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The Mysterious Case of Exploding Beer: A Tale of Diastatic Yeasts

Back in 2016, Left Hand Brewing Co. had a problem with their Milk Stout Nitro beer: customers were complaining about its fizzy mouthfeel and off-flavors.

Then their bottles started exploding.

It didn’t take long for them to connect the dip in quality to the volatile bottles. The missing link was a secondary fermentation taking place post-packaging, resulting in an off-tasting, overly-carbonated, and occasionally explosive beer.

At its best, over-fermentation is a quality control nightmare for breweries. At its worst, it’s like a Molotov cocktail, except, in this case, sugar rather than petrol is the accelerant, and yeast, not fire, causes the explosion.

The underlying issue for Left Hand Brewing Co. was yeast contamination. The culprit? A particular strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In a nightmare turn of events, the fermenter had become the contaminator. This duality is known as a conditional spoilage, and it demonstrates the true complexities and nuances of the microbial world.

What made this particular strain a conditional spoilage organism?

Two words: diastatic activity.

In short, diastatic yeast can liberate sugars from the starches found in beer. This sugar is then fermented into excess carbon dioxide (CO2), off-flavors, and increased alcohol content.

Inconsistent nomenclature

In literature, it’s not uncommon to find diastatic yeast incorrectly identified as Saccharomyces diastaticus; this is problematic because it indicates that they are not members of the cerevisiae species. Likewise, they’ve been referred to as S. cerevisiae var. diastaticus. Although less erroneous than Saccharomyces diastaticus, it’s technically incorrect because it suggests there is a single type of diastatic strain, while there are many diastatic brewing strains that have a lot of differences beyond diastatic activity. Dr. Pat Gibney, a food science professor at Cornell University, compares this logic to “creating a dog breed called ‘small,’ and grouping all the different small dog breeds into it.”

Lerner, C. (25, June 25). MASTER1305/SHUTTERSTOCK [Four small dogs]. Retrieved May 26, 2020, from https://www.rd.com/advice/pets/dogs-that-stay-small/
This grouping doesn’t make sense because a dachshund and miniature poodle, albeit both small, are genetically different, and therefore, shouldn’t be considered the same breed.

Diastatic activity parallels another brewing descriptor: flocculation, which is the tendency for yeast cells to aggregate and form multicellular masses. Like flocculation, diastatic activity is merely a trait of yeast strains, rather than a species or strain variant.

Diastatic activity within the S. cerevisiae family

Interestingly, outside of the brewing industry, this trait is almost non-existent in the overall S. cerevisiae population, with the exception of a small group of isolates found in French Guiana (Krogerus et al. 2019).

This kind of locality may sound somewhat ironic at first; after all, why is this potential spoilage organism virtually only found in beer? This question returns us to the idea of conditionality. Diastatic yeasts are the fermenters of choice for specific beer styles, like Belgian-style beer, whose dry finish is the product of this activity.

The nitty-gritty details

Knowing that specific beer styles are more susceptible to diastatic yeast spoilage, it shouldn’t be surprising that beer composition plays a role. For example, beers with higher dextrin content are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of diastatic yeasts. Dextrin is a mixture of glucose chains found in starch and is an added ingredient in certain beers because of its desirable impact on the mouthfeel.

Diastatic yeasts can secrete an enzyme known as glucoamylase outside of the cell. Enzymes are proteins that help aid in chemical reactions. In this case, the glucoamylase enzyme can liberate glucose molecules from dextrins in the beer, resulting in hyper attenuation, otherwise known as excessive sugar consumption by the yeast.

As the yeast consume the free glucose molecules, the beer is fermented for a second time, resulting in an unwanted increase in alcohol and carbon dioxide.

It’s the excess carbon dioxide that is responsible for gushing beer and potentially exploding containers.

All yeasts have this glucoamylase activity, but what makes diastatic yeast unique is a gene fusion of the enzyme with a secretion signaling protein.

The secretion protein allows glucoamylase to be secreted out of the cell and into the beer. What this means is that glucoamylase is only capable of creating problems when it’s roaming free in the beer.

How do we know we have a diastatic problem?

There are a few detection methods available for identifying diastatic yeast contamination. The primary method utilizes PCR detection of the STA1 gene. However, there are limitations to this method; namely, the STA1 gene isn’t always responsible for the undesired activity, and PCR is prone to human error.

