Since beer is truly one of those ancient beverages and has a rich history, today we talk to Rob DeSalle Co-Author of A Natural History of Beer. Rob and I discuss beer history and the effects it has on society as a whole.
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Audio Transcription
(Note this transcription is generated by AI it’s not perfect)
HDIY – A Natural History of Beer
[00:00:00] Colter Wilson: Beer is a very old beverage. It’s been consumed throughout the ages and like all historical subjects, it helps us to better understand human history. So today we’re talking to Rob DeSalle curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York city, and he is the coauthor of a great book. Called a natural history of beer, and we’re going to talk to him about his book and the history of beer today on Homebrewing DIY.Welcome [00:01:00] me back to homebrewing DIY, the podcast that takes on the do it yourself aspect of home brewing. Gadgets, contraptions, and parts. This podcast covers it all. Today we’re talking to Rob DeSalle, curator of the American museum of natural history about his book, a natural history of beer. We discussed beer history and how that history affects current brewing trends.
But first I want to thank all of our patrons is because of you that we can keep this show coming to you week after week. Head on over to http://patreon.com/homebrewingdiy and give it any amount. Your monthly support keeps this show on the air. I want to thank our newest patron, Ian Herbert. He gave it the supporter level and he’s going to get a really nice brewing gift from our sponsor Scrubber Duckies.
If you want to support the podcast, head over to [00:02:00] patrion.com forward slash homebrewing DIY today. Another way to support the podcast is to go to rate this podcast.com forward slash homebrewing DIY and write us a review. It helps others find the show. Speaking of reviews, we got a three-star review last week because of the audio quality of our interview with Olivia and I totally agree.
The quality was really poor. I actually did the whole interview with my Mike pointing the wrong direction. I’ve since fixed the issue, but, uh. I’m also working on audio issues altogether, so hopefully, we don’t run into anything like that anymore. Speaking of feedback, I also got some feedback from ed in response to his feedback from a few weeks ago, and ed wrote Coulter.
I was surprised and a bit embarrassed to hear you read my email on the show. Well, here we are reading it again. You asked for info on the mill. Well, the big roller is hand-cranked. The thing that weighs about 30 [00:03:00] pounds and has a lot of inertia when it gets going. The smaller roller is two and one-fourth inches exhausted pipe with the ends cut from 14-gallon steel with 14-gallon steel welded in.
Most of the rest is salvage stuff. A poli from an old washer, a hand crank from a food grinder, lumber from a TV stand, miscellaneous hardware for my drunk drawer. You kind of get the idea the rollers used my non patent pending variable roller spacing technology. I can get it from, I can’t get it exactly parallel and to pull the grain through.
It works pretty well considering, and the mill, it mills 10 to 12 pounds of grain in about five to seven minutes or so. So keep up the great work and cheers at, well, I want to thank ed for the feedback. He sent me actual photos of this grain mill and it’s pretty cool. So if any of you want to check it out.
Head over to home brewing diy.beer and it’s [00:04:00] in the show notes of this actual episode. I’ll actually post the images that ed sent me. So ed, once again, thanks for the feedback. I truly enjoy reading it and hearing from you about your cool projects. And did you know that you can find the show on social media?
We’re on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Look for the handle at homebrewing. DIY, all one word. The last way you can support the show is by supporting our sponsors from our website head over to brewing diy.beer and click on our sponsor links. It lets them know that we sent you and then they support us.
All right, let’s jump into our show for this week. As we talked to Rob desal. About the natural history of beer.
I’d like to welcome Rob decel to homebrewing DIY. Hi, Rob. How are you doing?
Rob DeSalle: Great [00:05:00] to be here.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. Great. I, I’m really glad to have you on the show. And a cool thing about Rob is, uh, he and his partner, Ian, uh, they wrote this really amazing book called the natural history of beer. Um, that came out about a year ago, right?
Rob DeSalle: That’s correct. Yeah. Yeah. It was a project that Ian and I undertook to kind of look at natural history through the lens of beer. Um, basically cause we like to drink beer and we’re both, uh, curators at a natural history museum. And so we felt it’d be a lot of fun to drink beer and try to teach people about natural history.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. And, and, and it’s a, it’s a really great read for anyone listening to the show. I’ll definitely put a link to the book in the show notes, but, uh, this is a really fascinating take on the history of beer because the idea is that, uh, the book kind of starts at the beginning of time and brewing in general, all the way back to the animal kingdom, [00:06:00] right?
