Reviews Brewing
A thirst for knowledge
I
t is now over 25 years since my research into plant biochemistry took me into the field of malting, brewing and distilling. For one used to working at the laboratory scale, it was an eye opener to visit a malting plant where many hundreds of tonnes of barley were being malted on a daily basis. These were the days before the Internet and gleaning information on the brewing and distilling processes was not easy. Apart from the library at Heriot-Watt University, there was, in general, a dearth of literature on malting, brewing and distilling. How times have changed. The growth
of the craft brewing sector in the UK has transformed the variety of beers available. There are now over 1000 breweries in the UK, an increase of over 200 since 2011, and there are over 2300 breweries in the US, the highest total since the 1880s. Overall, the beer market in the US is worth close to $100bn/year and provides over 100,000 jobs. In the UK, the brewing industry is worth £16.5bn/ year, the second largest brewing industry in Europe after Germany. While the large companies still dominate the market in terms of production volumes, in the US, the craft brewing sector now accounts for over 5% of beer consumption. Although this industry in the UK still has some way to go to match this level of consumption, it is clear that the transformation in the Industry over the past 20 years is here to stay.
Chris Boulton has produced a fascinating encyclopaedia, encompassing all aspects of the brewing Industry. Twenty five years ago, this encyclopaedia would have provided me with a wealth of information on the malting, brewing and distilling industries that would have been invaluable as I got to grips with the processes, but it is equally valuable today as an up-to-date book in the current climate of rapid growth for these industries.
Find C&I online at
www.soci.org/chemistryandindustry
Consumers are purchasing beers with ever more diverse flavours from a multitude of raw materials. At the same time, brewers have to produce quality products in a sustainable and safe environment. To do so requires the industry to engage with a wide range of experts from different fields, chemists, engineers and environmentalists to name but a few. For those completely new to the
brewing industry, there are excellent descriptions of the basic information that an engineer or scientist needs to understand the fundamental processes involved in the production of beer. These short, but authoritative entries are written by someone steeped over many years in brewing. Boulton has worked in the industry and is currently professor of brewing science at the University of Nottingham, UK; he is an expert in his field and a superb communicator. For those who simply want to find
out more about the beers that they drink, there are a great number of entries to satisfy, including, for example, ones on porters, stout, ice beer, real
48 Chemistry&Industry • November 2013
Encyclopae- dia of brewing
Editor Chris Boulton
Publisher Wiley- Blackwell Year 2013 Pages 716 Price £149.95 ISBN 978-1-4051- 6744-4
ale and rauchbier. For chemists, there are some fascinating insights into the history of chemistry as well as entries on isomerisation, light struck character, de- alcoholisation of beer and cristobalite. This is a fascinating encyclopaedia because there are different factors that affect the quality of beer and it is not always easy to find a clear description and definition. For example, you often hear brewers talk of how they have used a Carapils malt or crystal malt almost in the same breath, and here you can find out what they mean. As a biochemist, I found an excellent section on enzymes and brewing. There are also definitions of the terms extract, kettle hops, green beer and micronised grains. For those in and around the brewing industry, these are all in common use, but to those on the edge of the industry some explanation is needed. Likewise, the encyclopaedia includes many of the widely used abbreviations used by the industry, and for those who make it to the end of the book, you will find entries for zymocin, zythos and zythum. Along the way you might also
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