Beer...

[yu shan]

That has to be sweet, post work out hot tub, man I`m jealous! And while your marinading bellos and beef, I`ll just marinade myself in that hot tub.

That Baltika porter sounds good, how was it? Hey, we have the "blogging the bear" you should have "blogging the beer".

[David Jamieson]

so how big is asheville and what is the ratio of drunks:sobers in that town now? lol

[Oso]

yea, man. 20 minutes every night just before bed does wonders for getting better sleep. It's a big tub...technically seats 6 but we had more in it the night of S's birthday.

so, c'mon over whenever you can make it. We'll talk on the phone later.


DJ, AVL is about 70k or so. The ratio is probably the same as any other town...

[GeneChing]

Beer or baijiu? China’s drinkers become more quality conscious
Experts say the domestic beer market has dropped significantly by volume. But higher-quality brands and sales of traditional Chinese clear liquor, or baijiu, are bubbling away nicely
PUBLISHED : Friday, 13 October, 2017, 6:48pm
UPDATED : Friday, 13 October, 2017, 6:58pm
Laura He
laura.he@scmp.com



Asahi Group, Japan’s largest beer producer, is considering bailing out of its share in Tsingtao, one of China’s largest beer makers, in another clear sign that Chinese drinkers are moving upmarket.
Experts say the domestic beer market has dropped significantly by volume, as buyers opting to cut back on cheaper products. But higher-quality beer brands and sales of traditional Chinese clear liquor, or baijiu, are bubbling away nicely.
Total national beer production has seen three straight years of declines, before slightly rebounding 0.8 per cent in the first seven months of this year, according to recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
As those overall sales fall, however, demand for quality lager (imported and local), and traditional liquor such as Moutai, have continued strong.


A worker checks bottles of Tsingtao beer on the production line of Tsingtao plant in China's eastern port city of Qingdao, Shandong province. The company is shifting its emphasis towards selling premium versions of the product. Photo: Reuters

Kweichow Moutai, the country’s biggest premium baijiu producer, toasted first-half gross profit margins of 90 per cent giving it a market value of nearly 700 billion yuan (US$106.4 billion).
Asahi, Tsingtao’s second largest shareholder with a 19.99 stake, is considering the transfer of all or part of its 270 million H shares, the Chinese brewer said in an exchange filing Thursday night.
Asahi’s holding was worth about US$1.2 billion by Friday’s market close. In 2009, the company spent US$667 million acquiring the stock.
In a Bloomberg interview earlier this year, Asahi President Akiyoshi Koji noted Tsingtao’s “worsened” earnings result and said “ownership without control doesn’t make much sense”.
The Post asked both parties for further comment on the reason for the sale, but neither offered anything more than what was in the filing, that Asahi was looking at its “own business arrangement consideration”.
Tsingtao share price has fallen 4 per cent in the past six months – as the Hang Seng jumped 17 per cent in the same period – and has halved compared with the beginning of 2014.


Workers pack bottles of baijiu in Kweichow Moutai Company in Maotai town, Guizhou province. Photo: EPA

Shares in Kweichow Moutai, meanwhile, hit a new all-time high close of 556.49 yuan on Friday in Shanghai, pushing its yearly gains to 70 per cent, making it among the world’s most valuable liquor brands. The stock has increased more than fourfold in value compared since the beginning of 2014.
“Beer demand is sluggish as China’s population continues ageing. Cheap lagers, which account for more than 70 per cent of total sales, are becoming less popular,” said Iris Zhang, an analyst for Guotai Junan Securities.
Tsingtao reported 30 and 14 per cent declines in net profits, respectively in 2016 and 2015. For the first half of this year, however, net income grew 7 per cent as the company shifted to selling more premium products, inside and outside the country.

Beer demand is sluggish as China’s population continues ageing. Cheap lagers, which account for more than 70 per cent of total sales, are becoming less popular
IRIS ZHANG, AN ANALYST FOR GUOTAI JUNAN SECURITIES

“Growth potential is limited for the beer market in future,” Zhang said. “Companies can no longer expand by offering just low prices.”
At the same time the higher-margin liquor market is raking in the profits, growing those as a grouping by 9.2 per cent, according to the NBS.
Kweichow Moutai’s interim net profit jumped 28 per cent to 11.3 billion yuan, with gross profit margin at 90 per cent.
Earlier this year, Nielsen China’s Minnie Yu said in a report that “consumption upgrade” has become the major driving force for China’s liquor market.
“As consumption becomes the main driver of the economy, competition among FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) brands is also intensifying, much like the liquor market.”

