The Siebel’s Institute Advanced Homebrewing Course will be held in Chacago from 26 to 30 July 2010. The instructional team of Ray Daniels, Chris Graham, Randy Mosher and Chris White will once again lead homebrewers through five days of classroom teaching and hands-on activities that will take students from basic homebrewing to understanding the full range of practices employed by award-winning brewers. Students will learn the secrets of recipe formulation, raw materials selection, basic lab work and much, much more.

The European Brewery Convention, as the scientific and technical arm of The Brewers of Europe, is pleased to announce the next EBC symposium. The symposium will be held at the Deutsches Hopfenmuseum in Wolnzach which is at the epicentre of the largest German hop growing region, the Hallertau in Bavaria. Wolnzach is approximately 50 km from Munich’s international airport. A shuttle service will be provided and a great accompanying programme, including a visit to a hop picking shed, will be in store for delegates.

This series of contributions will show why yield of bitter substances during beer brewing is currently only about 30 percent and what can be done to change the situation. In three parts, the various mechanisms and process steps that take place and are necessary for transferring bitter substances from hops to finished beer are discussed item by item and limits and possibilities arising for increasing bitter substance yield are described. It is possible to optimise each individual process step, together with hop addition in its entirety or to examine bitter substance yield. For this purpose, basic unit operations are included. The fourth part describes new equipment that, in some instances, can more than double bitter substance yield in beer brewing so that use of hops can be considerably reduced.

Spear has been recognized with the 2009 Environmental Leadership Award from the Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute (www.tlmi.com) at the annual meeting in Arizona, USA. The Environmental Leadership Award annually recognizes the TLMI member company that has consistently demonstrated a commitment to progressive environmental practices across a range of areas including solid waste reduction, recycling, waste and energy recovery, clean process technology and the implementation of an education program. TLMI established the Environmental Leadership Award in 2003 as a leading environmental benchmark for its over 300 member companies to strive towards.

With effect from 1 October 2009 Messe München GmbH is taking over the rights to the PETpoint brand from heidelberg business media GmbH (hbmedia), Heidelberg.

Each year the ASBC Annual Meeting welcomes brewing professionals working in the analytical sciences and quality fields, while the MBAA Convention draws processing technology and packaging professionals involved in brewing. In 2010, the ASBC Annual Meeting will be held June 15–18, the MBAA Convention will be held June 18–20, and a joint exposition, held June 17–19, will link the two events. Brewing Summit 2010 will present expanded offerings for those interested in brewing science and technology, packaging, processing, product development, and quality control and assurance. Brewing Summit 2010 is a fusion of both groups’ meetings, including one day of joint programming aimed at the shared interests of both associations..

On the occasion of this year’s EBC Congress in Hamburg, students Martin Lechler and Michael P. Müller were able to shout out the greeting: Hamburg, here we come! Their participation was made possible through a very much appreciated grant from Fachverlag Hans Carl GmbH, Nuremberg and Malzfabrik Mich. Weyermann, Bamberg. The following report gives an account of their impressions.

Despite the fact that barley is unquestionably the grain of choice for brewing beer, there is an assortment of other cereal and pseudocereal varieties which are well-suited for this purpose. Alternative raw materials can be differentiated on the basis of gluten content, that is, those which contain gluten and those which are gluten-free. At the World Brewing Congress, held last year at the beginning of August in Hawaii, a series of lectures was dedicated to this topic, given predominantly by German researchers.

A provocative question? Not at all! ABInBev has revised their hopping concept for Anheuser-Busch’s beers. As a result of this shift in strategy, questions have been raised in the hop industry. Where will the future lead, when one of the big players, as ABInBev has done, abruptly moves away from the large scale utilization of one aroma variety in favor of another aroma variety or even a bittering variety? What is the future like for aroma hops in general? What possibilities exist for the hop industry and for the brewer? The outcome of this discussion has resulted in an event for which every brewer should make time in his calendar: The German Hop Day 2009 will take place on the 21st and 22nd of August in the Tettnang region. BRAUWELT International spoke with the organizers of the event, Dr. Johann Pichlmaier and Otmar Weingarten of the Association of German Hop Growers, as well as Jürgen Weishaupt and Johann Heimpel of the Association of Tettnanger Hop Growers. They described their goals and expectations for the German Hop Day 2009.

The tour of South America is part of a worldwide roadshow intended to inform exhibitors, visitors and representatives of the press, trade associations and the authorities about drinktec. Petra Westphal, Exhibtion Director of drinktec 2009, comments: "Addressing people personally, direct contact with them, is extremely important to us, particularly in far-off countries. We want to make sure that visitors to drinktec really feel we are there for them, and that we take their needs seriously. These tours are not just about communicating facts and figures on drinktec. Just as important is reaching out to people on an emotional level. We want to fire their enthusiasm and spend a good time with them. The aim is for them to look forward to drinktec, to the innovations they will find there and to meeting up with colleagues from all over the world."