yes yes know a lot about it believe me i'm also the mother bud is according to john all right so uh tom this one is for you All right, so why does starch gelatinization need to occur before mash enzymes can officially convert that starch into fermentable sugars?

Oh, I mean, that's kind of like the basis of mashing biochemistry.

If you don't have a fully gelatinized polymer, then the enzymes can't latch on and do their thing.

Or C, John once got into an argument with Gordon Ramsay about scrambled eggs.

You know, I feel like I know a lot of stuff about John.

Lots of conversations at NBA meetings.

He has some intriguing backgrounds, a love of rowing and all kinds of stuff.

But this, you got me here.

And so lots of work then

... it's trying to understand what, what is that point, right? Because there's like a economic cost for this that is like refrigerant c- refrigeration cost.

There's an environmental cost.

I mean, the carbon footprint on these, these hops just continues to rise as they sit in cold storage.

Um, so it's like understanding what is that point.

And, and as I was saying, many brewers, um, uh, well-intentioned but maybe misguidedly think that a, a last in, first out in- inventory policy is best, like fresh is best.

And on one hand, I, I can see the rationale of that, but the other hand is like it does- it doesn't properly address and, and strategically address the entire inventory, um, supply because the old hops just keep getting more and more expensive, and understanding how to manage that, um, is like one of the goals of this project is to really get a sense on how do, uh, aroma hops focus...

Yeah.

How much of the industry's current thinking around aged hops is actually based on data versus inherited in-- assumptions?

Oh, that's a great question, and I think it's the latter.

Uh, and that's kind of the, the rationale for the work.

Uh, the work's funded by, by Hop Research Council, and there's folks in the Hop Research Council that are brewers like, uh, Anheuser-Busch, um, as an example.

They're, they're kind of one of the, the funders of this, um, as well as, uh, hop growers, uh, and hop processors, and they all have sort of the same question.

Like, looking at this huge inventory of hops, and they're trying to get a sense on, um, are, are hops still good? Uh, what is, like, a shelf life on hops? Is it okay to use old hops? If the hops are old, what do we know about them, say, from a chemical signature that can give us some sort of idea as to whether it's okay to use or not? I think the-- what you described, John, was what we hear often for m-many well-intentioned, very enthusiastic, passionate brewers is this idea of, uh, last in, first out inventory management process, and the challenge with that is that the older hops keep getting older and older and older and more and more expensive because they're not just sitting at ambient conditions.

They're stored refrigerated.

Wow.

Tom, what, what about the chemistry here? Is alcohol just alcohol just alcohol, or are there differences?

It kind of depends.

So, like the basic production process of making any alcoholic beverage starts with some sort of fermentable sugar and yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae mainly, in some other cases, um, some different Saccharomyces or non-Saccharomyces strains.

But these organisms are converting these fermentable sugars into ethanol, and ethanol is the, the alcohol that we find in all alcoholic beverages.

The starting material varies.

You know, grapes are fermented to wine, mash, malted barley is fermented into beer, uh, agave is fermented into, uh, pulque, and these have ethanol in them.

But they all have these other components that come from the starting material.

Can you talk a little bit about how those drinks are being made and how you see that trend going?

All right, number two.

Okay, let's see.

Number two.

[laughs]

Uh, number two is Orval.

Uh, Orval is definitely-

Mm

[laughs]