For smaller facilities where PCR may not be a viable option, selective media, like FastOrange Wild Yeast Agar and FPDM, are available. However, selective media is “not entirely conclusive nor rapid,” and the 200 µL plating volumes may not be sufficient for detection.

The Gibney Lab at Cornell University recognizes the need for better detection techniques and teamed up with a brewing yeast supply company in Chicago called Omega Yeast Labs to work on new methods to aid the brewing industry in preventing diastatic contamination. These techniques include functional and simple plating assays that assess the potential risk of diastatic contamination while taking into account genetic factors and the activity level. They’ve also formulated a selective media that improves upon the commercially available selective medias mentioned above.

In retrospect, had Left Hand Brewery Co. been aware of these techniques and implemented them into their quality control routine, this issue could have been nipped in the bud. Unfortunately, detection came far too late, which meant their response was costly.

In addition to the $2 million in losses and a nation-wide re-call, they tore apart their entire production facility, sanitizing and swapping every nook and cranny in a desperate attempt to find the contamination source. To their dismay, they came up with nothing.

The process of elimination allegedly identified their yeast supplier as the source of their problem. Unbeknownst to Left Hand Brewing Co., the strain of yeast they acquired from their distributor had diastatic activity. Feeling swindled, Left Hand Brewing Co. filed a lawsuit asking for $6 million in damages. The jury is still out on whether or not they side with the Colorado brewery, but in the time since they have switched suppliers.

Changing suppliers is a step in the right direction, but the reality is that diastatic yeast can be a product of the brewing environment. In this scenario, the quality of the supplier doesn’t matter. The environmental risk alone highlights the need for rapid detection methods that can be implemented during routine quality control testing.

For the folks at Left Hand Brewery, this ended up being a costly lesson in the complexities of microbiology. Financial losses aside, it could have been worse; after all, someone could have lost an eye to an exploding bottle.

 

References

  1. Yakobson, C. M. (2019). The Oxford Companion to Beer Definition of flocculation. Retrieved May 28, 2020, from https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/9yHbaDo6RA/
  2. Holl, J. (2017, November 20). Left Hand Sues White Labs Over Contaminated Yeast. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://beerandbrewing.com/left-hand-sues-white-labs-over-contaminated-yeast/
  3. Chai Biotechnology. (2019, August). Controlling Diastaticus in Your Brewery. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.chaibio.com/beer-spoilage/diastaticus
  4. Goldfarb, A. (2020, January 30). Exploding Beer Bottle Lawsuit is Settled. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.goldfarbpa.com/exploding-beer-bottle-lawsuit-is-settled/
  5. Burns, L. T., Sislak, C. D., Gibbon, N. L., Saylor, N. R., Seymour, M. R., Shaner, L. M., & Gibney, P. A. (2020). Improved Functional Assays and Risk Assessment for STA1+ Strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Manuscript submitted for publication, Cornell University, Omega Yeast Labs, Chicago, IL.

Replacing Spirits with Sanitizers

Spirit Distillers Take on the Hand Sanitizer Shortages

In the two months since COVID-19 first reared its ugly head in New York, the initial panic appears to be settling down, or at least, toilet paper is back in stock. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for personal protective equipment (PPE), with hand sanitizer being no exception.

At the time of writing, these shortages are no longer news; they’re more just a depressing reality of the many ways in which we are unprepared for this pandemic. Although the exact number is difficult to calculate, it’s estimated that the total demand for hand sanitizer in hospitals and grocery stores in New York State alone is around half a million gallons per week.

Hand-washing remains one of the most effective way to prevent exposure to the virus, but accessibility to a faucet is not a viable option in many circumstances, making hand sanitizer a vital asset.

This lack of supply is forcing major producers, like Purell, to prioritize workers serving on the front lines. With what limited supplies being redirected to essential workers, many vulnerable people are left without access to this vital disinfectant.

While this sounds daunting, hope arose from an unexpected place: independent spirits distillers swooped in as the unsung heroes of the COVID-19 hand sanitizer shortage.

“Mr. Dean” hand sanitizer by 888 Distillery of Nantucket, Mass.

