The Best Brewery Guides and Tips

Since water is the largest component of brewing beer, it’s important to understand the chemistry behind it. And what you can do, as a brewer, to make sure it’s the best grade possible.

According to Precision Fermentation’s report called “Water Chemistry for Brewers,” “by understanding the way water chemistry impacts the sensory quality of finished beer, and by analyzing fermentation and other data, brewers can control sensory aspects of their brews like never before.”

By applying water chemistry to measure the chemical characteristics of various water types, you’ll be able to adjust the water you use to elevate a good beer to a great beer.

So slip into your lab coat and best brewing boots! We’re giving you a breakdown of the chemistry of water, how minerals/ions build your beer, as well as how to determine your ideal water type for your next brew.

Ollie: Built By Brewers For Brewers

An affordable, easy-to-use brewery management software that scales with your business

Tune in on Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, at 1pm EST for a free webinar from Next Glass and Craft Brewing Business showing how brewers nationwide are streamlining their business operations from brewing to logistics with Ollie.

Ollie is part of Next Glass Brewery Solutions, a purpose-built, all-in-one solutions platform, offering streamlined software to manage brewery operations, order fulfillment and inventory, reporting, and ecommerce. It’s affordable, easy to use, and built by brewers for brewers.

The webinar will be hosted by Next Glass Brewery Sales Manager Kyle Kensrue and Solutions Consultant Dustin Jeffers. With their years of industry experience, they’ll share how Ollie Ops helps brewers take control over their operations with affordable software solutions to help save time, money, and energy.

The Ollie Ops team will also demonstrate tools for:
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• Proactive COGS analysis
• Quick and easy TTB reporting
• Yeast management
• and more!

Kensrue and Jeffers will address common pain points as well as the specific features Ollie Ops offers to help brewers gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their operations.

If you’re looking to learn about a revolutionary technology allowing brewers to effortlessly manage every aspect of their business activities from grain to glass, sign up for this webinar now.

Fact: Clean and sanitized equipment produces better beer. Hygiene and sanitation are so essential to a brewery’s success that a majority of brewers simply spend the first several years of their careers studying how to clean the brewery, according to Craft Brewing Business.

In fact, there’s a common belief in the industry that brewing is ninety percent cleaning and ten percent actually brewing.

Cleanliness and sanitation are so important that the U.S. FDA requires all breweries to maintain an active GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) program.

For instance, GMP standards require that breweries sanitize all their equipment, including hydrometers, tanks, hoses, kegs, drains, and floors every day.

Since proper cleaning and sanitizing processes help produce the best beer possible, let’s be sure that your brewery understands the six best practices we’ve outlined below.

Afterall, everyone is happier with better beer!

We recently put together a guide for all of the hops grown in America and another for those found in the Southern Hemisphere. But while hops in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa are fairly new, we can’t forget about noble hops, classic European varieties that have been cultivated for hundreds of years.

Found mostly in Germany and the Czech Republic, the four noble hop varieties—Hallertauer Mittelfrüher, Tettnanger (sometimes referred to as Tettnang), Spalt (sometimes called Spalter), and Saaz—dominated hop production around the world for many years.

In fact, Germany held the record for the largest amount of hop acreage in the world, only overtaken by the United States in 2015, according to The Hop Growers of America 2021 Statistical Report. In 2021, the U.S. harvested the largest hop acreage at a little over 61k acres, followed by Germany at 51k, and the Czech Republic at 12.2k.

Even though “sexier” New World varieties such as Citra, Cascade, and even Nectaron have become extremely popular in the last decade or so, it’s important to remember that Old World noble hops are kind of considered hop royalty for a reason.

These are hops with history. Long heralded for their quality and consistency, noble hops can be found in some of the most iconic, classic beers.

As pillars of the beer industry, noble hops deserve a deeper dive. Let’s look at what makes noble hops unique and the characteristics of the four different varieties.

Last week, we took a look at all of the hops currently grown in America, identifying the most popular along with common characteristics for each.

But hops are cultivated all over the world. And more recently, Southern Hemisphere hops have garnered a lot of attention.

Brewers love the more white wine-like flavors of Southern Hemisphere hops, ranging from citrusy to tropical.

