I attended a homebrew cask ale party this past weekend with three pin casks on tap. One was a 4% traditional dark English ale modeled after Landlord Dark and the other two were very low abv Golden Ales - one with Citra hops and the other (mine) brewed w/all Nelson hops. All were near or at commercial quality. I’ve been home brewing since the 90s and it’s taken me hundreds of batches to learn and be able to repeat the detailed processes around water mineral profile, pH, temp, 02/CO2 management etc etc. Lately I’ve been consulting ChatGBT and have found it to be a very solid brewmate. Almost always - responses to my queries are well thought out and match my intuition. It got me thinking - with the continued downturn in craft sales - and the availability of new AI tools that can rapidly accelerate a home brewers proficiency to brew quality beer - could one of the next phase of the industry be a massive contraction to the hyper local level? A resurgence of the homebrew phase - which in the past suffered from a. Lousy tasting homebrew, and 2. Lack of training tools and quality/affordable equipment/hardware - which made the learning curve very steep and turned 90% of those that got a “brew in bag” for Xmas into one-and-done homebrewers. While I understand this is likely fantasy - it’s one of the possible silver linings I cling to as I ponder the coming craft and AI apocalypses. BTW - my all- Eggers Nelson Golden NZ pale was spectacular - creamy and bitter - gooseberry and white wine in the background - and at 3% - I drank it all night w/zero ill effects the next day - I only wish I could have brewed this in years ago. What do folks think - am I delusional or could this be the next big thing in craft?
I think it’s delusion…anyone wanting to home brew has had the informational tools available to them. Home brewing is a learning experience of trial and error. I don’t think AI changes that unless you have a HAL level AI watching you brew “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Congrats on your brewing success, and I wish I could taste your beers. And more congrats on finding something useful with AI. My minor experiences with AI (not brewing) have not given me much confidence in that technology (yet).
I have 3 friends that in the past were successful at home brewing. I have enjoyed the fruits of their labor multiple times. Unfortunately all 3 have quit brewing due to overindulgence related to the easy access to fresh beer.
I think it can, and probably will, improve the quality of the products of brewers (both home and commercial) that choose to use it, but brewing quality beer is decidely not why the craft beer industry, and the alcohol industry as a whole, is contracting. I would hope that all brewers are obsessed enough to use all the tools at their disposal to make their beer better, and hopefully they never stop doing so. However, I realize that this is not the case for a lot of brewers and that "good enough" is the standard for most. I would also like to think that those who consistently pursue a better product will be rewarded for it, but, again, that is not always the case. The truth is that all of these situations are multi-factorial and there is no one answer for why these things are happening and, maybe unfortunately, nobody has a crystal ball to tell us how this all turns out. Guess I'll just relax, not worry, and have a beer . . . err . . . homebrew.
I think it sounds great in theory, but it's often impractical as long as there are a decent variety of good beers on the shelf. It's fun and good for clubs that swap bottles or hold tastings and such, but I don't really want or need the equivalent of 50 bottles of one beer. That may or may not be as good as what I can buy at the store. Made by professionals. In packs of 4 or 6. Without waiting. In premium packaging. I get the hobby and social aspects of it, but IMO the necessity of it is mostly gone. Maybe if craft beer goes back to the dark ages that might change, though. Hopefully that won't happen.
To borrow from @flaskman above: “Unfortunately all 3 have quit brewing due to overindulgence related to the easy access to fresh beer.” I am under the distinct impression that most beer consumers just prefer to sit on their butts (e.g., couch) and drink beer they buy. I doubt that AI can ‘fix’ lazy. For those of you out there who may be more motivated to do something here, I wrote an article on the topic of why you should homebrew. Two reasons: · Brew beers that are not commonly produced · Brew beers that are unavailable for sale to you Other reasons discussed here: https://morebeer.com/blogs/articles/the-benefits-of-homebrewing-over-buying-beer Cheers! P.S. I have my annual batch of Bohemian Pilsner in the lagering chamber now, my annual batch of 1896 Michelob (a reconstruction of the original Michelob beer) in the primary right now and in a week I will be brewing my annual batch of Czech Dark Lager. You can't buy an 1896 Michelob beer and while there are a handful of locally brewed Czech Dark Lagers they are typically not year-round beers.