Not a big Bai Jiu fan but I've had to cut back on my beer consumption because of the carbs.

[GeneChing]

A Beer Festival in China Has German Roots, but No Lederhosen
查看简体中文版
查看繁體中文版
Photographs and Text by BRYAN DENTON
OCTOBER 30, 2017



QINGDAO, China — Music. Tourists. Traditional food. Long tables crammed inside huge tents. And beer — lots and lots of beer.

It’s not Oktoberfest. It’s the Qingdao International Beer Festival, China’s largest celebration of lager.

If the festival looks like a certain German tradition, there’s a good reason. The city of Qingdao is home to the similarly pronounced Tsingtao Brewery, which was founded by German settlers in this corner of Shandong Province more than a century ago.



Since the festival started in 1991, the crowds have steadily increased. This summer’s celebration, which ran for much of August, drew nearly 40,000 people on its busiest weekends.

A small army of bartenders and servers kept steins full and glasses clean and at the ready.



In addition to Tsingtao, foreign producers like Budweiser and Carlsberg set up their own tents. Inside, the scene was raucous: Performers lip-synced to patriotic Chinese songs, women in skimpy outfits auctioned off traditional Chinese calligraphy, and more than one man felt the need to remove his shirt.

Locals come to enjoy the “re nao” atmosphere, a Mandarin term for “hustle and bustle” or “loud and chaotic.”



Qingdao’s festival may be of fairly recent vintage, but its beer-making tradition goes back more than 100 years.

At the turn of the last century, the city was a German naval outpost. The Germans brought beer and an architectural style that can still be seen in the buildings of the city’s Old Town.

The British who arrived later were suspicious of the local water and turned to drinking beer instead. In 1903, British and German settlers created the Anglo-German Brewing Company and began producing Tsingtao.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Through two world wars, foreign occupations and civil war, the brewery changed hands several times.

Tsingtao was nationalized in 1949, and despite the purges, starvation and displacement that accompanied the Cultural Revolution, it never stopped producing beer.



“Without beer, we don’t have life in Qingdao,” said Zhao Chen, a local who brought his extended family to the festival. For an audience of young and old, electric floats circled the grounds at sunset.



In addition to all that beer, there was plenty of food at the festival.

Attendees had their fill of chicken’s feet, sausage, dumplings and grilled skewers of spiced meat and squid.



At night, the scene became even louder and livelier, as patriotic anthems turned to techno and rock.

Deafening music and the smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke did little to dampen spirits as festivalgoers toasted one another from giant glasses.



Amid the never-ending toasts, I asked Mr. Chen whether he came to the festival every year.

“Are you kidding? This is more important than Chinese New Year,” he said, before sending his brother off to order us all another round.



Olivia Mitchell Ryan contributed research.

Follow Bryan Denton on Twitter: @bdentonphoto.

I hijacked the Qingdao revisited thread in the NPM forum (because Qingdao is a major Mantis city) and copied this to the Beer thread too.

[GeneChing]

It's not 'illegal to sell'; it's illegal to label it as 'beer'. They could sell it as a 'malt liquor'.

But if I'm going to drop $200, it's going to be for a fyne Irish Whiskey. Not that I'm going to do that. Martial arts publishers don't make that kind of coin.

Samuel Adams Just Unleashed a $200 Beer That's Illegal in Some States
By Chris Morris Updated: October 27, 2017 4:37 PM ET

Every two years, the brewers at Samuel Adams like to create an event—and there’s no easier way to stir the passions of beer lovers than the release of Utopias.

The biennial release, which carries a price tag of $199 and an ABV of a whopping 28%, is one of the beer world’s most highly anticipated events. Just 13,000 bottles of the beer will be distributed throughout the U.S., though not in 11 states, where it’s illegal to sell.

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vermont all prohibit the sale of Samuel Adams Utopias due to that sky high alcohol content. The rest of the country can begin looking for it early next month.

As for the taste? Utopias is unlike other beers – from Sam Adams or any other brewer. It’s not carbonated, since the alcohol levels chew up any CO2. And it’s not a beer meant to be consumed all at once. Instead, the brewer suggests just a one ounce taste.

The taste is more like a fine liquor, with a sweetness like a port or cognac and a smooth, almost buttery, malt-filled finish.

“My original idea for Utopias was to push the boundaries of craft beer by brewing an extreme beer that was unlike anything any brewer had conceived,” said Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., the parent firm of Samuel Adams, in a statement. ” I’m proud to present to drinkers this lunatic fringe of extreme beer worthy of the Utopias name.”

