Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 28/29, 2015.

A bi-weekly, non-comprehensive roundup
of news of beer and other things.

Weeks 26/27
5 July - 18 July 2015

• 18 July 2015
  "Hops have worked their way to the gustatory core of most craft beer recipes." That, and the results of an annual look at the world hops business from the Barth-Haas Group.
  —Via Stan Hieronymus, at Appellation Beer.
  
  
• 17 July 2015
  Belgian brewery, Duvel Moortgat, buys its third American 'craft' brewery: Firestone-Walker, in Paso Robles, California.
  —Via USA Today.
  
  
• 15 July 2015
  Since 1996, Pabst has been a contract brewery; its beers brewed for it by others. Now, Pabst is to brew beer again, on the grounds of its former headquarters, in Milwaukee. But not its flagship Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR); and the facility will be a small brewpub.
  —Via USA Today.
  
  
  
  
• 13 July 2015
  More than 150 beer writers from across the U.S. participated in the 2015 iteration of the Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference, in Asheville, North Carolina. The conference included “a lot of beer,” but it’s not just an excuse to drink, said conference organizer, Allan Wright of Zephyr Adventures and Taste Vacations. “This is a a professional conference, not a drinker’s conference. “Everyone who comes is fairly committed” to writing about beer, he said.
  —Via Asheville Citizen-Times.
  
  
• 10 July 2015
  The (U.S.) Brewers Association published the results of its annual “Brewery Operations Benchmarking Survey.” This year’s review, based on 2014 operations, featured responses from three hundred ten unique breweries in forty-six states, all of which responded to questions in the areas of human resources, sales and marketing, and brewing and financial operations.
  —Via Brewbound.
  
  
  
  
• 14 July 2015
  After a nine and one-half year voyage of three billion miles, NASA's New Horizons probe passed within seven thousand eight hundred miles of the dwarf planet Pluto's surface.
  —Via Sydney Morning Herald.
  
  
• 13 July 2015
  European leaders agree to economic 'rescue' plan for Greek government and banks, averting default.
  —Via Washington Post.
  
  
• 12 July 2015
  An asset management company, using the price of beer sold at Oktoberfest in Munich over fifty years as a benchmark, creates a gold-to-beer price index, and finds that beer in 2015 is relatively inexpensive.
  —Via YFGF.
  
  
• 10 July 2015
  Doh! Cartoon character Homer Simpson's beer of choice, Duff Beer, to be brewed in reality, and sold, licensed by Fox TV, in Chile.
  —Via Wall Street Journal.
  
  
  
  
• 9 July 2015
  The 2015 hop harvest in the U.S. "will be the third highest total harvested acreage on record. Washington, with 32,205 acres for harvest, accounts for 73 percent of the United States total acreage. Oregon hop growers plan to string 6,807 acres, or 16 percent of the United States total, with Idaho hop growers accounting for the remaining 11 percent, or 4,975 acres strung for harvest. Acreage increased in all three States from 2014 and, if realized, both Washington and Idaho acres will be at record high levels."
  —Via Craft Brewing Business.
  
  
• 5 July 2015
  The science of beer and food pairing: finding the affinity between flavor compounds in beer and those in food.
  —Via Matt Humbard, at A Ph.D. in Beer.
  
  
• 5 July 2015
  "Don't waste your piss." A Danish music festival recycles urine to fertilize barley used to brew beer.
  —ViaDaily Mail.
  
  
• 5 July 2015
  How many calories are in your beer? Use this formula: "cal per 12 oz beer = [(6.9 × ABW) + 4.0 × (RE - 0.1)] × FG × 3.55." Or, to approximate: multiply the beer's alcohol content percentage (ABV) by 2.5, and that by the number of ounces of beer.
  —Via Beer of Tomorrow.
  
  
  
  
• 5 July 2015
  In May, the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) released its 2015 Beer Guidelines. The first major revision since 2008, the guidelines list thirty-four categories of beer 'styles,' and one hundred-nineteen sub-categories. The BJCP was founded in 1985 to "develop standardized tools, methods, and processes for the structured evaluation, ranking and feedback of beer, mead, and cider," and to "certify and rank beer judges through an examination and monitoring process, sanction competitions, and provide educational resources."
  —Via BJCP.
  
  
• 5 July 2015
  "Like grammar, beer styles have a functional use. They help us communicate. They are provisional agreements." Beer writer Jeff Alworth examines the utility and limitations of beer 'styles.'
  —Via All About Beer.

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• Clamps and Gaskets is a bi-weekly wrap-up of stories  not posted at Yours For Good Fermentables.com. Most deal with beer (or wine, or whisky); some do not.
• The Clamps and Gaskets graphic was created by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.


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