They’re a perfect palette for beers such as pale ales, IPAs, and hazies. All of which dominate the limelight in the current craft beer industry.

Accordingly, new styles have even emerged to identify hops from these regions, including Australian Pale Ale, Australian-style IPA, New Zealand Pale Ale, and New Zealand-style IPA. In fact, in 2021, the Brewers Association added New Zealand-style Pale Ale and New Zealand-style IPA to its list of official styles for the first time.

Plus, just take a look at a very small smattering of breweries across the U.S. that have been known to use Southern Hemisphere hops: Other Half, Firestone Walker, Tree House, Trillium, Toppling Goliath, Ex Novo, and many, many more.

All signs point to Southern Hemisphere hops currently enjoying their moment in the spotlight.

So we are diving into why these hops have become so popular, some of the top varieties, and the specs behind all Southern Hemisphere hops.

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a three-part series covering hops across the world. For this piece, we’ll cover hops native to the Southern Hemisphere, but take a look at our Complete Guides to All American Hop Varieties and Noble Hops.

In 2015, New Belgium made 73 million pounds.

And Goose Island generated about 192,000 pounds weekly.

For every 6-pack of beer brewed, we’re left with one pound of this.

What common ingredients are all these breweries producing?

Dubbed “spent grain,” this offshoot of beer making has created a worrisome question for brewers: How to recycle one of the main residuals of their beers?

It’s a challenge, but one that professional breweries across the country are solving in creative ways.

Undeniably, hops are hot. Now more than ever consumers are clamoring for the tiny little green cones that give your beers their characteristic aroma and flavor. In the American craft beer industry, we feel very confident saying that hops are the hottest ingredient in beer at this moment.

But you don’t have to take our word for it. With American hops most popular and pronounced in IPAs of all varieties, let’s look at the facts:

According to recent NielsenIQ data analyzed by Bump Williams Consulting (BWC), hazy imperial/double/triple IPA dollar sales increased +128.7% to $33.3 million, more than doubling. And overall, IPAs still account for 46% of craft dollar share.

Last year, during its yearly roundup of statistics on the app, Untappd discovered that four of the top five styles fell into the IPA category, with American IPAs snagging the top spot with a total of over 7.2 million check-ins and New England-style / hazy IPAs not far behind with over 6.1 million check-ins. And just to give you some perspective, the American IPA category has held the top spot on this yearly list for the last eleven years.

As a brewer or brewery owner, we’re not telling you something surprising here. But armed with the knowledge that these beautiful bines are here to stay, it’s worth diving a bit deeper into the enormous breadth of hops at your disposal.

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a three-part series covering hops across the world. For this piece, we’ll cover hops native to America, but check out our pieces on Southern Hemisphere hops and European/Noble hops.

With Untappd’s analytics, you have a vast wealth of data on craft beer drinkers on the world’s largest social networking platform literally at your fingertips.

We can show you what beers Untappd drinkers are consuming the most in your area along with what styles are trending and which are taking a turn downwards.

With over 9 million registered users, Untappd can easily tap into the trends and insights of drinkers in your city, state, region, and beyond.

Analyzing these behaviors and purchasing habits will help you make crucial business decisions including, but not limited to, what beers to brew next, what styles to stock on your shelves, or what beers to put on tap.

Learn what craft beer consumers are drinking in your area. Give Untappd for Business a try without talking to anyone—no credit card required.

To show you the power of Untappd’s analytics, we’re breaking down the most checked-in beers in Asheville, NC, over the last ninety days.

Service industry employees like bartenders, wait staff, food runners, and bussers are the backbone of the service industry and your business. Your servers work hard every day to bring customers’ food and drinks to the right table (not to mention ensuring special birthday dinners go off without a hitch). And your bartenders work tirelessly to keep the drinks flowing for your patrons.

When it comes to taking care of your bartenders and servers, there are specific laws under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Internal Revenue Code that employers in the hospitality industry must follow. Accordingly, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provides a Fact Sheet to help business owners understand the differences between tips and service charges, especially for tax reporting purposes.

In this article, we’ll use that Fact Sheet to help navigate the tricky territory between tips and service charges while showing you how to stay in compliance with reporting each to the IRS.