One of the key features of craft beer today, that doesn’t get enough press, is just how much information brewers have at their fingertips. While companies that serve the industry test and provide information about the performance of their products to brewer customers, it’s the two-way flow of information back from brewers to those companies that supercharges the learning cycle and helps everyone make better beer. In this episode, produced in partnership with Omega Yeast, guests Matt Gallagher of Half Acre and Suncatcher, Tom Beckmann of Goldfinger, and Laura Burns and Jonathan Moxey of Omega Yeast, explore this topic and more, looking at interesting ways brewers can add character but also hone and shape their beers, beyond the eight main strains that see so much use in the brewing world.
In this episode, the brewers discuss:
- building house character across different style beers
- harnessing the knowledge base of brewers around the country
- variations in common strains from different sources and in different formats
- intentionally selecting more expressive but flexible house yeast
- unusual applications of yeast that have produced fascinating beers
- thiol expression in lager beer
- “Fartbomb”-style lager
- underrated lager strains for West Coast IPA
- krausening hoppy lager
And more.