World Health Organization

The shortage prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to re-release their 2010 hand sanitizer guidelines. This document, paired with a subsequent loosening of FDA regulations, has enabled distillers to retool their production lines in a way that mirrors the domestic war effort that took place during WWII.

Unlike breweries and wineries, distilleries are uniquely equipped to handle the hazards associated with the high concentration of ethanol (60-80%) that are required to inactivate the virus.

Specialized equipment, like explosion-proof pumps and ventilators, are required in most distilling facilities as safety measures against the extremely low flash point associated with such high concentrations of alcohol. The flashpoint, which is a general indicator of the flammability or combustibility of a liquid, is around 68 F for 80% ethanol, making it dangerously volatile at room temperature. In short: very large explosions are a very real risk.

The dangers associated with such high concentrations of ethanol are what makes it such an effective sanitizer: the alcohol destabilizes the outer layers of the virus, which greatly reduces its ability to infect our cells.

Safety aside, producing hand sanitizers isn’t all that different from making flavored vodka or gin; just replace the juniper berries with glycerol (glycerin). Hydrogen peroxide is another ingredient that distinguishes the WHO’s hand sanitizers from glycerol-flavored moonshine, which is included to inactivate spores in “less than [pharmaceutical] grade containers”.

The simplicity of the formula is by design: its intended application is for low resource settings. However, as demand continues to rise, and supplies remain precariously low, this formulation has become increasingly popular among craft beverage distillers worldwide.

Filling the gap

Despite the simplicity of the formula, the logistics of retooling a distillery for this purpose is anything but.

Since this idea first came to light, it has spread like wildfire, but the information infrastructure is lagging behind. This is where Cornell’s Craft Beverage Institute (CCBI) steps in. Senior Extension Specialist Chris Gerling has the resources to help streamline information sharing to make the transition as easy as possible for distillers who are eager to help.

CCBI Senior Extension Specialist Chris Gerling

 

“I don’t want to make it sound like [the CCBI is] the leader or savior of this effort,” Gerling clarified. “We’re a hub. We’re just trying to keep the information moving in all directions.”

Sourcing supplies

What originally piqued Gerling’s interest was a Facebook post requesting local breweries and wineries to send in their finished products to be distilled for hand sanitizer. Although the sentiment was in the right place, this method for sourcing ethanol is actually very inefficient for the purpose.

As noted on the CCBI’s website “most distilleries [would] be better served acting as sanitizer blenders […] rather than ethanol producers”.

So where is this alcohol coming from, if not directly from the alcoholic beverage industry?

Weirdly enough, the fuel industry. Specifically, bioethanol plants, which crank out ethanol in the tens of thousands of gallons every day for E-10 fuel. However, with a large portion of the population no longer commuting, these plants are desperate for a new market.

The production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil or newly produced plant oil is increasingly gaining favor in the developed world. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

This is a win-win for distillers, because bioethanol is significantly cheaper, and enables distillers to sell their consumable assets, like gin and whiskey, for a greater profit.

Regulations

In addition to sourcing components, Gerling helps distillers navigate convoluted and rapidly-changing regulatory hurdles. Normally, hand sanitizer is regulated as an over-the-counter drug, which means only drug manufacturers have approval to produce it. However, after global cases of COVID-19 surpassed one million, the FDA responded by loosening production restrictions for the coveted substance, a temporary measure that has resulted in more than 1,500 additional manufacturers registering with the agency.

Many of these new manufacturers are spirit distillers, who are now temporarily allowed to produce hand sanitizer, but only if they follow the FDA dictated-approach. The FDA approved formula requires denatured alcohol, a distinguishing feature from the WHO formula.

This distinction is important when it comes to taxing alcohol, a task overseen by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). In the wake of these shortages, the TTB has suspended taxing alcohol used for sanitizers, but only if that alcohol is denatured.

Denatured alcohol is ethanol that has been modified to make it less appealing for consumption, usually with the addition of isopropyl alcohol, sucrose octaacetate, and denatonium benzoate. To clarify, this provision serves no antiseptic purpose but is implemented to deter consumer ingestion.

In terms of sanitizing power, the difference between the WHO and FDA’s formulas is negligible, but there is some legitimacy to the FDA’s concern about consumer safety, as demonstrated by the 79% increase in calls to the National Poison Data System regarding ingestion of hand sanitizer in March as compared to 2019.