AI could accelerate the learning curve of new brewers. It's reasonably good at presenting consensus opinions (although along with a healthy portion of hallucinations). But if they want to make "High Quality" beer (quoted from OP's title), they'll have to dig (and experiment) deeper. In home (and commercial) brewing, the consensus "how to" is sometimes not the best practice.
It's a sad but obvious fact that in order to increase the production of any beer, people need to drink more of it. Recently, our marketers calculated that in order to maintain the current level of beer production in Russia, each Russian citizen needs to consume 146 liters of beer per year. As the saying goes, "the hedgehogs pricking, but eating the cactus."
I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to have learned the lesson from a movie that came out when I was 5. Cyberdyne industries doesn't care about how the future works out for humanity. Fuck AI. Did a check to make sure I was spelling it correctly, and there is an actual Cyberdyne Industries AI company. May God have mercy on our souls.
Consensus opinions were what drove the "Averagely Perfect" series, and the reviews on those (although, brewed by amateurs and often with person variation) ranged from the great reviews for the APAIPA to "good, but I would tweak it" or "good, but wouldn't brew again" for a lot of them. And that's how AI works. It's more complicated than I can express, but it all just comes down to data points and possible outcomes. It can only express what it knows within the parameters it's given. But without understanding organoleptic sensation, how could it understand how to achieve the end result of a beer? It only knows the numbers that we feed into it, and any descriptors we add. There are so many little tricks that brewers use to make their beer just what they are, and it is tough to pass that knowledge along to other people that have all 5 senses; the 6th sense is the one that is tough. One of my favorite cheese producers tests his wheels by striking them with a tuning fork, and when they sound right, they are ready for sale. I never want to lose that artistry.
Amen! Below is something I posted in the past that relates to this topic: “We brewers made a myriad of brewing process decisions when we produce our beers. Some of those process decisions are explicit (e.g., mashing regime choice, mash temperature(s) choice, mash pH value, how we build our brewing water, fermentation choices (yeast pitch rate, fermentation temperature profile,...)) but there are many little things we decide (some unconscientiously) and in aggregate they will make a noticeable difference as well. The above is true for both homebrewers and commercial brewers. I have heard a commercial brewer state that he once was going to document all of his brewing steps (when to turn knob A, what setting to apply to control step B,...) but he quickly gave up since it was just a too time consuming thing to do.” Cheers!
I appreciate the perspective here and I have a lot of respect for hard work and hands on craft, especially from people who homebrew and work in the industry. That level of effort and care matters. I have done plenty of physical labor myself and felt the toll of it. At this stage, I am choosing to apply my energy differently. I am moving into cybersecurity work where understanding systems, risk, and AI is essential, and that kind of learning is where I am focused now. I do think the hyperlocal, high quality, do it yourself idea has real potential, and I have some thoughts on how that could work in Wyoming. Probably a conversation for another time. Cheers
It looks to me that the 3 homebrewers who gave it up due to overindulgence were over ambitious, not lazy. They were likely making (and consuming) two 5 gallon batches a month -- a pretty big commitment for the hobby. I was in part lazy, limiting my brewing to extract beers. But I had other commitments in the 80s (growing family, demanding job, . . .) that intervened too.
Brewer's already have used the technology of computers for an awful lot of their brewing via recipe development, and so on. All they are doing is its process. The brewer, or designer of said recipes still has to make that work in line with what are THEIR preferences, i.e. equipment, and available resources. But, what you are really asking about is if there is room in the market for small (expensive) beers with complicated grain bills. Yes?