Rob DeSalle: Yeah, that’s right. And you move a lot of animals. Uh, primates and even even small mammals, uh, uh, had been drinking alcohol. Uh, our closest primate relatives are, are pretty good. Chimpanzees are pretty good drinkers. They like to imbibe an alcohol every once in a while. And, um, you know, our smaller mammo, uh, relatives like tree shrews and.
And, um, um, other small mammals happen upon, uh, for many fruit. And so they’ll eat the eat and drink the fermenting fruit and, uh, they’ll get a little bit of a buzz from, from that. Um, there’s a hypothesis about how humans actually evolved called the drunken monkey hypothesis, which, uh, suggests that, uh, we develop kind of our, our, uh, as our human lineage kind of evolved as a, as a result of.
Uh, our ancestors focusing on, on, uh, uh, plants [00:07:00] and fruits that could ferment and, and this kind of, uh, drove a bit of our evolution. So, uh, yeah, you can take this idea of drinking and imbibing in our, in our lineage of pretty far back. Um, and, and more than likely. Our, our, our human ancestors, uh, the se se, uh, our ancestors with Neanderthals and our ancestors.
With the homo erectus, we’re more than likely finding, um, alcoholic things to drink. So it goes back pretty far.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. One of the things that, uh, that I was, was kind of cool for me in the book was the fact that there are a lot of species out there that can actually even process alcohol. And actually our primates and humans are actually unique in that we’ve adapted the ability to do so.
Rob DeSalle: Right. Yeah. That’s very cool. What happened, uh, in, uh, in the common ancestor of, of chimpanzees and humans. Is [00:08:00] there was a mutation in one of our genes called an alcohol dehydrogenase gene. It’s a very important gene, if you like, drinking beer and wine and spirits, uh, because it helps to detoxify the alcohol, um, in, in the, in the body.
And this mutation allowed us to be allowed our lineage and the chimpanzee lineage to be much more efficient at processing alcohol. And so we were a bit pre adapted to. Um, our production for, for drinking alcohol and alcoholic beverages, but other primates, as you pointed out, don’t have this change. And so they’re much more susceptible to, to alcohol.
In fact, um, some researchers in South America have observed Howler monkeys, uh, uh, drinking, fermenting fruit and actually getting very, very drunk and falling asleep. So, um, our lineage, again, is, is special. As a result of this mutation in the alcohol dehydrogenase, it probably occurred about 10 million years ago, again, in [00:09:00] the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans.
Colter Wilson: Oh, that’s a, that’s a really long time ago. Um, when, and, and really one of the other parts is that, uh, you know, you guys then. Jump into talking about really, um, ancient beers and, uh, specifically you talk about like, uh, the, the Sumerians and Babylonians and how they made alcoholic beverages and, you know, yes, they call it beer, but it’s not really beer we would call today, right?
Rob DeSalle: No, it’s, it’s very different from the beer. Um, that, that, um, we drink. Nowadays, it’s even very different from the beer that was drunk during the Renaissance and the deer that was drunk, um, by, uh, Europeans and in, uh, prior to the Renaissance till about a thousand, AD . Um, and that’s when hops started to be used.
So the beer that, that the Sumerians were drinking and the Egyptians [00:10:00] were drinking, uh, very different because it just didn’t use hops. And it w it played around more with, um, spices and herbs and things like that as. As additives to the beer. Um, but it, it would have been a very different tasting thing. Um, we know that, that, uh, the, uh, age of, uh, or we know that brewing beer goes back pretty, pretty far from finding, um, uh, pottery and shards of, of vessels that would, uh, carry beer and wine and things like that.
And, uh, we have a pretty good idea from archeological sites where, where, uh. Um, you know, at what point in time humans were developing a beer and it kind of was more than likely developed along the same time as bread. Um, people don’t really know if, if bread came first or beer came first or wine came first.
Um, it probably all happened around the same time. And, and as, as [00:11:00] humans started to come together into communities and into, uh, large, uh, living groups. Uh, w humans had more time to play around and, and to, um, figure out new ways of making things, of making food. And a lot of, uh, of our discovery of these foods like bread and, and, uh, beer and wine were more than likely serendipitous.
