Global Heating Will Make Your Beers Taste Worse!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
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Do Guardian readers actually believe this nonsense?
Climate breakdown is already changing the taste and quality of beer, scientists have warned.
The quantity and quality of hops, a key ingredient in most beers, is being affected by global heating, according to a study. As a result, beer may become more expensive and manufacturers will have to adapt their brewing methods.
Researchers forecast that hop yields in European growing regions will fall by 4-18% by 2050 if farmers do not adapt to hotter and drier weather, while the content of alpha acids in the hops, which gives beers their distinctive taste and smell, will fall by 20-31%.
“Beer drinkers will definitely see the climate change, either in the price tag or the quality,” said Miroslav Trnka, a scientist at the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and co-author of the study, published in the journal Nature Communications. “That seems to be inevitable from our data.”
Beer, the third-most popular drink in the world after water and tea, is made by fermenting malted grains like barley with yeast. It is usually flavoured with aromatic hops grown mostly in the middle latitudes that are sensitive to changes in light, heat and water.
In recent years, demand for high-quality hops has been pushed up by a boom in craft beers with stronger flavours. But emissions of planet-heating gases are putting the plant at risk, the study found.
The researchers compared the average annual yield of aroma hops during the periods 1971-1994 and 1995-2018 and found “a significant production decrease” of 0.13-0.27 tons per hectare. Celje, in Slovenia, had the greatest fall in average annual hop yield, at 19.4%.
In Germany, the second-biggest hop producer in the world, average hop yields have fallen 19.1% in Spalt, 13.7% in Hallertau, and 9.5% in Tettnang, the study found.
The taste of beer does not just depend on the hops, but it explains part of the drink’s popularity, said Trnka. “Across the pubs of Europe, the most frequent debate except weather and politics is about the … beer.”
But weather and politics are both changing the taste of beers. World leaders have promised to try to stop the planet heating by more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, but are pumping out too much greenhouse gas to meet that target.
The study found the alpha acid content of hops, which give beer its distinct aroma, had fallen in all regions.
Can anybody honestly say that beer tastes any different to what it used to? Or worse?
Indeed, the explosion of new craft beers and styles tells the opposite story. Brewers are using their skills to produce better beers, taking advantage of the abundance of quality and varied ingredients from around the world. And they will carry on doing so.
As for the nonsense about falling hop yields, the UN data shows the exact opposite, both in Europe and specifically in Germany:
https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare
The best bit though is the Guardian’s claim that global heating will push up prices, because the very last paragraph includes this quote from a German hop farmer :
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
” …if farmers do not adapt…”
Is there a reason to suppose that they would not?
I had to laugh at this one. Another pile for horse dookey. As a competent home brewer I can confidently say that my beer will compete or exceed with anything that you can buy. The taste of mass market beers is deteriorating due to technique rather than the availability of hops. Hops are pretty resilient as long as they are grown properly. The local brewery grew 4.5 tonnes of hops this year. I got some of my hops from the hedgerow. Most of the commercial stuff is filtered to death and not aged properly. My ales are generally a month old before drinking and the pilsners I like to leave 3 months. That way you drink real beer and not horse water.
I drink bottled beers at home mostly. All the manufacturers have reduced the alcohol content over the last 12 months to save money. Some have gone too far and I no longer buy them.
Easy to say that The Guardian readers do not know the difference between lager and beer. British beer is already ‘spoilt’ by publicans’ inclination to dispense it via coolers like lager. Lager is not spoilt by being refrigerated. Beer is. Another piece of lazy journalism by the young of all ages at The Guardian.
Real ale should be served at “cellar temperature”, cool, but not refrigerated, generally at 7-12C (I believe CAMRA say 11-13C). This is what Cask Marque says:
A digression, perhaps, but I think an interesting one.
Great research Paul.
I’ll drink to that!
How many will you need to try before you can tell if it tastes worse?