People drinking hand sanitizer isn’t the only thing that keeps the FDA up at night. The agency is also apprehensive of sanitizers sold with unproven or sensationalized claims. This was the case with Prefense LLC, which made the dangerously misleading claim of conferring protection “from pathogens for up to 24 hours or for 10 hand washes”. Since there no known evidence for such a claim, they potentially put the consumer at greater risk by providing a false sense of security.

Meeting demand

Although the regulatory aspect is considered one of the major bottleneck steps in sanitizer production, the challenges don’t end there.

Effectively and efficiently matching the supply to the demand isn’t a straightforward task. While producers seem to have no issue finding a home for their product, often through social network interactions, there’s a need for a centralized database to ensure that less-tech savvy groups and organizations aren’t slipping through the cracks.

Compared to big-chain grocery stores, which have the capacity and personnel to find these resources, small businesses and local municipalities, like the Geneva Fire Department in upstate New York, have less time an staff to devote to sourcing.

Fortunately, the CCBI is not alone in its efforts, as other academic groups are helping to close the information gap. For example, a group of data science students and volunteers at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) have developed a website that actively maps out distilleries involved in this effort, with the intention of connecting needs and resources.

Knowledge is power

The scale, complexity, and unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 pandemic has left us with a lot of uncertainty. That creates a pressing demand to know the right questions to ask, and for ways to relay information to those who desperately need it. Gerling and the rest of the CCBI team feel that they’re fulfilling their extension mission by providing these services. As Dr. Viktor Frankl said in his seminal book Man’s Search For Meaning (1945), “suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”

Or as Gerling puts it: “This isn’t what I thought I’d be doing, but it feels good to be a part of something so rewarding.”

 

References

  1. Word Health Organization. (2010). Guide to Local Production: WHO-recommended Handrub Formulation [https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf]. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
  2. Westreich, S. (2020, April 21). Science Monday: What Soap Types Work on COVID-19? Retrieved May 28, 2020, from https://medium.com/swlh/science-monday-what-soap-types-work-on-covid-19-20fdb7909a83
  3. Gerling, C. (2020). Guidance on the Production of Hand Sanitizer. Retrieved May 28, 2020, from https://cals.cornell.edu/cornell-agritech/our-expertise/craft-beverage-production/guidance-production-hand-sanitizer
  4. FDA. (2020, April 27). Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Continues to Ensure Availability of Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizer During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Addresses Safety Concerns [Press release]. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-continues-ensure-availability-alcohol-based-hand-sanitizer-during
  5. Ashley, D. D. (2020). Warning Letter [Letter written April 23, 2020 to Prefense LLC]. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/warning-letters/prefense-llc-605488-04232020
  6. Gwyn, C., Johnson, A., MacKay, V., & The American Distilling Institute. (2020). Distilleries Producing Hand Sanitizer [Map]. In DISTILLERIES FIGHTING COVID. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.distilleriesfightingcovid.com/

“A Cold One for the Gals”: Pink Boots Day Celebrates Women in the Brewing Industry

Back in early March, before coronavirus dominated the news, exciting things were happening to women in the craft beer industry. Breweries around the world participate in the Pink Boots Collaboration Brew Day to honor the amazing women who help the world of beer thrive.

The Pink Boots Society is a group dedicated to supporting women in the beer industry, and encourages them to advance their careers through education. Every year, they host a Collaboration Brew Day where breweries around the world brew a beer using the Pink Boots hop blend artfully created by Yakima Chief Hops. The revenue generated from these events is applied to educational scholarships that support the Pink Boots members. This year’s hop blend includes Azacca®, El Dorado®, Idaho Gem™, and Loral®, creating a blend with tropical, citrus, and piney aromatic qualities, perfect for creating a wonderfully drinkable hopped sour.

Lucky Hare Brewing Company, a brewery that exemplifies what community support and fantastic beer can achieve, participates in this brew day every year. They always invite women from the community to participate in all aspects of creating the beer, from ideation to brewing and naming. This year, our female-founded graduate brewing organization, Big Red Brewing, had the opportunity to participate alongside Girls Pint Out, a national craft beer organization for women.

 

Members of Big Red Brewing participating in Pink Boots Day

 

“Oh So Riveting” was made with a combination of pilsner, white wheat, and acidulated malt, and fermented with a Belgian yeast. The Pink Boots Blend hops were added both in the boil and in the dry hop to add a ton of delicious hoppy flavor.

