Science, The Foundation of Modern Brewing
Imagine the following scenario with two brewers:
A guy named Charlie is brewing a beer. On brew day as the wort begins to boil, he opens the freezer and grabs a handful of hops from a large bag. He tosses the hops into the wort.
A guy named Steve is also brewing a beer. During preparation for brew day, Steve looked at the alpha acid level of his hops and entered that into a calculator to determine the quantity of hops needed to achieve the level of bitterness appropriate for the beer style. On brew day, he uses a scale to measure the calculated quantity of hops and then adds them to the wort at the start of the boil.
Questions to consider:
- Which brewer will more likely achieve the right level of bitterness for the style (which is largely based on the alpha acid level)?
- Which brewer will be able to reproduce the same beer later, or fine-tune the level of bitterness next time?
- Which brewer had a more enjoyable brew day?
- Which brewer will most enjoy his resulting beer?
My thoughts: While there’s nothing intrinsically right or wrong with the different approaches taken by Charlie and Steve, it’s clear that Steve’s use of brewing science means that he is much more likely to achieve the desired result. Furthermore, Steve can adjust his recipe to continually improve the result in the future. However, I believe that either brewer may enjoy his process or the resulting beer. Enjoyment level is highly individualized. If they both enjoy brewing and the resulting product, is it right for Charlie to criticize Steve for taking “unnecessary” extra steps? Or does Steve need to berate Charlie for using a process with unpredictable results? Not really, but this does seem to happen a lot within the home brewing community.
Here’s another question: Would your answers change if you learned that Steve had used hops that were opened and then left to sit on a warm shelf for several months before use? (Hops exposed to oxygen, moisture, and warmth will deteriorate in flavor and bitterness.)
Perhaps we had assumed that Steve had also stored his hops similar to Charlie, even though it wasn’t explicitly stated. If Steve used deteriorated hops, his calculations would be inaccurate and misleading, negatively affecting the beer quality despite his attempted use of brewing science. This might lead Steve to misevaluate the value of adjusting hops based on alpha acid level since his results will be much different than expected. Also we may have misjudged Steve’s method compared to that of Charlie since now we know Steve’s overall method isn’t quite so reliable.
This hypothetical example illustrates some very common pitfalls when dealing with anecdotal evidence. First, brewing is the sum of its parts, and often times multiple parts of the process need attention in order to achieve desired results and get the maximum benefit from using quality-focused methods. In this example, it is not enough simply to adjust the hops by the alpha acid level; they also need to have been stored properly, etc. The brewing process as a whole must be taken into account when deciding the merits of a specific process. Second, anecdotes usually do not provide all of the relevant information. When considering the differences between the two methods in this example, we were forced to make a lot of potentially false assumptions, leading to a potentially invalid evaluation. Similarly, brewers reporting stories on social media, brewing forums, home brew clubs, etc. almost never disclose all the relevant details, so it is very difficult to compare experiences from different brewers and generally impossible to draw any solid conclusions from these anecdotes.
At Brewing Forward, we will always promote a scientific approach to improve product quality based on the most sound evidence available. Learning from scientific sources (that control variables and take proper measurements) is the best way improve our craft. We will present comprehensive reliable information, and provide references so that our readers can examine the evidence and make judgments themselves if desired. At the same time, we will offer a variety of good options (still based on science) to help brewers that may have different goals or brewers with practical limitations such as time and budget.
If you’re more like Charlie, and just want to relax and have a home brew, that’s perfectly fine. We still have knowledge to offer so that you can make an informed decision about which quality-focused methods you would prefer to use, and which times you would rather use an alternative. If instead you’re currently using “shoddy” processes simply because you learned from someone like Charlie (who doesn’t know any better), we are here to help! The vast majority of home brewing books and online articles are plagued by oversimplification and inaccuracies. On the other hand, there is a great deal of brewing knowledge in the scientific community, but much of that is difficult to access, difficult to understand, or may not be applicable to home brewing scale. At Brewing Forward we are dedicated to reviewing this science and presenting it in a way that is understandable and realistic to implement.
One final thought: It’s important for all of us to keep an open mind and realize that we all have different goals for this hobby, whether it’s making the least expensive beer possible, just having some fun, finding a way to tinker and design, or producing the absolute highest-quality beer possible. Whatever your goals and standards are, scientific knowledge can help you in your journey.