They’re more than likely a mistake. You know, what’s the, you leave something sitting around a little bit too long, come back and Hey, you got beer or you leave it too long and come back. Hey, you got wine. Um, so. Uh, it, it, it’s, uh, a really interesting, uh, way to think about beer and about how, uh, uh, the, the making of beer kind of evolved.
I wanted to also point out that, that, uh, um, I spent some time in Australia and, uh, the Australian natives, uh, the Aboriginal, so to speak, uh, [00:12:00] also made beer. This is a really interesting thing because they’ve been in Australia for. A 50 to 60,000 years, and it’s not clear that they were making beer for 60,000 years, but they’ve probably been making beer for a long time.
It’s a very weak, weak beer that’s around two to 3% made from eucalyptus and from other plants that the aboriginals, uh, realized they could, uh, get to ferment. But, uh, you know, the, the European, uh, uh, age is around 10 to 12,000 years ago and the like, like I’m trying to point out, the Australian Aboriginal folk may have been drinking beer way before.
Um, Europeans were drinking beer. So, uh, certainly the, the, uh, history of drinking beer in homosapiens our species is quite rich and quite old. That’s a, a great, uh, thing to kind of point out is that [00:13:00] even when you have societies that aren’t connected in any way, um, they’re still producing alcoholic beverages, right?
Oh yeah. Absolutely. It’s almost like alcoholic. Alcoholic beverages are really important for culture. It’s not almost like it is like the, that, that the alcoholic beverages are important for cultures. They’re there. A cultural kind of, uh, stimulators. They, they help culture survive, uh, and they do so because, um, they break down inhibitions and these inhibitions that get broken down allow for more social cohesion and also allows for big problems as, as we know from, um, alcohol problems, alcohol, Liz, and problems in, in lots of societies.
But for the most part, alcohol. Beer, especially wine, wine also. Um, they play a big role in, in, in, uh, how societies and cultures get formed in a, in a big part of how societies [00:14:00] and cultures survive.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. They kind of. You know, uh, depending on how the culture, um, can create certain laws and, and how they maybe approach alcohol could be a big reason for how the social aspect of alcoholism is used.
Um, I think one of the talks about in the book, uh, is that like, uh, I think in Australia you were talking about, uh, the fact that there were. In trying to control alcohol consumption. They did things like, let’s close the pub at 6:00 PM. And, uh, and it kind of backfired, right?
Rob DeSalle: Yeah. The, the, exactly. It caused a, uh, uh, a, a binge drinking trend in Australia.
And what would happen is that they wouldn’t close the pub. They would just stop serving beer and the, they would just stop serving new, new, uh, uh, beers. And so what folks would do is they’d go to the belly up to the bar 15 minutes [00:15:00] before and buy four or five pints and taken to the table. And, and, um.
Pound them down before they got on the train or before they, you know, got on their bus to go home. And so this caused a, a problem in Australia. I mean, they tried to solve their alcohol problem differently than we did. We went through prohibition for about 10 maybe 12 years in the 1920s and into the thirties
Um, that caused a huge amount of social problems here in the United States with prohibition. So, you know, the, the, the get, there’s a give and take. That’s very interesting. Um, around all of this and, and, uh, uh, one that, um, really points to the fact that beer, alcohol, wine, um, is a pretty important part of how we, we do culture, how we, we think about our cultures.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. I’m going in thinking about prohibition, I think prohibition had profound effects in general on the United [00:16:00] States beer production, right? There was a different culture in the United States. Pre-prohibition and post prohibition because of that abstinence for, you know, 10 years or at least non commercialization for, you know, uh, 10 years.
Um, how did that really affect the, you know. The beer industry before. Well, what did it look like in America? What did it look like after prohibition?
Rob DeSalle: Here in New York city? Of course, the, the beer capitals, uh, of, of the United States were in the Midwest and they’ll walkie in st Louis and the Midwestern town Chicago.
But here in New York city, just as an example, um, where I, where I live, um, there were thousands of breweries in, in all of New York city, you know. Thousand and prohibition hit, and then when prohibition was lifted, there were something like six left and the way that they survived through prohibition was through [00:17:00] making a malt.
