Author: Aleszu Bajak

With sea levels and storm surges rising, coastal breweries are going to see a lot more flooding. We mapped storm surge scenarios and low-lying breweries for several US cities.

The industry’s wholehearted embrace of cans comes with a lurking question: should we be worried about chemicals in the container’s epoxy lining?

To create more consistent wild beers and better understand fermentation, brewers are teaming up with scientists. The future of sour beer has never looked better.

What’s wrong with unfiltered beer? Nothing, traditionally speaking. Grains like oats and wheat, which brewers have used for hundreds of years, are known for rendering cloudy beer. But when it’s a hazy American IPA, people start arguing.

Don’t let the names confuse you. Aroma compounds are being engineered into your beers, so think about them the next time you smell a hop bomb. Does your nose detect anything besides that hop character?

Fogcatching technology near the world’s driest desert provides water for parched communities and resourceful brewers.

The ambition of international collaboration brewing is to bring together brewers—and their different approaches—in an environment where they can share and learn, and build something that is perhaps greater than the sum of its parts.

Plenty of beer advocates out there are grateful to the retail Robin Hoods who risk their businesses and gamble their licenses by selling rare beers to loyal customers, or offering illegal beer to attract new beer geeks. But who stands to lose?

Revel in a craft beer scene that is by far the most advanced in Latin America. Today, you’ll find Black IPAs, Saisons, Imperial Stouts, and plenty of Brazilian-themed beers like açai Stouts and cassava Pilsners. Until recently though, finding craft beer in São Paulo was like looking for the source of the Amazon.

The story of the world’s first Leafcutter Ant Saison starts in the days leading up to São Paulo, Brazil’s O Mercado, an epic gastronomy fair that brings together more than 20,000 foodies, chefs, restaurateurs and a handful of brewers.

The world produced over 134 million metric-tons of barley between 2011 and 2012. But up to 95 percent of the world’s barley is susceptible to a variety of a fungal disease called stem rust that was discovered in Uganda in 1999. Dubbed Ug99, it has spread across East Africa and up into the Middle East.

Ben Howe opened Enlightenment Ales in Lowell, Mass., in October 2011 with the idea of brewing not an Export Stout, but rather one very special beer style: Bière de Champagne.

In their quest to push the boundaries of brewing and redefine craft beer styles, American brewers are deep into experimenting with brewing’s most fickle ingredient: wild yeast. And as demand for Brett and other wild strains skyrockets, lab geeks like Dmitri Serjanov are stepping up to meet it.

A good brewery is aware of the atmosphere it’s creating. They don’t just want you to stop in and check it off your list; they want you to hang around, ask questions, bring friends. In essence, it’s all about community-building.

Brewing accidents are not a thing of the past. Most brewers know of someone who has been injured on the job or have plenty of harrowing stories about close calls.

Over the last few years, there have been rumblings that olive oil can be added to beer instead of oxygen. Like milk fortifying our bones, yeast need oxygen to build strong cell walls. The idea is that olive oil contains oleic acid, an unsaturated fatty acid that could be enough to promote yeast growth.

Most of Colorado’s breweries are more than 5,000 feet above sea level. But professional brewers at altitude are downright scientific with their methods. And the first thing they point to is the temperature at which they boil.

Commonly referred to as the “Paris of South America,” Buenos Aires is a sprawling metropolis that deserves its rank among the world’s greatest cities. The beer market may still be dominated by AB-InBev’s Quilmes, but forgo these ricey lagers and syrupy Stouts, and head off the beaten path to Buenos Aires’ true beer bars.

A group of young scientists in Germany have managed to brew a beer with added flavors that doesn’t break the Reinheitsgebot, the 1516 purity law. By tinkering with the genes in yeast, students at the Technical University of Munich have engineered the microorganisms to impart additional flavors and substances to their beers, like lemon and caffeine.

While out one day surveying invasive cheatgrass fields in Nevada, USDA scientist Tye Morgan thought about the weed’s potential as a brewing grain.

While walking in the woods, Argentinian microbiologist Diego Libkind stumbled upon fungus clusters scattered on the ground. Taking a sample back to the lab, Libkind found a species of Saccharomyces yeast living on these edible mushrooms.