients that organic companies were claiming weren’t available organically and, therefore, a non-organic substitute could be used. But there’s a difference between allowable and acceptable, and consumers supporting organic products precisely because they were better for the environment began complaining that the distinction was being blurred. By allowing goods to be called “organic” that contained non-organic ingredients it was creating confusion as to exactly what was being offered for sale. This consumer backlash forced the USDA to change their policy and limit the number of items that could be substituted and still be called organic. After a public debate, the number of ingredients that could be substituted was fixed at 38, with hops still on the list.

So when it comes to organic beer, hops have become the crux of the debate. There was a time when the only available organic malts were pale and crystal malts, but today almost any common malt is available organically. Organic hops, on the other hand, remain more elusive. Hops are a fragile crop, susceptible to many pests, fungi and mildew problems. Today virtually all hops are grown in just three states: Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Pesticides and fertilizers have greatly enhanced yields, and hop growers have developed varieties with better yields and that are disease resistant. Many of these varieties have become an integral part of beer’s wide array of styles. Certain hop varieties have become associated with specific styles, making it all but impossible to use a substitute and get the desired results. You may be able to make a pilsner without Saaz hops or an American pale ale without Cascades, but they won’t taste quite right.

Of the roughly fifty common hop varieties, only about one-fifth have shown the potential to be viable organic crops. Stephen Carpenter, great-great-grandson of the Yakima Valley’s first hop grower, tried unsuccessfully to grow the very popular Cascade hops organically. For many years, organic hops were available primarily from New Zealand, with as much as 80% of all organic hops grown by a single farmer, the Oldham family, on 25 acres.

Last year, Anheuser-Busch entered the organic market with two brands, Wild Hop Lager and Stone Mill Pale Ale. During the public debate on labeling, they were strongly criticized for not using 100% organic hops by misguided consumer groups who believed that if you are big enough and have enough money then it should be easy enough for you to get whatever you want, including organic hops. But the hops business doesn’t work like that. Hop growers are just beginning to come out of a decade-long down cycle that has seen many leave the business just as demand for hops is on the rise. By every account, there is a worldwide hop shortage that has no easy solutions. Unfortunately, A-B bowed to public pressure and announced their organic beers would be made with 100% organic hops. Even they’re unsure where a steady supply of hops is likely to come from. Thanks to A-B’s having been forced into this decision by consumer groups, small craft brewers who make organic beer may very well have a much tougher time finding organic hops and even staying in business because what hops may be available will be at least twice as expensive as conventionally grown varieties. According to Morgan Wolaver, founder of Wolaver’s Organic Ales, this is perhaps organic beer’s biggest challenge. “We need to find an answer to these crop issues, because the controversy will not simply go away. If a beer is made with 100% of the more expensive organic hops, will consumers be willing to spend another dollar per six-pack?”

So that’s my recycled three cents on organic beer, most of it written before today but in one place for the first time, so that should count for something.

 
Below is a list of many of the organic beers and beer producers available today.

Domestic Organic Breweries

• Bison Brewing; Berkeley, California
• Blackfoot River Brewing; Helena, Montana
• Butte Creek Brewing; Chico, California
• Eel River Brewing; Fortuna, California
• Elliott Bay Brewing; Seattle, Washington
• Fish Brewing; Olympia, Washington
• Laurelwood Brewing; Portland, Oregon
• North Coast Brewing; Fort Bragg, California
• Peak Organic Brewing; Burlington, Massachusetts
• Pisgah Brewing; Black Mountain, North Carolina
• Roots Organic Brewery; Portland, Oregon
• Wolaver’s Certified Organic Ales; Middlebury, Vermont
• Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing; Santa Cruz, California
• Ukiah Brewing; Ukiah, California

Domestic Organic Beers

• Big “O” Organic, Snake River Brewing; Jackson Hole, Wyoming
• Biologique Dupont Beers (5), Brasserie Dupont; Tourpes, Belgium
• Kaya Organic Pale, Fitger’s Brewhouse; Duluth, Minnesota
• Kraftbräu Summer Moon Organic Ale, Kraftbräu Brewery; Kalamazoo, Michigan
• Mothership Wit, New Belgium Brewing; Fort Collins, Colorado
• OGA (Organic Golden Ale), Lucky Labrador; Portland, Oregon
• Organic Amber, Bluegrass Brewing; Louisville, Kentucky
• Organic Bock, Big Horse Brewpub; Hood River, Oregon
• Organic ESB, Lakefront Brewery; Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Organic Porter, Brooklyn Brewery; Brooklyn, New York
• Tree Hugger Organic IPA, Redfish New Orleans Brewhouse; Boulder, Colorado