Editor’s note: This story initially incorrectly identified Ohio and Washington as states that prohibited the sale of Utopias. It has been updated.

[GeneChing]

I've had many Chinese beers and found them to be pretty decent in China - surprisingly good considering that I'm no fan of Tsingtao.

I've also had Chinese wine, which was horrid. My first trip to China was to compete in a tournament sponsored by a Chinese winemaker. They did traditional Chinese wine and this western red wine. That was before I developed a taste for Chinese liquor, and I'm Californian, so even though I'm not much of a wine drinker, we dubbed all those as godawful.

Baijiu is a whole other story.

China's drinking habits are changing, and that's a big opportunity for beverage makers
Chinese consumers are drinking pricier, more elusive alcoholic beverages
Craft beer is popular in well-developed, urban cities
Kweichow Moutai, a high-end brand for a potent traditional liquor, surpassed Johnnie Walker-maker Diageo in value
Huileng Tan | @huileng_tan
Published 16 Hours Ago
CNBC.com

The market for Chinese alcohol sales is growing at a rapid pace with consumers acquiring a taste for premium and elusive products.

Among the beneficiaries of the trend are wine and craft beers.

"Chinese consumers preferred to drink less and chose premium products at business dinners or during formal social occasions for their high-grade quality and better taste," market research firm Euromonitor said in May 2017.

According to Euromonitor, wine consumption grew 5.3 percent by volume in 2016 from 2015, even as that for alcoholic drinks fell 3 percent in the same period as consumers traded up.

As a result of such upgrading, total beer sales also declined by 4 percent in 2016 from a year ago. Craft beer however, is witnessing growing interest in big cities.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer, is evidence of this trend as its strategy of focusing on the high-end of the market appears to be paying off: The company's revenue in China grew 4.6 percent in the third quarter.

The brewer also cited strong numbers in the Chinese market as a driver for revenue growth in its Budweiser and Corona brands in the first half of this year. Corona and Stella Artois, classified as "super premium" brands by the company, have recorded double-digit growth since they were launched in 2014, CEO Carlos Brito told CNBC recently.

Here's a sip of what Chinese drinkers are ordering:

Craft Beer

China's first brewery was founded in Harbin in 1900 and there are now more than 1,500 domestic beer brands in the country, according to Chinese state media.

The wide selection is in part due to a nascent but growing industry in craft beers as a burgeoning middle class becomes more willing to pay for premium experiences.

The popularity of craft beer may seem explosive in urban centers, but Euromonitor puts the trend into perspective.

"Craft beer is still a new concept for many Chinese consumers. It is popular and distributed mainly in well-developed regions, such as some urban areas of the country where the middle-classes are better off and consumers are global-minded," said the research house in its industry report.


Huileng Tan | CNBC
Panda Brew Pub in Beijing is home to several house craft beers. The company recently started shipping its brews to the U.K. and are looking to other beer-drinking markets eager for a taste of China.

"There is a huge rise in the number of those in the craft beer business and the brewing culture is spreading in China," said Feng Jun, marketing director for pub and brewer Panda Brew.

The craft beer market is diverse, even though consumer groups are generally young, Feng told CNBC in an email.

"There are extreme taste preferences: from those who prefer heavier tastes to fresh, fruity flavors," he added.

With the explosion in selection, some craft beer brands like Panda Brew, have started exporting their drinks.

In November this year, Panda Brew started sales in the U.K. It is also looking into entering other markets such as Canada, Japan and Australia, said Feng.

Even bigger brands are getting into the craft beer business.

Nomura in a December note highlighted that Hong Kong-listed China Resources Beer, the country's largest brewery, will be focusing on craft and imported beer segments while developing premium brands.

Wine
Wine is still gaining popularity in China.

To cater to the collective thirst, Chinese investors have snapped up more than 100 vineyards in France, many of them in the producing region of Bordeaux. They've also acquired vineyards in Australia and Chile, among other countries.

Earlier this year, for instance, Yantai Changyu Pioneer Wine, a leading wine-maker in China, bought three vineyards in Chile.

China has also started producing its own wines: State-owned food giant COFCO's Great Wall Wine is a recognizable name in the country.

Baijiu
The potent grain-based baijiu — which means white liquor — is a staple at official and business banquets. Even amid a widespread crackdown on corruption, a frugality drive, and it being an acquired taste, baijiu has seen it's demand stay strong.