Um, and, uh, of course, they probably cheated on the side and made a lot of alcohol, a lot of beer and stuff on the side. But they tried to, uh, stay open. These breweries did by making malt and malt products, and, and they did so. So after prohibition, there was, I mean, the whole brewery industry was just kind of wiped down to very few.
Um, uh, breweries, and that’s probably why, uh, the big, big brewers, the big guys took over. Um, and, and we’re such a big, a big, uh, uh, influence in the 30s, forties, 50s, 60s, 70s. Even, um, you know, it’s only very recently that the craft brew movement has kinda, uh, risen up, um, and, and challenge some of the big brewers.
But. Uh, yeah, the, the prohibition had a huge impact on, on brewers breweries here, uh, certainly, uh, in New York city, but all over the [00:18:00] United States. And as well in Australia as again, I spent about a half year in Australia and, uh, very clear, there are up to around 600 crappers now and, uh, uh, you know, say 50 years ago because of their, um, six o’clock law.
Um, breweries dropped to just a few of the big, big breweries. Um, but now they’re up up pretty with a lot of, uh, crapper or so. It has a huge amount of huge effect on, on how the trends in brewing have, uh, uh, kind of formed over the years.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. And if we, if we go back to kind of the natural progression of a brewing and, and, and how we kinda got to where we are today, um, you know, we, we were talking about, you know, the ancient world and how beer wasn’t really what it was today.
When do you think that beer became. [00:19:00] I guess, you know, you said that, uh, hops came at a certain time when were hops added to beer, and that’s kind of when, you know, beer became what we think of as modern beer, right?
Rob DeSalle: Yeah. We discussed this in the book, and I’m, I’m blanking on the, on the exact date, but it’s probably around 1011, 1100, a D, um, where hops were introduced to, uh, brewing.
In Germany and great Britain. Um, there’s a, uh, fairly well doc, fairly good documentation as to when this happened. And then of course, um, you, you get into the, uh, German, uh, purity, uh, laws that Reinhardt bought, um, well a little bit after that, um, where, you know, the law has says that, uh, you beer is made up of water, hops and barley.
And anything else that you [00:20:00] make has to either get dispensation or you can’t call it beer. Um, Britain didn’t have that kind of law. Neither did the Belgians and other folk. But, uh, it certainly had, uh, a big impact over the last, say, a thousand years on, on, on brewing the introduction of hops and then this kind of forcing the three ingredients on, on brewing and Germany.
So. Um, it, it certainly though, over the last, say, 40 or 50 years, the use of hops is just exploded and, and people are really, really taking advantage of, of the, the beautiful diversity of that plant. So, um, there’s a big difference there too.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. And, and, and once those kind of be, the German style of beer started to come out, um, it did start with the
You know, top fermenting ELLs and then work its way into bottom [00:21:00] fermenting loggers. Um, well how, how, how did that switch kind of happen?
Rob DeSalle: Yeah. You know, um, the, I think it’s more of a, a traditional, um, you know, the weather in, in Germany probably had something to do with it. The, um, you know, the capacity to ferment at lower temperatures in Germany.
Um, probably had something to do with it. Um, tradition probably had something to do with it. Uh, also the availability of certain kinds of yeasts cause it’s the yeast that that really is making the difference there. Right? It’s the, um, bottom fermenting yeast or the laundering yeast and the top fermenting yeast are the elitist and the stout and, and, um, um, uh, Porter kinds of views.
So, um, you know, maybe the yeast in Germany. Uh, started to, um, lean more toward logging kinds of yeasts and the Eastern England stayed more [00:22:00] toward, uh, aliens, kind of of yeast at the top for many kinds of use. So, um, it probably got a lot to do with, again, as I said, tradition, but also maybe the availability of certain kinds of yes’.
Um, I don’t know if you’re, if your listeners are going to know about the. Uh, yeast that, uh, uh, Scandinavian countries are, are producing now the farm farmhouse, uh, yeast that they’re producing up there spectacular. Um, so they’re starting to produce really, really wonderful beers because of the local yeast that they can, um, kind of find, uh, during their brewing processes.
So, uh, where you are has a lot to do with the kind of, uh, brewing that you’re going to be doing.