Organic Breweries Abroad

• Arkell’s; Swindon, England
• Black Isle Brewery; Munlochy, Scotland
• Brauerei Pinkus Mueller; Munster, Germany
• Crannog Ales; Sorrento, BC, Canada
• Clarke’s Organic Brewery; Dewsbury, England
• Founders Organic Brewery; Nelson New Zealand
• Marble Beers; Manchester, England
• Mongozo Exotic Beers; Venray, Netherlands
• O’Hanlon’s Brewing; Devon, England
• Pacific Western Brewing; Burnaby, BC, Canada
• Pitfields Organic Brewery; London, England
• The 4 Elements; Richelbach, Germany
• Thisted Bryghus; Thisted, Denmark
• Waedenswiler Bierwelt; Wädenswil, Switzerland
• Wild Rose Brewery; Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Organic Beers Abroad

• Border Gold & Angel Lager, Broughtan Ales; Broughtan, Scotland
• Brakspear Organic Beer, Brakspear Brewery, Witney, England
• Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic-Bio, Brasserie Cantillon, Brussels, Belgium
• Duchy Originals Organic, Wychwood Brewery; Witney, England
• Eisenbahn Natural, Eisenbahn; Brazil
• Emerson’s Organic Pilsner, Emerson’s Brewery; Dunedin, New Zealand
• Golden Promise Organic, Caldonian Brewery; Edinburgh, Scotland
• Mill Street Original Organic Lager, Mill Street Brewery; Toronto, Canada
• Organic Ale, Brasserie Rancho El Paso; Hokkaido, Japan
• Organic Ale & Best Bitter, St. Peter’s Brewery; Suffolk, England
• Organic Beer Shinshu Sansan, Yo-Ho Brewing; Japan
• Organic Honeydew, Fuller’s; London, England
• Samuel Smith Organic Ale & Lager, Old Brewery at Tadcaster; Yorkshire, England
• Yella Bella Organic Ale, Batemans Brewery; Wainfleet, England

MSNBC had an article last week on the increased costs of hops and barley, and what that’s doing to Rising Beer Prices. There’s nothing particularly illuminating or novel about the piece, apart from the video, which was shot at both Los Gatos Brewing and the Tied House, both in the San Jose area.

Most rye beers that I’m aware of use only around 10-20% rye with the rest being the more traditional barley. I’ve always liked that little something that rye adds to the beer and was in heaven over ten years ago during that year or so when it seemed like almost everybody was making a rye beer. These days, rye beers are a bit more on the rare side, though there’s still a few hundred being made in North America.

There is also a German style of beer, Roggenbier, which uses at anywhere from 25-65% rye malt, depending on whose account you accept. The German Institute says “half barley malt and equal portions of wheat and rye malts” are used while the BJCP guidelines say “Malted rye typically constitutes 50% or greater of the grist (some versions have 60-65% rye). Remainder of grist can include pale malt, Munich malt, wheat malt, crystal malt and/or small amounts of debittered dark malts for color adjustment.” Nothing against the BJCP, but I’m more inclined to to accept the version of the German Beer Institute since it’s an association of German breweries and related institutions.

So those are the common rye beers, what about using 100% rye? Well, probably the first and foremost reason you never hear about all-rye beers is that it is so difficult to brew with. Rye has no husks, like barley does, and that means it’s extremely difficult to sparge (which is spraying hot water on the spent grain) as without the husks it turns to a thick porridge or concrete.

There was a Irish brewer, Dwan Tipperary Brewing, who closed a few years back, who made a beer called All Rye Beer or All Rye Paddy at least once. But there’s no information as to whether it really used 100% rye malt, apart from that suggestive name. I’ve also come across an account of a homebrewer making an all-rye beer. MoreBeer’s forum also has a topic dedicated to why this is a difficult task.