VCG | Getty Images
A customer looks Maotai liquor at a supermarket on February 9, 2015 in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province of China.

Earlier this year, consultancy Brand Finance deemed baijiu to be the most valuable type of spirit in the world with a market share of 37.5 percent, overshadowing the 28 percent for whiskey. The world's top baijiu brands command a combined value of over $22 billion, the study said.

Well-known Hong Kong-listed Kweichow Moutai has overtaken Johnnie Walker-maker Diageo to become the world's most valuable liquor company.

—CNBC's Ming Cheang contributed to this story.

Now I'm thinking there's got to be a cocktail name for slamming a shot of Moutai into a Panda beer - sort of a PRC Irish Car bomb. What would we call that?

Thread: Baijiu
Thread: Beer

[GeneChing]

...but it'll make an amusing start for this year.

VAGINA FLAVORED BEER! MADE FROM MODEL’S VAGINAL YEAST!
SEP 22, 2017 AT 2:04 PM / AUTHOR: DAN WICKMAN
Would you drink this?
Hi-Tech Vaginal Microbiology


Photo via orderyoni

Wojtek Mann, the founder of the company explains, “The secret of the beer lies in her vagina. Using hi-tech of microbiology, we isolate, examine and prepare lactic acid bacteria from vagina of an unique woman. The bacteria, lactobacillus, transfers woman’s features, allure, grace, glamour, and her instincts into beers and other products, turning them into a dance with lovely angel.”

Vaginal Lactobacillus


Photo via orderyoni

Mann continues, “…vaginal lactobacillus also symbolize life and health….and brewing the beer is a tribute to this sacred process, to the timeless harmony between a human and the bacteria.” Weird!

Is It Safe?


Photo via orderyoni

The site addresses the issue of safety with this statement, “The crucial part of the project is to ensure the safety of the product. All the material is examined on the presence of other bacteria and viruses. Secondly, the procedures of isolation and preparation prevent other bacteria and viruses from surviving, providing final product completely clean and healthy. In addition, we examine final product on presence of other viruses and bacteria once again, and the findings will be published here to make you completely sure it’s healthy.”

orderyoni.com

[GeneChing]

This New Hotel Will Have Built-In Shower Beer
No need to bring your own anymore
BY ABBY REISNER
3/10/18


Shower Beer at BrewDog Beer Hotel in Scotland Photo: BrewDog

Shower beer has been a long-standing solution for anyone who's ever struggled with time management skills to the level of being unable to both maintain personal hygiene and kick back with a brew.

Scottish beer company BrewDog will capitalize on that niche when it opens crowdfunded craft beer hotel DogHouse next year, with locations in both Cleveland, Ohio, and Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Focusing on the important things—like a beer-stocked minibar in the shower, in-room taps and a brewery next door, this new hotel will have it all. As opposed to last year, when we only thought we had it all—in a bottle.

If you don't want to wait until 2019 to hole up in a beer-themed hotel paradise, you have options—like one in New Hampshire with its own brewery and the Pendry San Diego with its beer hall. The only catch, of course, is that showering will be a BYOB affair.

Dang. I had to give up beer and now this? Oh bother.

[David Jamieson]

I didn't have to, but I don't consume alcohol anymore.
Mostly because intoxication is overrated. lol

I may have a sip of high grade whisky once or twice a year now.
But that's more of a study / understanding thing really. There's no inebriation at all involved.

Still though, Vag beer? I wouldn't drink it for fear of tongue polyps!

[Oso]

BrewDog makes some really good beer.

[GeneChing]

Ms. Netting is my new hero.

100-Year-Old Woman Says a Daily Guinness Is the Secret to Her Longevity


Bloomberg/Getty Images

She began drinking the Irish stout as a way to get extra iron.

MIKE POMRANZ May 11, 2018

Back in the 1920s, the beer brand Guinness had a slogan that probably wouldn’t fly today: “Guinness Is Good for You” advertisements openly exclaimed. Though openly touting the health benefits of beer doesn’t happen as often as it used to, a 100-year-old English woman—who lived through the 1920s, by the way—still prescribes to that old mantra. She credits her longevity to drinking a Guinness every day since her 30s. That about 70 years of Guinness. Or to do the math, over 25,000 beers!

Doris Olive Netting of Plymouth, England, is so committed to Guinness that she even themed her 100th birthday party after the well-known Irish stout, decorating her nursing home with things like branded balloons and a life-sized Guinness toucan logo. If you didn’t quite catch that, yes, Netting hasn’t let living in a care home slow down her beer habit. “She refuses to go a day without drinking it,” the centenarian’s 37-year-old granddaughter Tammy told the Independent.

