Master Brewers Podcast
United We Brew™
About the show
Each week, thousands of brewers download The Master Brewers Podcast to hear interviews with the industry's best & brightest in brewing science, technology, and operations. The show is known for featuring technical deep dives, a bit of brewing history, cutting edge research, hard lessons learned, important industry contributors, and no fluff. If you make beer for a living, this show is for you.
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Episodes
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Episode 332: Substitutes for the Substitutes of the Substitutes
April 21st, 2025 | 58 mins 36 secs
The last of the three-part series of Technical Quarterly articles providing insights to the upcoming MBAA publication The Inspiring and Surprising History and Legacy of American Lager Beer: 1941–1948, the focus of this paper is a review of the American brewing industry during the tumultuous years of World War II (1941–1945) and those immediately following in support of global famine relief (1946–1948). This is perhaps the most remarkable 7 year period ever in the history of the American brewing industry, with production rising by just over 36 million barrels of beer—a staggering increase of 65.3%. While the beer before and after this period was very similar, the beer in between was anything but. Surprisingly, the brewing materials that were scarcest during this period were rice and especially corn-based adjuncts, not malt. But perhaps the greatest surprise of all was that the beer fueling the explosive growth was a significantly lighter, lower original gravity, and lower malt-to-adjunct ratio beer. Indeed, for a time during 1945, the industry's overall use of adjuncts exceeded 50%. A stunning array of materials—many never used prior or since—were employed to brew America's adjunct lager beer. Included in the “adjunct potpourri" were an astounding 141.5 million pounds of cassava products (e.g., manioc and tapioca) and 12.8 million pounds of potatoes. Surprisingly, however, both were first used after World War II, during the Relief years, triggered by federal mandates restricting the use of rice and corn in brewing. All material restrictions lifted in the summer of 1948, and supplies of all brewing materials returned to pre-war levels, but few in the industry could ignore that the lighter lager of the war and famine years had triggered a profound upward step-shift in sales. In the decades that followed, annual industry volume remained largely static, even declining on a per capita basis. Not until 1964 would the industry finally reach 100 million barrels of domestic production, followed in 1970 by the surpassing of the post-Prohibition per capita record of 1948. Buoyed by the 1973–1982 introduction of the modern 100 calorie light adjunct lagers, new records were subsequently set with per capita consumption of domestically produced beer reaching 26.17 gallons in 1981 and domestic production of 203,658,410 barrels in 1990, records that still stand. However, despite the phenomenal growth experienced by the American craft brewing industry over the past 30 years, by 2019 overall industry performance against per capita and annual domestic production metrics has declined by 9.26 gallons and 24.6 million barrels of beer, respectively. Insights to spur 21st century growth, for both macro and craft brewers alike, can be found in the lessons of the past.
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Episode 224: Can Liner Quality & Testing
April 14th, 2025 | 38 mins 54 secs
This week on the show, something that most brewers new to canning never consider but can make or break a brewery.
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Episode 218: Including Fermentation in Your Beer Recipe
April 7th, 2025 | 41 mins 5 secs
Why you need a fermentation recipe just as much as you need a recipe in the brewhouse.
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Episode 331: How USDA ARS Funding Affects Your Brewery
March 31st, 2025 | 1 hr 3 mins
What’s going on with the recent funding cuts to barely & hops research, and how does that affect your brewery?
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Episode 330: Brewery Plant Integration & Automation
March 24th, 2025 | 44 mins 32 secs
How automation enabled one of today’s largest craft brewers to grow to scale.
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Episode 204: Confined Space Entry
March 17th, 2025 | 46 mins 41 secs
Is your brewery prepared to rescue a team member from an FV or other confined space? Do you train & practice rescue regularly or do you plan to just wing it when seconds matter?
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Episode 329: Brewery Supply Chain
March 10th, 2025 | 45 mins 23 secs
A former chair of the BA’s supply chain subcommittee has advice for navigating today’s challenges.
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Episode 201: Wort Separation
March 3rd, 2025 | 1 hr 7 mins
Perhaps the most practical guide to wort separation on planet earth.
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Episode 328: Hitting Quality Targets
February 24th, 2025 | 56 mins 10 secs
What NIR analysis of roughly 200 beers at UC Davis can tell us about hitting quality targets.
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Episode 327: Creep Control
February 17th, 2025 | 34 mins 33 secs
Understanding the enzymes that drive hop creep and a novel potential control strategy.
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Episode 199: The Yeast Hunter
February 10th, 2025 | 38 mins 50 secs
Remember learning about Kveik back on episode 102? This time, we catch up with the man who tracked down these yeasts and reinvigorated a traditional farmhouse brewing culture that nearly died out. You'll also hear about a time when it was illegal NOT to brew Christmas beer.
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Episode 198: Bierkrieg: Follow the Money
February 3rd, 2025 | 56 mins 32 secs
The guy who explained how we narrowly avoided an American Reinheitsgebot on episode 174 is back with more surprises. This time you'll hear about the widespread use of malt substitutes in Germany, a beer war, and the birthplace of America's most popular beer style.
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Episode 326: THP
January 27th, 2025 | 33 mins 36 secs
How mousey off-flavor is formed in beer and how it can be measured.
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Episode 209: How Bells Brewery Significantly Reduced its Electrical Bill & Carbon Footprint
January 20th, 2025 | 58 mins 40 secs
The story of how Bell's brewery reduced its electrical consumption 5% while growing production more than 3%.
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Episode 325: Controlling t2N
January 13th, 2025 | 40 mins 41 secs
Practical strategies for controlling trans-2 nonenal in your brewery.
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Episode 202: The Omission Story + New Gluten-Free/Reduced Regs
January 6th, 2025 | 48 mins 50 secs
The father of the gluten-removed beer category joins us to discuss recently updated federal regulations that may affect your gluten-free or gluten-reduced claims. That's the first part of today's show. After the break, stay tuned to hear the story of how the first commercial gluten-removed barley brew came to life.