麻豆传媒

As professor of brewing science at the University of California, Charlie Bamforth has what many of his students suspect is the best job in town. He has spent his career studying the biotechnology and 8000-year history of brewing. He is keen to talk up the benefits of beer and especially its advantages over wine 鈥� a message the beer industry seems strangely reluctant to champion. Michael Bond listened in over a few glasses of chilled American lager at Bamforth鈥檚 local brewery in Davis.

You鈥檝e spent your career studying brewing. What excites you about it?

What I love is the beauty of . That is art. It is also hugely scientific. What we do is use our increasing knowledge about the brewing process to improve it. The scientific understanding of brewing is far more sophisticated than that of wine.

What kind of strange brewing processes have you come across?

I鈥檝e seen all sorts. Different brewers have their own passionate beliefs about what is the right and wrong thing to do. Many brewers are very traditional. Anheuser-Busch, for example, which makes Budweiser, still uses beech wood chips to age its lager. I know a brewery in Finland where they cook the beer during processing to speed up the maturation. Their beer tastes excellent, but many brewers would never dream of doing that.

You must have tasted some unusual beers鈥�

There are some strange ones around. A company in the US brought out a beer that tastes of pizza. I haven鈥檛 tried it yet, I don鈥檛 want to. There鈥檚 a trend in the US towards all sorts of exotic things. I was recently given a beer that contained ginseng, guarana and caffeine; my pupils dilated as I took a sip. I have a friend who likes to drink beer the Mexican way, with salt and lime. That鈥檚 not for me, but each to their own.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a beer that tastes of pizza. I haven鈥檛 tried it. I don鈥檛 want to鈥�

It鈥檚 all down to what you like. I鈥檓 a great believer in fresh beer, but an awful lot of beer that is drunk around the world is stale, so that鈥檚 what people expect it to taste like. The flavour that really offends me is skunkiness. Beer develops skunkiness if you expose it to light, and there鈥檚 a tendency for that to happen to beer in clear or green glass bottles. However, some people expect it to smell that way because that鈥檚 what they鈥檙e used to. If a customer is used to certain characteristics, that鈥檚 what they should get.

How do you like your beer?

For me, it needs to match the occasion. If I鈥檓 watching a baseball game on a hot day in California, I want a refreshing light American lager to wash down the nachos. If I鈥檓 in an English country pub in the middle of winter and I鈥檓 eating a pie and the ceiling is only an inch higher than I am, I want something more full-bodied and warming, like a cask-conditioned ale 鈥� it鈥檚 something I really miss.

Is there merit in claims that beer is good for you?

Wine has stolen the moral high ground on health, and that鈥檚 not fair. Beer contains more nutrients than wine, and higher levels of vitamins and certain minerals, such as silica. It also contains antioxidants and soluble fibre. If brewers chose to, they could market their products on health grounds just as legitimately, if not more so, as wine growers market red wine.

Why don鈥檛 they?

Brewers are reluctant. Beer is marketed very much as a social, fun drink, for young men especially, and perhaps health is not a real issue for them. Beer is presented differently to wine on other levels too. For example, it goes just as well with many foods as wine, if not better. Yet this week I asked for a beer with my meal and along came a bottle without a glass. Can you imagine that happening with wine? That鈥檚 where brewers and beer retailers have to improve their act. I hope they realise that it鈥檚 not only young men who drink beer; there should be beers for every segment of society. In the future I hope it鈥檒l be standard practice to ask for a beer list in a restaurant. It鈥檚 not just good with pizza.

How will the beer of the 22nd century be made?

I once had a boss who used to say that brewing is a really stupid process. You grow barley in a wet field, which you then have to dry; you then take it to the malt house, where you make it wet; after allowing it to germinate you dry it, then take it to the brew-house to grind it up and add more water; then you boil off some of that water before adding the hops and the yeast. It may sound crazy, but these unique processes are what make beer the way it is. His point was that, like it or not, one day we鈥檒l make it another way, perhaps by taking the cheapest source of alcohol and adding the flavours, colours and foam from a bucket. That鈥檚 how a chemical engineer would do it. You can already get certain flavours out of a bottle, though none of the subtleties that make up beer. But one day, who knows? Personally, I loathe the concept.

How much room is there for variation in the brewing process?

There鈥檚 a lot of scope for variation, but brewers don鈥檛 like variability. They like consistency. It鈥檚 not like winemaking, where to some extent you allow nature to take its course with the grapes. Barley and hops are just as prone to seasonal variation, but what the maltster and brewer do is tweak the process so that the barley is always converted to malt within certain specifications to ensure it is brewed consistently.

Is there any interest among brewers in using genetic modification?

Very little. Many breweries are reluctant to use any aids or additives at all, they want to keep the process clean. There is no problem that desperately needs a GM solution, so it is not going to happen. I don鈥檛 feel strongly either way, though if there is a good reason for doing it 鈥� if you could find a yeast that would give you a beer with a four-year shelf-life, for example 鈥� then it might warrant attention.

There鈥檚 an inherent reluctance in the brewing industry to enter uncharted territory. Some things have not changed fundamentally in the brewing process since it was discovered some 8000 years ago. The realisation that allowing the grains to sprout during malting was a good thing came fairly early, as did the idea of drying the grain to improve the flavour. The use of hops came in the 1200s in Europe and in the early 16th century in England. It probably came about through happenstance 鈥� they experimented with lots of things in those days, even adding small doses of strychnine to prevent spoilage.

What does your research involve?

I look at things like the , the compounds that contribute to the flavour of beer such as dimethyl sulphide, how to limit the damaging impact of oxygen on flavour, the architecture of the barley cell walls and the enzymes that break it down, and the .

Many of your students go on to become brewers. How satisfying is it when you taste a beer that an ex-student of yours has had a hand in making?

It鈥檚 satisfying, but only if it鈥檚 good beer. People 鈥� not my students 鈥� will often ask me to taste a beer they鈥檝e brewed. I鈥檒l usually decline 鈥� I am pretty sure what it鈥檒l taste like, and I don鈥檛 want it. I鈥檓 not an obsessive. I just like beer that tastes good.