Apparently, Netting began drinking Guinness after seeing one of those aforementioned Guinness ads touting the beer’s iron content. “After the war there was a big marketing campaign to buy Guinness—drink Guinness to get your iron—following on from the ration years. So Olive did just that: a glass [mini bottle] of Guinness a day for the rest of her life,” Tammy further explained. “She reckons that's why she's lived for as long as she has, because of the iron intake through Guinness. She's doing really well. She's remarkable.”

Like all Brits who reach 100 years of age are eligible for, Netting also had the honor of receiving a telegram from the Queen; however, she might have been more impressed with another well-wisher. After hearing of her devotion to their brews, Guinness sent her a personalized gift basket to mark the occasion. Hopefully, it contained at least a few bottles of Guinness, though knowing Olive as we now do, they won’t last long.

THREADS
Give it up to the elderly!!!!!
Beer...

[GeneChing]

Just Saying by Yonden Lhatoo
Is ‘gweilo’ really a racist word? Hong Kong just can’t decide
Yonden Lhatoo shakes his head at the on-again, off-again debate over the use of the word that is obviously racist in its roots, but has become benign due to widespread acceptance among Caucasians themselves



PUBLISHED : Saturday, 08 September, 2018, 4:19pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 08 September, 2018, 10:32pm
Yonden Lhatoo
yonden.lhatoo@scmp.com

Here we go again. The same old question that Hong Kong can never give a straight answer to after all these years: is it acceptable to use the word gweilo for Caucasian people, or anyone who’s not Chinese for that matter?

The latest catalyst for this on-again, off-again debate is the case of a British man who has filed a discrimination lawsuit against a construction contractor he worked for, citing what he called a “general underlying hostility towards non-Chinese employees”, who were referred to as “gweilo in a derogatory sense”.

The offending Cantonese term literally translates as “ghost man”, the pejorative intent harking back to the unpolitically correct days when passive-aggressive natives perceived those pale Europeans who colonised Hong Kong as being ghostlike foreign devils.

There’s no denying the xenophobic roots of the word, but the fact is, it’s now used so widely and commonly in this city that most of those pesky foreign devils don’t take it as a racist epithet.

Now, of course, that can change depending on the situation as well as the tone and delivery of the term, and it can be used as a disparaging descriptor.

But where do you draw the line? Some of you might remember the controversy back in 1998, when, during a debate in the legislature about attacks on the local currency, veteran politician James Tien Pei-chun referred to international speculators as gweilo.


James Tien once used the word to refer to international speculators. Photo: Sam Tsang

“We should never let the gweilo know our last card,” he said. He defended it as just a slip of the tongue at the end of a long speech, when foreign diplomats complained it would spread prejudice against non-locals – an “us versus them” mentality.

The thing is, two decades later, not a single Caucasian colleague I’ve asked in my office feels unduly offended by the word. Many of them see no problem in regularly using it to describe themselves.

And one of them reminded me of the successful Gweilo Beer brand in Hong Kong, the brainchild of a bunch of – yes – gweilo, who have no qualms about using the word to make money.


A can of Gweilo beer in Hong Kong. Photo: Jonathan Wong

“The trademark registry is quite conservative,” co-founder Ian Jebbitt, an intellectual property lawyer, told the Post. “It did initially reject it on the basis of it being derogatory, but I spent three months putting together a legal submission showing how the word is not being used in this racially deprecating manner … and it was accepted.” There you go, folks.

But I must remind you that our in-house Cantonese specialist at the Post, the lovely Luisa Tam, has reservations about using gweipo, the feminine version of the word. And this one has more to do with being sexist than racist. The word po, as she rightly points out, refers to older, rather than younger women. And we can’t have that.

I’m neither white nor fluorescent in any way to justify the tag, but I do get called a gweilo myself like any other member of an ethnic minority group in this city. Not South Asians and Africans, though – the Chinese have separate nicknames for them that are not so benign when it comes to offensive impact.

Just the other day, I was taking the lift to my flat when three construction workers got in. “See, I told you, there are so many gweilo in this building,” one of them said to his mates in Cantonese, making it obvious I was the evidence to prove his point.

I wasn’t in the least offended, but I did feel I should clarify matters right there and then, employing my limited grasp of the local dialect.

“I’m not a gweilo, dai lo [big brother],” I told him. “I’m ethnic Tibetan. Are you saying I’m a foreigner in this country?”

