EBC Symposium 2012

An EBC Symposium recently took place at the Carlsberg Research Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, from September 9th to 11th 2012, following the Symposia 2008 and 2010. The slogan of this year’s EBC Symposium was “From Chiller to Filler”, primarily dedicated to the state of process engineering in the brewing process. More than 70 participants attended the thought-provoking presentations and were captivated by the atmosphere of one of the most significant sites for the history of beer brewing.

The Ibero-American Symposium in Brazil

The third Ibero-American VLB Symposium for Brewing and Packaging Technology was held for the first time in Brazil, the third largest beer market in the world, from June 18th through 21st 2012. The sixth Symposium for Barley, Malt and Malt Production of Senai, a separate event, was also integrated into the conference program. Senai (National Service for Industrial Training) signed a cooperation agreement with VLB in the autumn of 2011. Over 300 participants from 21 nations traveled to Itaipava, located approximately 70 km from Rio de Janeiro, in order to attend the presentations simultaneously offered in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

World Beer Cup 2012

3921 beers brewed in 799 breweries from 54 countries were presented to 211 judges hailing from 25 nations. These are the facts from this year’s World Beer Cup, which was held at the beginning of May in the US city of San Diego. An immense undertaking for those charged with the task of tasting all the beers and only possible with the legions of diligent helpers toiling away in the background, who were responsible for ensuring that the correct beers in the correct numbers were placed in front of the correct judges. After two full days of intensive tasting, sniffing and critically eyeing the beers, the winners of the gold, silver and bronze medals were agreed upon. Three days later, they were presented their awards at a gala dinner, marking the end of the Craft Brewers Conference. For a complete list of the gold, silver and bronze winners in the 95 categories judged visit /www.worldbeercup.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/WBC12-Winners-List.pdf.

Visiting the Lord of Australian hops

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.

10th International Trends in Brewing

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.

Beer crafted in Japan

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.

European Beer Star 2012: International competition

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.

World Brewing Congress to focus on future of brewing

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.

Cereals, malts and hops

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”.

Communicating the pleasure of a pint

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 search of the Loch Ness monster – a note about our experiences

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…