Colter Wilson: Yeah, we’re, we’re talking about, uh, the from, uh, new Orleans. She’s, yeah. And we talk about it on this show seems to be coming up almost every other show right now, just because that you, that [00:23:00] though that yeast is, uh.
To those in Norway, uh, an ancient or a yeast that’s been used for hundreds and hundreds of years. Um, I think in the modern brewing will world, it’s really something that’s brand new. And, uh, it’s, to be honest, specifically for homebrewers, it really kind of, you know, affects. A lot of the aspects that we, we push so hard on things like temp control or can brew clean beer at warm temperatures.
Right. Um, and it can, and it can also do a beer in four days and you can have a beer grain to glass and yeah, super fast. And it can do it with a really big beer. Right? So it’s really kind of a use that’s a, that’s really very different and unique in the way that it behaves in comparison to your classic brewers.
Use your classic yellow, Ellie’s to your classic, uh, um, your classic lager yeast. Right? And so it’s just. [00:24:00] It’s really actually kind of cool to see that become a thing as a, as a home brewer and to be able to kind of see something really change in the brewing world and watch a change, you know, cause
Rob DeSalle: yes, it’s been a big, like you say, a big development, and I don’t know if I’m going to be too technical here, but, uh, you know, the yeast that are used in brewing, um, all of them have had their genome sequence, which means we know all of the genetic machinery that, that every yeast.
That’s used to make beer. And we know, we know the genetic machinery, and it turns out that, uh, , um, have, um, evolved rapidly, really, really fast. They’re, they’re, um, really different from each other and they’re even more different from all other EDIS. Whereas if you go to say, why niece? Why niece almost all look alike?
Um, there’s very little variability in, in wine. . And then you look at [00:25:00] other breweries and there’s somewhere in between. So, uh, what’s happened with the Norwegian GS is that they’ve been allowed to just go, go nuts. They, uh, there have been very little domestication, very little interference by humans in, in how those yeasts in Scandinavia have changed over, say, the last two millennia, three millennia.
Whereas wine yeasts what has happened is the vineyard. The ventures have, have kind of trained those yeast to do certain things. They’ve kind of domesticated them, um, and, and made them fairly uniform. And then beer brewers, uh, uh, that are in the middle have let their, ale yeasts and their lager yeast go, um, not as fast as the norm as the Scandinavians have, but, uh, has let, let them go.
So that. Uh, they’re somewhere in between domesticated and absolutely wild, like the [00:26:00] Scandinavian yeasts are. So, um, that’s an aspect that you should, you should keep in mind. Um, and one that, one that I think is really important for people brewing beer, um, that is that we are on the cusp of knowing. Exactly what these, these little guys, these little, a single celled organisms that are so important for making beer, uh, knowing almost every aspect about them.
I mean, it’s, it’s pretty spectacular what, uh, the, the genomics guys have, have done with, with the beer yeasts and understanding them.
Colter Wilson: It’s pretty, pretty cool to kind of see that almost happened in real time. It’s, it’s really an amazing thing. Um, yeah. And then one one. Well, we’ll go back to the book a bit and, uh, and, and talk about, um, going back to the ales.
Um, you know, one of the things that you talked about in the book was, was the, the production of Porter and how Porter was kind [00:27:00] of the first real mass produced beer when it came to a really large scale, right?
Rob DeSalle: Yes. Yeah. and that’s due to the, Brits and their, just like, or their, their preference for that style of beer.
Um, and again, uh, what happens, um, in cultures is that certain kinds of beers get preferred, um, over others and, and those kinds of beers kind of take over and kind of give. Do you have a culture like great Britain, a, um, a, uh, kind of a character or a characteristic? And that’s the, the, the, uh, Porter, um, idea.
Um, a lot of, uh, beers. Well, you know, you, you, if I think about my father, uh, and his beer drinking, it was all a Budweiser or all Midwestern. Um, [00:28:00] American lagers, right. And, uh, America got characterized like that, and it’s only the, in the last couple of decades that we’ve been able to kind of break away from that.
And, and, uh, even though they’re, the big brewers are still very influential, um, we’re not looked upon as, as, as bud drinkers or patch paps drinkers anymore. We’re looked upon as fairly sophisticated with our, our preferences for beer.
Colter Wilson: though the German style, but the German style lager like that where, where we ended up making the American white lager really, um, that, that has really influenced brewing globally though.