The lift doors opened for my floor just then, and I had to leave them hanging like that, jaws agape. Sticks and stones may break my bones...

Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post

Gweilo beer. That's awesome.

THREADS
Cantonese help?
Beer...

[GeneChing]

...and I had to give up beer last year - too many carbs.

ERIC NIILER
SCIENCE
10.15.1811:00 AM
CLIMATE CHANGE MIGHT DOUBLE THE COST OF A BEER


OLE JENSEN/GETTY IMAGES

BEER DRINKERS MIGHT pay more and find less of their favorite beverage as climate change comes for barley. Scientists expect that extreme droughts and heat waves will become more frequent and intense in the regions that grow the grain.

Many farmers are already adapting to the slowly warming planet—with advanced plant breeding techniques to create more drought-resistant grains, for example, and by using more efficient irrigation systems to conserve water—but a new study out today in the journal Nature Plants says that many regions won’t be able to cope with the arid conditions of the future. The work was done by a group of researchers in China along with Steven J. Davis, an environmental scientist at the University of California Irvine.

The team looked at the areas around the world that grow barley, which is turned into malt for beer, and projected what will occur under five different climate warming scenarios by 2100. Using models of both economic activity and climate change, the group made predictions about what will happen to barley production, as well as beer price and consumption.

During the most severe climate events, the study predicts that global beer consumption would decline by 16 percent, an amount about equal to the total annual beer consumption of the United States in 2011. It also expects average beer prices to double. Each country would be affected differently. The price of a single pint of beer in Ireland, for example, will rise by $4.84, followed by $4.52 in Italy and $4.34 in Canada. American tipplers will see beer prices rise up to $1.94 under the extreme events, the study said, and barley farmers will export more to other nations.

Davis, who has published several papers on climate change and the Chinese economy, says many extreme drought and heat events will force farmers to feed barley to livestock instead of selling it to domestic breweries. “When we have these shortages, our models suggest people are going to feed the barley to the livestock before they make beer,” Davis said. “That makes sense. This is a luxury commodity and it’s more important to have food on the table.”

The effects of climate change are already being felt by craft brewers, says Katie Wallace, director of social and environmental responsibility at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. In 2014, the US barley-growing region—Montana, North Dakota and Idaho—was hit by an extremely wet and warm winter that caused crops to sprout early, rendering much of it useless. Farmers were forced to tap into reserves in storage.

In 2017 and again this past summer, the Pacific Northwest was hit by severe drought that affected production of hops that give unique flavors to craft brews. Wallace says that climate change is on the minds of all craft brewers as they plan for how to avoid future shortages of both barley and hops. “Its stressful,” Newman said. “We are seeing an increased level of vulnerability and some near escapes in some cases. All of these things have happened periodically, but the frequency is growing.”

The craft beer industry is already planning for the future, says Chris Swersey, a supply chain specialist at the Brewer’s Association, a trade group that represents 4,500 small breweries across the country. Swersey says he is skeptical of the paper’s findings, mainly because it assumes that the amount and location of barley production will stay the same as it is today. He says barley growing is already moving north to Canada, while researchers are hoping to expand barley's range with winter-hardy breeds.

“The industry is already aware that barley production is shifting,” Swersey says. “We need to be thinking ahead and be smart about what is our climate going to look like 50 or 100 years from now.”

It’s not just the little guys who are thinking of climate change. The king of US beer production remains Budweiser, which produces the number 1 (Bud Light) and number 3 (Budweiser) top-selling brands. Budweiser buys barley from a vast network of farmers in the northern US and is investing in new breeds of drought-resistant barley strains, according to Jessica Newman, director of agronomy for Budweiser. “It’s all about getting the right varieties, getting the right mix, and getting the right technology to our growers,” Newman says from her office in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

She says Budweiser’s crop science lab in Colorado is working on new barley strains dubbed Voyager, Merit 57 and Growler. “We are breeding for drought resistance and sprout resistance,” Newman said. “If we see rainfall coming earlier, or if it rains in the wrong time of year, the barley can sprout and it wouldn’t be used. We also want it to use less water and fewer agricultural chemicals.”

Climate scientist Davis says he and his colleagues wrote the study as a thought exercise to perhaps stoke conversation about how climate change affects our daily lives. “A paper on beer might seem a little bit frivolous when it's dealing with a topic that poses existential threats,” Davis said. “But some of us have a personal love of beer and thought this might be interesting.” Climate change won’t just alter the weather; it’ll also hit our grocery tabs and hobbies.