So perhaps I should change the title to the world’s only currently made commercial example of a 100% rye beer, but it doesn’t sound very sexy that way, now does it? At any rate, Bear Republic Brewing in Healdsburg, California on Friday, debuted what they believe to be the world’s first 100% rye beer. I was on hand to try some of the first keg of their new Easy Ryeder and talk with the brewers about it.

But let’s talk about the beer itself first. It had a dull copper color, slightly hazy, with a decent tan head. The nose was a little restrained, with some bready aromas, a touch of hops and, naturally, some rye character. But it was surprisingly smooth, mild and very drinkable, an easy ryeder indeed. I was surprised to learn it was 5% abv because it seemed more like a session beer to me, and I would have guessed a little lower than that. I thought the rye flavors might overpower the beer, but that’s not the case at all. It is light and refreshing throughout with just enough hop character (at 30 IBUs) for balance. It finishes with just a bit of rye flavor lingering, before dissipating quickly and cleanly. Again, I think my expectations were that if beer with just a fraction of rye tends to give it strong rye flavors and character, that with all rye it would be even more so, but that wasn’t really was not what happened. Instead, they managed to create a unique, ultimately very drinkable beer that in temperament seems closer to a wheat beer, but with the more barley-like flavors of rye.

The beer went through several trials before getting things right. To combat the wort turning to concrete, they had to watch the temperature fluctuations much more closely than usual (no more than 3-5 degrees or it turned to stone), and with bags of rice hulls added to make up for the lack of husks in rye malt. It was, of course, difficult to get the malt to break down and early test batches, if they didn’t become concrete-like, were still very thick and viscous and even hard to remove from the lauter tun at all. Even so, the first test batch that yielded drinkable results was the color of bad gravy, having a dull gray tint to it from all pale rye malt. Apparently it tasted fine, but who among us wants a beer the color of dishwater? Twenty-five pounds of chocolate rye malt was then added to give it the much more appealing color it exhibits today. The hops they used are Chinook and Saaz. It took four tries to get it right, as there really aren’t any manuals for tis kind of beer. Was it worth all that effort? I think so, as the results are quite tasty and in some ways different from anything else I’ve tried. It certainly must have been a learning experience and it’s interesting to see that it is possible on a commercial level to use only rye. It’s quite an achievement, and if you love rye — or just brewing innovation and creativity — you owe it to yourself to get up to Healdsburg to try this new beer.

Bear Republic brewers Rich Norgrove, Jode Yaksic, Peter Kruger and Ray Lindecker. Jode, according to Rich, had the most to do with creating the Easy Ryder, from doing the research, test batches and coming up with the name.

After the official part of my recent German beer trip ended, I had a few days to myself before heading back across the pond. So one day, Peter Reid (who publishes Modern Brewery Age) and I took a Deutsche Bahn train to nearby Salzburg, Austria to visit the original Trumer Brauerei (more about that trip soon). On the train, I was idly paging through the train’s on-board magazine Mobil (sort of like an in-flight magazine) when I came across a multi-page ad for a toy store chain, Idee+Spiel. Based on the number of pages and locations listed, I imagine it’s something like the Toys R Us of Germany. On the page with toy trains, there were pictured accessories by a German company called, with no irony, Busch (or more properly Busch Gmbh and Co.). Two of the products shown were a Beer Garden and a Hopyard. I imagine neither of these HO-scale train accessories will ever see the light of day here in neo-prohibitionist America, but I love the idea that these scenes are so common that nobody in civilized Europe has a problem with them.

The Busch model HO-Biergarten.

The Busch model HO-Hopfen.

Visiting their website, I also discovered that Busch has a few more beer-related accessories for train layouts, and the hop field is featured on the cover of their catalog.
 

Busch’s 2007 catalog.
 

The other accessories included this barley field.
 

Notice the hops in the field across the road? If you look back the hopyard picture, you can now see the barley field there, too.
 

I love way the person on the bench is sitting. The catalog refers to him as a “happy ‘carouser.’”

This Friday, August 31, Research Scientist Arja Laitila will be defending her thesis, Microbes in the Tailoring of Barley Malt Properties, at the University of Helsinki, in the hopes of being awarded her PhD.