Rob DeSalle: When you talk about mass produced beer, like in Japan and, and other, you know, even China, right? Absolutely. Yes. And, you know, uh, to go back to this, this, uh, idea of locality having a lot to do with the culture and the culture. You know, kind of defining or characterizing a people [00:29:00] water has a lot to do with all of this too.
Um, so, you know, there’s areas in, in Europe where, uh, water hardness and softness is very, they’re very different. So like in Czechoslovakia, around the town of pills where pilsners were, um, created. The water is incredibly soft. It’s about the softest water on the planet. And with that, and I’m sure your listeners know that, what that means is that there’s very little mineral content in the water, but you can go 500, 600,000 kilometers to the, to the West and be in great Britain and see some of the hardest water that is on the planet.
Um, so like for instance, uh, in great Britain. The tradition is to brew ales and porters as we’re, as we’re discussing. And the reason that they like brewing those in great Britain is the water that they had was very, very hard. And so they had to somehow deal with using that hard water [00:30:00] to, to brew their beer.
And ales and porters were, were very, um, conducive to being brewed and very, very, uh, hard water. You can go to Ireland to Dublin and. In Dublin, the, uh, water’s fairly hard and that’s where we were. Guinness is a, is a tradition and you go back to Germany again and the water’s fairly soft down in Bavaria, and so you get these softer, um, clearer, more crystal clear beers like lagers and pilsners.
So, you know, you, you do have a kind of natural things too, that kind of dictate culture. So, you know, Germans are known for their pilsners in there. The checks are known for their pilsners and germs and no further lagers. And Brits are known for their ails and the Irish are known for their stouts. Um, and, and they wouldn’t be known for that, those things unless, uh, they had to deal with the water that they were doing.
Now, nowadays what, uh, and I learned this [00:31:00] from looking at a lot of breweries here in the United States nowadays. Um, brewers will bring in, uh, water and distill it, distill out all the minerals or. Bring in really very soft water. And if they want to make an ale, of course, and a lot of homebrewers know this too, you bring the mineral content up and then you make your beer.
So that whole regional thing of, of lagers in Germany and ales in great Britain, that’s probably going to go away because now we can brew, um, beer anywhere we want with. Any kind of water we want so we can manipulate the water to the point where we don’t have to worry about what the local water is like.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. Well, and that’s exactly how I brew beer. I buy distilled water or reverse osmosis water and, uh, I bring it home and. That’s what my base is, zero, right? Zero mineral content. And then depending on the style of beer, if I’m going to make an IPA, I’m going to put [00:32:00] a more Gypson in it. If I’m going to brew though with the new England IPA that’s more hazy, that’s going to have a little more, uh, you know, calcium, carbon, uh, the more, uh, , um, nitrates in it.
Right? And so, um, yeah, so the idea is that, um, that customization of water really. Yeah, I agree. Is, is part of the, the style, right? But the other part of it is, but the other part is, is that yes. Um, the, the craft brewers specifically in the States, and I think in other, um, in other countries as well, you know, you can now manipulate your water to be whatever you want.
And even in, in great Britain. Even, if you were to go to one of their breweries, even today, um, they still add additives to their water. Um, they actually might even bring up the mineral content even more, right. To bring out that maltiness and to really make it pop. And so it’s, I think that that’s one of the things that when we talk [00:33:00] about a brewing in the chemistry of brewing and the science of brewing is that, uh, they have that ability to really hone in.
And, and almost intensify the effect of what they’re trying to do, um, with, with like water additives. Right,
Rob DeSalle: Exactly. Yeah. And, and, um, imagine brewing 200 years ago in England or in checklists, Avaya, you were kind of cornered into bringing a specific kind of a beer. You didn’t have that luxury of, uh, that, that modern, uh, craft brewers and modern home homebrewers have of.
Of adjusting the water and then brewing exactly what you want, or no brew of lager one week in a, uh, a, a stout the next week. So, um, it, it, it’s, uh, and th the other interesting thing, I hope I, I made the point, the other interesting thing is that the culture of beer-drinking was dictated by the locality.
And [00:34:00] now I think that’s gonna we’re, we’re going to see that disappear, which is a, is a shame is a kind of a shame, but in, in many ways, I think it’s better for beer-drinking to be able to have this, uh, variety in this, this capacity to go in different directions.
