Lambic Beer Could Become a Casualty of Climate Change

Yup, when I went to Cantillon they said extended summers push back their brewing schedule.

I think we were talking about that year actually. It was late September and it was in the 70s/80s still.

 

Could lambics be made in a climate-controlled warehouse?

 

I’d think it would be possible to let natural air and the micro flora that comes along with it in to a building while maintaining climate control.

Is this terribly different from a curing chamber for salumi?

 

Is this a serious question? Seriously.

 

Two years ago it was 75 degrees on Christmas Day here in Pennsylvania.

 

Sounded serious and worth exploring to me, especially given that spontaneous fermentation relies as much or more on the organisms in the brew house, barrels and equipment as it does on those carried in by the night breezes whose primary function seems to be cooling.

 

Yes. I understand the need to expose the beer to organisms brought in by air. Just thinking that a warehouse could be automated to monitor outside temperatures, directly allow in outside air when possible, but when too hot, cool it slightly as it is brought in. Granted - not cheap - but could work. Earth berming and/or geothermal cooling could decrease the cost.

 

Might be a different possibility.

Imagine retrofitting the Cantillon coolschip with an outside nearby "coating" of lots and lots of small pipes around the outside of the copper and through which pre-chilled water could be pumped. Sort of the opposite of a radiator for heat, a radiator for cold.

 

One problem with this idea could be any change in the population of yeast and bacteria that comes with summer.

 

No.

Yes. Inoculating a beer is different than curing meat.

It is, indeed, a question worth exploring.

It really doesn't. It relies mostly on the organisms "caught" by the wort in the coolship when the beer is cooling.

Microbial populations inside a building are VASTLY different than those outside in nature.

Why the shock?

This is, actually, not a bad idea. You could use glycol, like fermenters do, to ensure that the cooling of the wort occurs at a controlled rate. That's really what you're looking for. A certain amount of time, especially when the wort is between the temperatures of approximately 120F and 80F.

This is also a concern, as enterobacteriaceae tend to be more prevalent during warmer temperatures. However, the main issue with warmer temperatures is that the wort spends too much time in the main inoculation window, which favors certain microbes over others.

 

I did aN ARTICLE ON THIS ISSUE 3 YEARS AGO: https://growlermag.com/climate-changes-impact-on-beer-what-you-need-to-know/

It ain't getting any better. The climate is moving north about 1/4 mile a year. You can bike to most of the lambic breweries in about a day so for them 1/4 mile a year is a big deal.

 

I was in South Australia in 1999 on a wine buying journey and vacation combined. One of my suppliers was Chapel Hill Winery up above Adelaide in the hills leading north towards the Clare Valley. The winemaker was also a climate scientist and we spent a few days traveling the area. She was keenly aware of climate change then and showed me proof throughout the boundary areas between the last arable land and the encroaching outback. We visited dusty and completely arid ghost towns where grapes and other crops grew not long before. It was like a fire was burning from the center of the continent towards the sea. She was deeply alarmed nearly 20 years ago. I wonder if the big red kangaroos in the area have been able to survive. They were rare then.

 

I used to believe that as well until after I had visited and seen the Cantillon brewery and then later had someone on this site point me toward a set of research findings that pretty strongly support the conclusion the brewhouse has a resident microbiota that does play a role in the microbial succession over time even in the absence of innoculation.

It helped also that I'd seen Cantillon and spent a lot of time wandering the place and looking closely at both their self-guided tour booklet and the physical facilities. For example, while there I had this strong recognition of a fairly good reason for why they don't make a point of cleaning out the cobwebs in the rafters, etc.

 

Undoubtedly. It's just not the main inoculant. Buildings tend to be very poor sources of suitable microbes, due, mostly, to the microbes that reside in and around humans.

Ehh . . . that's more romance than anything else. Cobwebs and dust are not needed to properly make lambic.

 

Who said the cobwebs were needed to make Lambic?

 

Right, but that doesn't say the cobwebs are necessary to making Lambic. It says I learned from that visit that there's a good reason for leaving the cobwebs in place.

 

And that reason was?