This beer definitely makes us want to drink like a girl. Cheers!

For those that want to try “Oh, So Riveting”, it is now available for free home delivery from Lucky Hare Brewery.

 

This article was authored by Margaux Ehrlich, a graduate student and Co-founder of Big Red Brewing at Cornell University. 

Strong Rope Brewery Promises a COVID-19 After Party (with Lots of Beer)

After publishing my most recent article on the impact of climate change on global beer supplies, I was hoping to write about something a bit more lighthearted, but then coronavirus happened, and my curiosity got the best of me.

Can you blame me? After all, this is a once-in-a-century type of infectious disease, and the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that this is unprecedented. Even the 1918 Spanish flu, which was responsible for an estimated 30-50 million deaths, isn’t a fair comparison due to modern advances (and their corresponding problems).

In the +100 years since the 1918 epidemic, we’ve proven the existence of viruses, invented genome sequencing techniques, and, most importantly, developed life-saving counter-measures such as antibiotics and vaccines. All of these advances have dramatically reduced the number of infectious-disease-fatalities, and more importantly, enabled the explosive growth of our global population.

Conversely, these advances have made modern society especially vulnerable to an infectious pandemic , as made clear by Bill Gates’ 2015 TedTalk. Never before have our cities experienced such a high degree of population density. This paired with modern air travel, which has enabled us to be anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours, begs the question: should we be surprised that over the course of four months the number of cases of this highly transmissible infectious agent is nearing one-million?

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

Another distinction between 1918 flu and COVID-19 is that state of the global economy, which is significantly more connected and intertwined than at the start of the century. With consumers stuck at home, and a huge part of the population experiencing job insecurity, the fragility of our economic system has become painfully apparent.

As troubling as this sounds, there is still so much we do not know. Even among economists there is a lot of disagreement regarding the true impact this pandemic will have. This all stems from uncertainty: uncertainty on how long this will last, and uncertainty to how individuals, businesses, organizations, and policy makers will respond over the next few weeks and months.

Uncertainty was a recurring theme in my conversation with Jason Sahler, owner of Strong Rope Brewery, which is a New York State farm brewery and taproom based in Brooklyn. With on-premise sales making up 90% of their revenue, closure of the taproom has been devastating to Strong Rope’s margins.

By the time I spoke with Jason, sales had dropped by 50-60%, though, he expected it to be worse in the following weeks.

This loss is consistent with the limited data available to us by Open Table, which reported a 64% drop in the number of reservations in NYC during the week of March 15. By the following week, that number had plunged down to zero in virtually every major global city. Granted, this data only accounts for reservations; something most bars and tap rooms don’t require. Despite the incompleteness of this data set, it does paint us a clear picture of COVID-19’s devastation on the food service industry.

Strong Rope Brewery (via Instagram)

It’s easy to forget that it was only 2 weeks prior to the closure of bars and restaurants that NYC confirmed its first case of COVID-19. For breweries like Strong Rope, adjusting to all of this has been disorientating, but has left Jason and his team with little time to wallow on the big unknowns that underlie most coronavirus-related-fears. By focusing on what they can control, Strong Rope has responded by re-directing their efforts on getting their beer to people without relying on the allure of their taproom.

In this sense, Strong Rope is in the same position as many other breweries; they are forced to rethink the way they distribute their beer. This challenge has prompted Strong Rope to expand their online store to offer “order to-go” and delivery options of their cans, crowlers, and bottles; a win-win solution for thirsty patrons who are adhering to the stay-at-home recommendations.

Although this may seem like a simple solution to the consumer, this requires beer to be packaged in cans. This is a significant hurdle for Strong Rope, where 70% of their product volume is typically moved through their drafts. In order to move this product, they have to seriously rev up their can production, which is by no means a simple operation for a small brewery with limited facilities, especially during the height of a pandemic.

Despite the headache of retooling their business model to facilitate “off-premise” sales, there is some, albeit, limited data suggesting this is probably your best bet to off-set inevitable losses. However, that is working under the assumption that consumers plan on stocking up on beer in the next coming weeks. The alternative hypothesis would be that, due to the instability of the economy, people are prioritizing other food staples over beer.