Colter Wilson: I agree with that. But when we talk about the culture of a , um, of at least, uh, the culture of. Drinking in a way that is more social. Um, I think that right now in the United States, we’re kind of at a Renaissance, right? Um, I think that, uh, when we looked at the culture post prohibition, and you know, we spent so many years drinking the standard American light lager, that also was around a time when people weren’t really going to bars all the time.
Right. And if you were, you were kind of like a loner or going to a bar, and, uh. Whereas we’re now in a case where I’m drinking is a social occasion again, and people go to bars for the reason to be social, and then there’s [00:35:00] so many different styles of brewery for so many different types of beer. If you’re super into lagers, you can go to a brewery that just does lagers you if you want, if you want British ales.
Mmm. On cask, you can go to a brewery if you live in a big enough city and actually have that. Right. So it’s kinda, um, and, and we’re getting hyper specialization, but with that is kind of a, an entire, uh, culture that’s being built in itself around craft beer.
Rob DeSalle: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and I, you know, it’s a different culture than say, what was, what existed even 50 years ago where.
Um, uh, the, the preferences of people were very regionalized. Now I think you’re right, you’re 100% right because craft brewers can do what they do and some of the big brewers can do it. They, they can do the diversity it across localities, across cultures is increasing. And I think it’s. You know, like I said, [00:36:00] there’s some advantages to seeing that having some impact on culture, but there’s also the, the huge advantage of the variety and the ability to just drink what you want to drink when you, when you go to a brewery or when you go to a bar.
So it’s a very different world than it was 50 years ago. Really different than it was 50 years ago.
Colter Wilson: It’s really, really different and kind of crazy to see, um, you know, kind of randomly, I, when I grew up, my mother owned a bar, um, until I was 14 years old in the middle of the eighties. And, uh, you know, the description in the book where you, you talk about how, you know, going to a bar was almost kind of stigmatized in the United States post prohibition.
People drink at home. Right? Um, and, you know, I just feel like that’s just changed. Now. You go to a brewery, they’re packed. They’re filled with people that are enjoying beers, and it’s just back to being a social thing. And, uh, and it’s something that, uh, I think we’re now in a place to where we’re getting that kind of [00:37:00] beer culture that, um, it’s almost like I kind of feel like prohibition put the brakes on the American beer culture for 50 years, not 10.
Rob DeSalle: Yeah. Yeah. I think you’re, you’re right about that. And, and the whole, uh, uh, beer culture. I love that term actually in, in, you know, the beer culture here in the United States and that their culture in Australia and the beer culture in England and, you know, the beer culture in Europe, uh, beer culture in Japan.
Uh, I just love the idea of, of the beer cultures and, and. Um, again, it’s, it’s wonderful because what we have is a capacity to, uh, experience all, all this wide variation of beers, and we’re not kind of, uh, penned into drinking all the loggers or drinking all pilsners, even though if you go to checklist Avaya, that’s probably what you want to do.
But, um, it, it’s, it’s really a great time. It, it certainly is.
Colter Wilson: Yeah, I, it’s a, it’s kind of a, a really, it’s [00:38:00] been a, it’s a cool thing to see. And I’ve been, you know, kind of part of, um, you know, what’s you, what’s next for you guys when it comes to, uh, writing a, are you done doing a beer and wine history books?
What kinds of things are you guys working on?
Rob DeSalle: Well, we actually have a contract to do a natural history of spirits to kind of round out things. And again, this, the natural history of spirits is really kind of, kind of a cool thing. Um, because there’s so many different kinds of spirits, uh, on the planet.
And again, the, the, the spirits are very, uh, highly localized and, and highly, uh, kind of culturally cemented. Um, you know, you have vodkas from Eastern Europe and you have, um, scotches from, uh, you know, great Britain and Ireland and. Yeah. You have, uh, tequilas and, and, uh, from, from, uh, Mexico and Joshua’s from South [00:39:00] America.
It’s a, it’s a, it’s going to be a lot of fun. And, and, uh, um, I don’t know if you’re, well, you, you’ve, you’ve taken a look at, at the book and we start each chapter with a little description of a beer that we drink that kind of leads us into the chapter. And I’m really looking forward to. Uh, hitting the spirits and leading into the chapters in the spirits books.