In my reasonably extensive experience each pint tastes better than the previous one up to about the 8th or 9th when things start spinning and it gets harder and harder to keep the beer down.
Suitably reported on BBC news this morning, their daily climate warning.
So liars supporting liars……Both have given up any pretence of supporting “science” preferring to support cyense as is the view of the Arts graduates who are pushing anything and everything in support of their religion. In fact I would suggest they are so wilfully ignorant that they cannot tell the difference given that political terms and emotion compose the majority of the effluent which passes for “news” coming from either.
It is pretty much guaranteed that if something (anything) appears in the Graun it will also appear on the BBC – they are both funded by the same sources.
Yes, but if it is on the BBC, then it must be true. That is because all facts are checked by the BBC mis-information department (or is it the BBC dis-information department – I can’t remember which it is).
Is that the department headed up by a 27 year old giving us all the benefit of her inexperience?
That’s the one. She lied on her application for the job at the BBC, so an ideal person.
👍
I suspect the BBC and Guardian have greater concerns now that their favourite terrorist group has been found to have beheaded babies.
More utter nonsense pedalled by useless University research. Still, the “scientists” doing the work depend on the “climate breakdown” myth to keep getting their grants, so their research will never question it
If the worse does come we will all just have to grin and beer it!
Just more propaganda for the masses which include a lot of beer drinkers .
Yes , beer will cost more . But most of that cost increase is from carbon taxes putting up the cost of everything , and also making a large number of public houses close down .
Oh well, if ‘scientists say’ then it must be true.
. . . as long as coffee is okay.
Punchlines from the future:
‘scientists have warned’
‘according to a study’
‘researchers forecast’
Documentary on BBC last night tried to blame climate change for shark attacks.
Which beer exactly will it “hurt”? That made at the equator currently or that made within the Arctic Circle? It MUSY be concluded that beer made in one or the other is inferior so which prey tell!
I wonder what kind of “scientists” made this up, sorry, researched this subject? My money is on political scientists and we can guess what their politics/ religious leanings will be!
There is an industry churning out klymutt scare stories from plain stupid to wilful lies. “If” they have the scientific and therefore moral high ground then why do they need any of this and WHO is funding the garbage…any relationship to the word weasels who take the minimal scientific input available to the IPCC and spin it into klymut emotion?
So it is just lies.
Most of these modern ‘craft’ beers are over ‘hopped’ anyway and best avoided,had one recently that tasted like water from a flower vase.
How do you know?!
In times of desperation….
When it comes to daft predictions of wat awaits us under CC, yesterday the BBC ran a news item where some ‘scientists’ have predicted that more than half of all species could become extinct as a result of CC – and that many more will do so among those species yet to be discovered.
Well that is clever – you have to admire those “scientists”!
The BBC specialises in running the opinions of scientists who are climate activists and making it sound as if those opinions are science. It’s deliberate fraud.
Prof Richard Selley on viticulture and wine in UK. (Adv warning – may contain humour…)
Guardian news articles could become much more shonky because of climate change a scientist has warned, Due to Guardian writers’ already whacky brains, the anticipated 1.5ºC increase in global temperatures will just prove too much and we’re already seeing signs of this said the joint-deputy assistant coordinater leading the research group, before adding ‘it’s much worse than we thought’.
Brilliant! I fondly remember the complaints after the Graun advocated free pet food for pensioners with people saying it was inhumane to feed old people solely on canned food!
What the Alarmists don’t understand is that if it is worse than forecast, climate science is wrong.
If my hypothesis predicts it will be 10 and its 15, it’s as wrong as if it were 5.
“The study found the alpha acid content of hops, which give beer its distinct aroma, had fallen in all regions.” – I don’t think so. Alpha acid is responsible for the bitterness, not the aroma.
The brewing of beer is the art of producing a consistent product from inconsistent ingredients. No hiding behind the ‘it was a bad year’ that another drink industry can. If the Alpha acid is low, just use more hops, but it varies from batch to batch anyway.
