Found this story about water saving grains for brewing via the New School‘s Twitter feed.
As a homebrewer, I’m very aware of how much water I have to use in order to create a decent beer. The processes of cleaning and cooling alone probably double the water used just to brew. I do my best to conserve/reuse the water I can but there’s still a great deal of water used in brewing: it’s just the nature of the beast, so I think it is awesome that there are minds bent towards saving water wherever possible.
Next, from the OBC feed I find a report on a new business marketing hops specifically to craft brewers. The money quote for me is this:
However, Solberg said the industry has primarily overproduced alpha varieties used for bittering — Indie Hops doesn’t see the same problem with aroma hops that are used to convey flavors and smells.
Good to remember that there’s more to hops than just making really bitter IPAs.
Going to Seattle for the holiday so I won’t have a Friday post but hope to have some cool Seattle stories upon my return.