Arja Laitila

Her goal? Microbes – bacteria, yeasts and filamentous fungi - have a decisive role in the barley-malt-beer chain. Microbes greatly influence the malting and brewing performance as well as the quality of malt and beer. A major goal of the dissertation was to study the relationships between microbial communities and germinating grains during malting. The research for her dissertation investigated the impacts of bacterial and fungal communities on barley germination and on malt properties. Her work “revealed that by modifying the microbial populations during malting, the brewing efficiency of malt can be notably improved. Well-characterized lactic acid bacteria and yeasts provide a natural way for achieving safe and balanced microbial communities in the malting ecosystem. She showed that the malting ecosystem is a dynamic process, exhibiting continuous change. The microbial communities consisting of various types of bacteria, yeasts and filamentous fungi form complex biofilms in barley tissues and are well-protected. Inhibition of one microbial population within the complex ecosystem leads to an increase of non-suppressed populations, which must be taken into account because a shift in microbial community dynamics may be undesirable. Laitila found some new microbial species in the malting ecosystem.”

 
More from the press release:

Suppression of Gram-negative bacteria during steeping proved to be advantageous for grain germination and malt brewhouse performance. Fungal communities including both filamentous fungi and yeasts significantly contribute to the production of microbial b-glucanases and xylanases, and are also involved in proteolysis. Well-characterized lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus plantarum VTT E-78076 and Pediococcus pentosaceus VTT E-90390) proved to be effective way in balancing the microbial communities in malting. Furthermore, they have positive effects on malt characteristics and they improve wort separation.

Previously the significance of yeasts in the malting ecosystem has been largely underestimated. This study showed that yeast community is an important part of the industrial malting ecosystem. Yeasts produced extracellular hydrolytic enzymes with a potentially positive contribution to malt processability. Furthermore, several yeasts showed strong antagonistic activity against field and storage moulds. Addition of a selected yeast culture (Pichia anomala VTT C-04565) into steeping restricted Fusarium growth and hydrophobin production and thus prevented beer gushing. Addition of Pichia anomala into steeping water tended to retard wort filtration, but the filtration was improved when the yeast culture was combined with Lactobacillus plantarum E76. The combination of different microbial cultures offers a possibility to use different properties, thus making the system more robust.

For the more technically inclined among you, a pdf of her dissertation is available online.

In Japan it will cost you two to three times as much as it does in the rest of the world if you’re keen to drink a beer. That’s because the Japanese government in their infinite wisdom (why is it governments are all so dogmatically stupid in creating laws without thinking them through?) placed an onerous tax on any beer who’s weight of malt extract exceeds 67% of the fermentable ingredients. In fact, that is their definition of what beer — biiru in Japanese — is. This was done to protect the more traditional sake (or nihonshu) and, of course, it backfired.

Breweries did just what you’d expect them to do. They began making beers with less than 67% malt, using rice or other adjuncts. Suntory made the first one in 1994, called Hop’s Draft, and it contained 65% malted barley. Because it no longer fit the definition of beer, a new name was required and it has become known as happoshu, which means “sparkling alcohol.” Naturally the Japanese government saw what was happening but instead of reversing a foolish decision, changed the standard to 50%. Japanese brewers responded by lowering the malt even further so that today about 25% malt in happoshu is common. The lower malt produces more fusel alcohol that many argue leads to greater hangovers. By all accounts, it tastes awful but has been growing in popularity because it’s so much cheaper. One snarky account I read mentioned that happoshu tastes more like American beer.

Recently, around thirty students from Fuji Women’s University, a catholic school, worked with a local brewer, Yasuharu Osugi, from Nihon Ji Biiru Kobo, to develop a pink happoshu brew aimed specifically at women. In hopes of it appealing to females, they lowered the hop character and made it 4.5%, so it’s a bit weaker than most happoshu. The ingredients include a hoshinoyume, a local rice, along with the herb shiso, a pink-colored juice that gives the brew its distinctive hue. The label will feature a four-leaf clover and goes on sale today.

Students from Fuji Women’s University give their pink happoshu a taste test.

It being a catholic university, they chose the name “Cana Story,” after the place in the new testament story in which Jesus is supposed to have turned water into wine. Of course, it may be fitting. I’ve heard some credible theories that when the new testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek that they had no word for beer and thus translated the line to wine instead. Certainly beer being mostly water would make more sense, though makes it a bit less miraculous.