| FEATURE NEWS |
Pliny Now In Bottles Nothing is impossible, beer fans: After more than 15 years of brewing the world-famous and sparsely available triple IPA Pliny the Younger, Santa Rosa's Russian River Brewing Company will release it in bottles for the first time in early 2020, "We are excited to announce that Pliny the Younger 2020 will include something we have never done before, and said we would likely never do," says a press release from the brewery. "For the first time ever, Pliny the Younger will be available in our signature 510ml bottles Russian River has been brewing Pliny the Younger — an extra-hopped, more boozy triple IPA version of their flagship double IPA Pliny the Elder — since 2005, but it wasn't until 2009 that the beer became a cultural phenomenon. At the time unbeknownst to brewery owners Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo, the beer earned the highest rating of any beer in the world on Beer Advocate In the years since, the beer's release has become an annual pastime for Northern California, even prompting Sonoma County to periodically conduct economic impact surveys to measure the financial earnings brought in by the huge boom in tourism from around the world for the beer's release.. |
| Super Yeast Is Coming Nothing is worse than realizing your beer is stale, Now, researchers from Jiangnan University have found a way to keep beer fresher for longer, by genetically engineering lager yeast to produce certain compounds that prevent staleness. Unfortunately, we live in a world where beer needs to be packaged, transported, stored, sold and bought before it can be consumed. Throughout that whole process, beer is constantly undergoing certain chemical reactions – and things like light and heat speed these up. The end result is a stale beer, with a more papery flavor and less fizz than a fresh one. Scientists have found that these flavors are associated with an increase in compounds called aldehydes. These are produced during fermentation, One way to counter it might be a molecule called NADH, Researchers identified four genes that were related to NADH production, then edited the yeast to overexpress those genes. As a result, the experimental beer produced by the edited yeast was found to have stay fresh 36.% longer. Importantly, the components that provide flavor and aroma were only changed marginally. |
January 2020
| Wet Hop or Dry Hop Hops are as important to beer as grapes are to wine. New hybrids are entering the picture every year, changing what a beer is able to do in terms of flavor and fragrance. From a beer-making standpoint, one major consideration is whether to go the wet hop or dry hop route. But the names can cause a little confusion. For the record, most hops are dried. They get picked in the field, treated to some warm air, and are often shaped into pellet-like cones for use later on. Since most are grown in the northwest but beer is made all over, this is a great way to preserve a good hop and ship it all over the globe. It’s said that they can last for several years in this format (although we all know how great a fresh-hop beer is).But a dry-hopped beer usually refers to the actual beer- making approach. Hops are added later in the process so that they hang on to their aromatic intensity. Part of that intensity is owed to the fact that dried hops tend to be denser in terms of the flavor and fragrance punch that they pack. The overall IBU dial will be adjusted, too, as hops inject varying amounts of bitterness. There are even double dry-hopped beers, which means if triple and quadruple dry-hopped beers don’t exist yet, they’re coming soon. You’d think wet hop would be just the opposite — throwing the flavorful cones in during the boil, giving them a good soak. Nope. A wet-hopped beer is a lot like a fresh-hop beer. It’s made with hops that are not air or kiln-dried. They tend to be moist and full of flavorful oils, having just recently been harvested. The flavors tend to be more nuanced and green in nature. And if it weren’t for new hop oils and extracts, you’d really only find wet-hop beers once a year, right around the hop harvest in early autumn. |