Between the two scenarios, analysis of IRI Group Data scan suggests the former, with off-premise beer sales out performing 2019 during the first three weeks of March (that is the most recent available data).

Notably, March 15th was a “big week” for Brewers Association (BA) craft beers, which reported a nearly 25% uptick in sales (by volume and dollars) compared to last year. These kinds of numbers may be normal for summer sales, but for mid March, this is very unusual.

Toilet paper isn’t the only thing people are stocking up on (Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels)

Additionally, more people are opting for a 12-pack over the formerly more popular six-pack, further supporting the stock-piling theory. As optimistic as these numbers are for the brewing industry, it is important to note that one week is a very small sample to be referencing, and this data doesn’t tell us anything about what to expect for the rest of the spring.

It also raises another uncertainty: how will people’s consumption change during quarantine? Will people end up drinking less at home because of the lack of social stimuli, or will we see an increase in consumption as a coping mechanism and to supply virtual happy hours?

Besides the issue of distribution, brewers are reconsidering how they formulate their beers during a period of slower sales. For example, any kind of beer that can be aged over a long period of time, like a dry stout versus a light IPA, is getting a second look at because it buys breweries more time to sell their existing inventory. Although this isn’t the case at Strong Rope, Sahler reported hearing that some “fancy” beers –beers that utilize a lot of specialty ingredients– are no longer viewed as economically sound, and are being replaced by more simple beers, such as lagers.

Strong Rope’s Fat Man Little Stout (via Instagram)

In a similar vein, brewers are blending malts to ration dwindling reserves, a practice I am familiar with, as I am also rationing peanut butter to minimize my trips to the grocery store. Hearing this raised the alarm bells regarding the vulnerability of our food system. After all, what happens to Strong Rope when they finally exhausted their malted barley reserves? Under the razor slim margins brought on by social distancing, will they be able to afford to restock and subsequently stay in business?

That is the worst-case scenario for our friends at Strong Rope, and as of now, things remain too uncertain to get bogged down by depressing hypothetical situations. It does highlight how precarious our food industry is on both sides. After all, it’s not just the breweries taking a hit, losses in sales impact the following year contracts for barley and hops farmers.

Compared to my article on the economic impact of climate change on barley supplies, this upstream effect is “consumer-driven” rather than “supply-driven”, meaning the demand isn’t there to match the supply, which has very different implications in terms of economic impact.

Considering how quickly developments are unfolding right now, the only certainty I am comfortable with is that the future is in a state of constant change. This frustrating reality makes it impossible to get a forecast for the following week, yet alone the upcoming months and years.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Despite the uncertainty, the fear of a looming recession is real. Fortunately, beer seems to be “recession-resilient”, or at least it was in our last recession; with sales performing only slightly worse during the recession than during periods of economic growth.

An important distinction to make is that the last recession was incited by banks rather than a virus, so using the 2007 housing market crash as a model for what’s to come is like comparing apples to IPAs. That being said, our response to this pandemic and the policies we enact in spite of it will have the greatest impact on the long-term consequences to come.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is now more than ever, imperative that we focus on what we can control by take social distancing seriously, and if you can, supporting local businesses. For our friends at Strong Rope, their parting message was simple: we just need to get through this safely, and there will be a big party at the end, with, of course, lots of beer.

 

For more information on COVID-19 resources for brewers, click here.

Check out Strong Rope’s selection of “to-go” beer, and follow them on instagram & twitter!

 

 

References

  1. The Coming Economic Challenges Facing Craft Brewers. (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2020, from https://www.brewersassociation.org/insights/the-coming-economic-challenges-facing-craft-brewers/
  2. Covid-19: The history of pandemics – BBC Future. (n.d.). Retrieved March 30, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200325-covid-19-the-history-of-pandemics

 

Could Climate Change Cause Global Beer Shortages?

In the previous weeks, Ithaca saw temperatures drop 40 degrees over the course of just a few days. The juxtaposition was jarring, and it did not ease my pre-existing anxiety regarding the uptick in severe weather and climate change. Surrounded by farmland in upstate New York, I find myself wondering how modern agriculture’s vulnerability to climate change is going to impact global food supplies.

A lot of brainpower has been dedicated to understanding the future impact of climate change on “stable” crops, such as maize, soybean, and wheat, but what about beer? After all, it’s the most popular alcoholic beverage in the world, and according to a Popular Science article, it’s “the glue that binds societies together”.

