Hops do not grow everywhere. The plant belonging to the nettle family is generally said to grow between 35° and 55° latitude. The large growing regions in the Hallertau and in the US Yakima Valley usually spring to mind. Australia is also home to a small though choice growing region where hops are bred and cultivated very successfully. BRAUWELT International met Tim Lord, MD of HPA (Hop Products Australia), part of the Barth Haas Group, and his colleague, Peter Hamilton, as well as Dr. Simon Whittock, Head of Breeding, in the HPA offices in Hobart, Tasmania.

The number of participants at the 10th Symposium “Trends in Brewing” has risen to 360, much to the delight of the event’s organizers, KAHO Sint-Lieven Association KU Leuven (Ghent, Belgium), Heriot-Watt-University (Edinburgh, Scotland) and TU Berlin. From April 1st through 5th 2012, representatives from the malting and brewing industries hailing from 24 nations met in the picturesque city center of Ghent at the technology campus of the KAHO Sint-Lieven, in order to discover more about promising innovations in malting and brewing technology.

With the first seminar already five years in the past, a follow-up to the first Technical-Technological Seminar in Tokyo was long overdue! On March 5th the day finally came. In Japan’s capital city, the second Technical-Technological Seminar took place, which was organized by Miyake Industries of Tokyo and by the publishing house Hans Carl of Nuremberg. They received whole-hearted support from Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory, four of Japan’s large breweries, who hosted the seminar.

The European Beer Star 2012 will take place for the ninth time in autumn 2012. In 50 categories, over 100 jurors from about 30 countries will award medals in gold, silver and bronze. A look at the last event in 2011 shows that an exciting international competition awaits us also this year.

Looking toward what the brewing industry will be in the next decade is the theme of this year’s World Brewing Congress (WBC), an epic event bringing together brewing professionals from around the world to discuss major issues in brewing now and envision where the industry might be in the future. This international gathering of brewing industry professionals only takes place every four years, this year from July 28 to August 1 in Portland, Oregon. The congress chairs have assembled top minds in brewing to lead sessions, present posters, and head workshops . More than 250 oral and poster presentations are planned on a variety of topics in brewing. Registration is now open.

Practically no other beverage has had an influence comparable to that of beer on the culture and daily lives of people the world over. Together with wine, beer counts as being definitely among the oldest beverages that are known to man. Production of beer is thus all the more interesting. In this part of our new series Brewing 101 we will be revisiting some fundamental principles of beer brewing, starting with the topic “cereals, malts and hops”.

The beer sommelier program has been one of the most successful education concepts developed by Doemens in recent years. The original German course is fully booked with no spaces available in the foreseeable future, while at the same time, the craft beer scene continues to exhibit rapid and steady growth worldwide – not only in the US. For this reason, Doemens has decided that now is the perfect time to bring the concept of the beer sommelier to an international audience and in so doing providing beer lovers around the world with the necessary vocabulary and the knowledge for expressing their passion. Therefore, Doemens Academy has offered the course in Brazil since autumn of last year in Portuguese, and the first course in the United States is slated to begin in the spring of 2012 and will be taught in English.

In February 2011, BRAUWELT asked its readers whether the Scottish creature Nessie might have been a beer drinker. Would Nessie be up to mischief in Scottish pubs? Or might Nessie even have a look-in at the European Brewing Convention Congress? To investigate further, two students from Weihenstephan made their way to the EBC Congress that took place in Glasgow from May 22nd to 26th, 2011. They quickly realised that the Congress in Glasgow had a lot more to offer…

On a new site and with a revised concept, the 11th Brasil Brau opened its doors, together with the 12th Brazilian Congress of Brewing Science and Technology, in São Paulo from July 5th to 7th, 2011. After both events had moved from a shopping mall to the Transamerica Expo Center in the outskirts of the city, the initiators, the trade fair organizer Fagga Eventos and the Brazilian Association of Beer and Malt Professionals (Cobracem), sent out a clear signal on the future direction of the event. The result was that more than 100 exhibitors participated, some with elaborate booths in the style of Brau Beviale.

This was the theme of the second Brewing Industry Conference, held from June 14th to 17th 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand, organized by the VLB-Berlin in association with the Thailand Beer Industry Guild (T-BIG). “Going green” is also part of the co-organizers’ philosophy and mirrored in the different presentations.