From 2009, via the inestimable Numberwatch:
Most of the article is paywalled, but who would want to waste a dime on New Scientist these days?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327253-400-climate-change-depresses-beer-drinkers/
Iso-humulone and iso-lupulone- the acids in question – have been used throughout the mediaeval warm period and the little ice age.
It’s the scare du jour
As a botanist, I have seen written by actual scientists, that England grew finer wines during the medieval warm period than did France. That put France’s nose out of joint. The little ice age brought on beers from England and the northern countries. While the English and German countries changed their diets, growing cold-hardy plants and animals, France refused to change. The French died in higher numbers due to the advancing cold for that reason.
It also affected the United States. As many came from England and Germany they brought their beer-drinking habit. It has been only recently that the United States has embraced wines. Sorry, France.
That’s not true though, perhaps because of some historical nuances around “England” and “France”. What is now the UK imported vast amounts of wine from Bordeaux after Eleanor of Aquitaine married the future Henry II in 1152. Aquitaine and Bordeaux became part of “England”. As the 100 Years War fluctuated, the English began importing wine from around Bergerac as well. These wines were highly prized, not disdainful, and the trade made both Bordeaux and Bergerac very wealthy. For various reasons, Bergerac’s trade fell away, but the English appetite for claret continued and continues today.
It is usually flavoured with aromatic hops grown mostly in the middle latitudes that are sensitive to changes in light, heat and water.
Nought percent for sentence construction.! HOPS are sensitive is what they seem to mean NOT the middle latitudes. Tell them to learn English before writing for news papers or websites.
Dear Paul Homewood,
Thank you so much for yet another deft puncturing of the twaddlseshere. On a related front, I am extremely interested in the effect of climate-mongering on real environmental protection. The disastrous fire on Maui gave us a good example of this; the utility, Hawaii Electric, while failing to keep their transmission grid in good repair, did spend a lot of money on an hour long documentary promoting its efforts to “mitigate the effects of climate change.” Other examples abound, such as the deaths of Right Whales off Cape Cod owing to offshore wind projects there. I believe you have addressed this topic in one or posts a while back, but I have not been able to find them. Should you be able to point me in the right direction I would be most grateful. Best wishes, Andrew Cockburn
Hi Andrew
The Maui fires are covered here:
And the whales here:
I’m betting the locations were cherry-picked and then the bizarre date periods were p-hacked to get a statically significant result. Why else use 1971-94 as your comparator? There was no climate change then?
Yes, Paul, Grauniad readers will probably believe this, I’m afraid.
’emissions of planet-heating gases are putting the plant at risk, the study found’
How did the study determine the origin of the supposed risk – or maybe it just heard it on the BBC?
Thankfully grapes appear to like the warmer weather so its wine all the way!
You should pay heed to the cautionary words of South Africa’s foremost authority on lager spoilage :
Likhipa inhlanzi emanzini
Indian hemp is a close enough relative to hops to make up for any shortfall in the unlikely event that warmunist Sharknado theology is ever proven.
ARGH!!! Indian hemp is toxic.
Hops are in the Cannabaceae family, which includes hemp. Just plain hemp, Cannabis sativa.
Indian hemp is Apocynum cannabinum. Not closely related to hops at all. Apocynum means “poisonous to dogs”.
CO2 to the rescue?…
From the study:
While assessing future climate and environmental impacts on the quality and quantity of aroma hops, the uncertainty associated with model simulations should also be noted. Increased CO2 concentrations could partially compensate for the effects of drought and support yield growth and leaf area index while improving water use efficiency. However, this effect on hops is still under investigation, and we do not yet have enough evidence and knowledge. New findings in hop physiology, such as the beneficial effect of elevated CO2 on the primary metabolism of hop strobilus and the effects of vernalization and dormancy may help in the future to breed hops that are more resistant. [bold added]
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41474-5#Sec2
The Guardian doomsters somehow missed that 😎