So how vulnerable is our stable supply of beer in the midst of global warming?

To answer that question, we begin with barley; beer’s main ingredient. It’s been shown that extreme weather, defined as concurrent drought and heatwaves in this case, severely impacts barley yields, but how does that translate to beer consumption and price?

Before we answer that, it’s important to note that only 17% of global barley production is used for beer. However, this breakdown is not uniform across all regions. For example, in Brazil, nearly 90% is used for beer, whereas in Australia, it’s only a mere 9%. What are we doing with that remaining 83%? A lot of it is used as animal feed, which is significant because this use of barley is viewed as a food commodity, whereas beer is a luxury item. This matters because, during extreme weather years, barley for livestock could be prioritized over barley for beer. Even though a small percentage of the whole, barley that is further processed into malt is what we call “value-added” and not insignificant for farmers. Barley that is deemed good malting quality grade is prized by growers since it can sell for more than 10 times the value of feed barley, the latter of which promises an almost negligible return on investment.

So what does this mean in terms of global supplies, consumption, and cost?

This question brings us to Peking University, where researchers Wei Xie and Tariq Ali built a model looking into the relationship between severe weather and just that.

Specifically, they combined two models: (1) a process-crop model that investigated the impacts of extreme events on barley yield, and (2) a global economic model that assessed the effects of barley yields on the supply and price of beer.

From this model, they generated several future scenarios containing increasingly more severe and frequent extreme weather events, and found that, overall increased droughts and heat will disturb global beer consumption and increase prices.

Under the most severe model, which predicted 139 severe weather events over 90 years, they reported beer consumption decreasing by 16% globally. That’s roughly the amount of beer consumed in the United States annually, which in 2018, was around 6 billion gallons! In terms of cost, they reported the average price of beer doubling under these conditions.

Even in the least severe scenario, one where there were only 17 severe weather events, they still reported a 4% decrease in beer consumption and a 15% increase in price.

These net changes are not ubiquitous across regions. Losses in barley yield were most pronounced in tropical areas such as Central and South America, and Central Africa. However, in some places, like the northern US and northwest Asia, the model predicted slight increases in barley yields. While a relief for barley suppliers in upstate New York, these slight increases would not compensate for the global losses.

Interestingly, regions with the greatest yield losses (i.e. Central Africa and Central/South America) were not necessarily where we saw the highest price surges. Surges in prices were associated with “relatively affluent and historically beer-loving countries”, like Ireland, where the cost of a single bottle of beer was predicted to increase by around $5 under the most severe scenario. In terms of the cost of a 6-pack, this is predicted to experience a $20 price hike, nearly a 200% increase! Unsurprisingly, these extreme price hikes are tied to regions where consumers are willing and able to pay more for beer rather than consume less.

The impacts of climate change are diverse and not fully known, but it’s apparent that severe climate events can be detrimental to barley supplies, and consequently can drive up costs triggering a decrease in beer consumption on a global scale. Though not discussed here, the impact of weather events and changing climate on the malting quality of barley may also experience significant changes in the coming years. The fact that beer is considered a luxury item, and therefore has a lower priority compared to other barley-products suggests that the disruption in beer supplies could be even more severe compared to other barley products, such as animal feed. Furthermore, these changes in supply, consumption, and cost, despite being influenced by climate change, are impacted by other factors, such as regional culture and economic status.

Knowing this, the next question would be how will beer shortages impact our quality of life? Could the implications be greater than just an increased bar tab?

 

References

  1. Schwartz, Alex. “Archaeologists Unearth More Evidence That When a Civilization Drinks Together, It Stays Together.” Popular Science, Popular Science, 22 Apr. 2019, www.popsci.com/beer-ancient-civilization-wari-empire-sustainability/.
  2. Xie, W., Xiong, W., Pan, J., Ali, T., Cui, Q., Guan, D., … Davis, S. J. (2018). Decreases in global beer supply due to extreme drought and heat. Nature Plants, 4(11), 964–973. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-018-0263-1
  3. Stebbins, S. (2019, September 14). How much beer does your state drink? In the thirstiest, about 40 gallons a year per person. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/09/14/how-much-beer-did-the-average-person-drink-in-every-state/40109241/