So it’s not,
Colter Wilson: Sounds like you’re going to get to drink a little bit of whiskey just a little bit, I hope. Yeah, a bit. Well, it’s, it is kinda cool in one of the, one of my favorite jokes I tell is from to all my friends, and I have lots of, a lot of people that are into beer, obviously into whiskey. Um, I live in, I live in Colorado and half of them smoke weed too.
So, um, but the point is, is that, uh, that’s the fourth book. Then that’ll be the fourth one will be. The history of marijuana, but, uh, yeah, so, but when we talk about, uh, [00:40:00] uh, spirits particularly, like, for example, you go to England, it’s not called scotch, it’s just called whiskey. Whereas, you know, here, if we talk about whiskey, it’s, you know, it’s a Brown liquor from the South.
And so, yeah, it’s kind of funny how hyperlocalized a whiskey still is. Um, and spirits still are, and, uh. And I think that yes, craft distilling is becoming a thing, but I think craft distilling right now, at least in the United States in this is just an observation and probably wrong, but I think that craft distilling now is where brewing was in the United States 30 years ago.
Right. It’s more Berg.
Rob DeSalle: Exactly. I’m like, I actually even go out on a limb and say that home brewing is the key to all of it. Um, I think home brewing stimulated the craft brewing movement. And, you know, I don’t, I mean, I could be wrong about this, but I don’t think he’d have craft brewing without home brewing.
[00:41:00] And I think with spirits, you have very few home brewers, home spirit brewers. And I think that that what is needed is maybe a home, uh, homebrewing spirit kind of movement to. So that’s the craft craft spirit that’s really taken off.Colter Wilson: Now, um, though very clear as I’m on a podcast, you know, um, two distilled spirits in the United States is against the law.
So I’m going to say that now. Um, but if you were to, uh, you know, for example, there’s a, these all in one brewing systems that we have now, like the grain father and, uh, the Mash & Boil right there. These, uh, they’re easy, easily accessible homebrewing systems. Well, w one of the cool things, and I’ll use Grainfather as an example, is you can buy a distilling top for it, right?
And so, um, it’s a lot more approachable than it used to be in the fact that you can just buy the distilling top. It’s a Lid you put on and it’s basically turn converts that. Homebrewing set up into a still. [00:42:00] And so it’s kind of something where, um, we’re now kind of at a place where the technology has kind of brought it to where it’s, it’s, it’s accessible to people.
And, uh, you know, you’re, you’re starting to see a really big craft distilling movement that is driven by people who are doing it at home. And it usually starts with somebody who’s, who’s home brewing as well.
Rob DeSalle: Yeah, and I think that that’s again, a very important aspect of how craft brewing became so popular.
Again, I don’t think it would be without home brewing. I think homebrewing has been a very, very important, uh, uh, cog in the, in the getting us to the point of. Of beer culture, you know,
It’s awesome. Well, I will make sure that, uh, when you’re a spirits book comes out, I will get a copy and, uh, and read it and maybe we’ll have you back on the show.
Colter Wilson: Um, and I’ll be fun. Yeah. And Rob, thank you so much for coming on to Homebrewing DIY. I think that, uh, this was a [00:43:00] really informative conversation and, and a great chat and a. Like I said, anyone who’s listening to this show head over, look at the show notes. Look at my, if you head over to our website, I’ll have links to the book.
Uh, it’s definitely a book worth checking out. It’s not even a, it’s not a huge read. This is not a 600 page book. This is a, you know, a few hundred pages. You could read it in a couple of days, but it’s a great read
Rob DeSalle: There was too much beer to drink. Uh, and so little time.
Colter Wilson: Well, Rob, thanks for coming on the show and, uh, uh, really look forward to talking to you again.
Rob DeSalle: Yeah. Thank You. Colter. You take care now.
Colter Wilson: I want to thank Rob for coming on the show. I don’t know about you, but I learned a ton. If you want to learn more about their [00:44:00] book, head over to homebrewing diy.beer. I’ll have a link to Amazon so you can find them. Book a natural history of beer. You can also follow us on social media, on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Look for our handle at homebrewing, DIY. All want to work. Well, that’s it for this week, and we’ll talk to you next week on homebrewing. DIY [00:46:00] [00:45:00] .
