Organic Beer?

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Cheesefood

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Anyone ever gone 100% organic? I've seen plenty of sites that sell organic hops or organic DME, but I'm wondering if the high price is worth it.

Thoughts?
 
Comparing organic to non organic ingredients for brewing is probably minimal with flavours.
The satisfaction would come when you sit down and drink your own beer.
Not only have you taken the time to brew something better than * but the ingredients you used were grown with a real passion to farming without chemicals and a little thought towards a sustainable future and the environment.

*(insert your own personal benchmark here)

But as Orfy stated - buyer beware! - Organic labels are no recommendation of quality!

Please post the links for organic ingredients Cheesefood - I'd like to see you what you've found
 
I don't know exactly why, but I haven't run across an organic brewery that had more than one or two drinkable ales and none that were outstanding. That maybe because of the limited selection of organic ingerdients or possibly the brewer is focused on the wrong aspect of brewing. Given the various molds, fungus and pests hop plants are subject to, organic hops are tough to find.

I can't think of a single food product where organic translated to better flavor. Fresh is far more important.
 
as far as beer goes, i agree with most of these posts, quality is definitely not better. but with other food products, i gotta say, while yes, freshnesss is the most important factor, some of the industrially grown crap vegetables that you get at the supermarket don't taste right. theyre borderline fake food in my opinion. the thing with organic farmers (small ones at least) is that they care about their product, and that translates to an often times bettter product, just like with breweries, not to mention the ethical considerations. just go to your local farmers market and get some fresh orgnic veggies abd you'll see the difference.
 
The end result has more to do with the brewer.
I've had some great organic beer and some great non-organic.
I've also seen some shops that charge almost as much for their non-organic grains/hops as 7 Bridges does for its' organic stuff.
The main drawback is the smaller selection that is organic.
If you like organic and get to Portland try Roots brewing (near Hawthorne on 7th). Craig the brewer is a master.
 
The Ukiah Brewery in Ukiah, CA is 100% organic beer and food menu. Honestly the food is mediocre (though that has nothing to do with organic or not...just weird menu selections). The beer has good selections and bad. It's in an area of pretty stiff competition with Anderson Valley and Lost Coast so near by. But I applaud their motivation to use 100% organic ingredients. The more demand for these products there is, the cheaper they get. My local grocery store is at least 60% organic in the produce section now, and it really doesn't cost more.

In any event, organic will not change the quality of your beer...only the brewer can do that.

Cheers! :D
 
homebrewer_99 said:
I saw a show on organic farming last week and a lot of them are NOT organic. :mad:

to use the 'organic' nomenclature, you have to get usda certified, which costs around the range of 10000 dollars the first time. many small organic farmers cant afford this and choose not to deal with the organic certification, best thing is to know and be able to talk to your farmers, which will really only happen at a farmers market. but if it says its organic, it probably is, but the problem is a lot of the new organic farmers are just industrial farms trying to be moer profitable by charging more for the organic label. they still dont care much about the quality of their product. its the equivalent to Coors putting a fancy label on their swill and calling it a micro brew. what you are probably referring to is non-government controlled eco-labels like 'natural' and the like. you gotta watch out for those things.
 
homebrewer_99 said:
I saw a show on organic farming last week and a lot of them are NOT organic. :mad:


IMHO orgainc is kinda a questionable concept as it is . . . . I listen to Jerry Baker on my way home from work and he's a old time gardener who uses all sorts of wierd tonics and practices for gardening. One of his tonics for lawns is a mixture of beer, cola, urine OR amonia and lemon scented dish soap.

If I use my own urine it's organic, if I go to the store and buy amonia it's not and they both work great with the only noticable difference is if I keep a 1 gallon jug of my own urine in the basement my basement stinks a hell of a lot more then if I keep a 1 gallon jug of amonia.

I would say use what works and what tastes good. If ya grow a 3rd eye or a set of boobs maybe organic is the way to go . . . .even then who here doesnt like a nice set of boobs, could make brew night a "touch" more interesting :D
 
on saturday i will be attending a fundraiser for my colleges environmental center which is focused on the "future of food" there will be a couple of films related to the topic, but my inteerest is in the two organic beers brewed for the event by my favorite brewpub, not sure what styles they are, but i'll report back on the quality of them.
 
Janx said:
But I applaud their motivation to use 100% organic ingredients. The more demand for these products there is, the cheaper they get. My local grocery store is at least 60% organic in the produce section now, and it really doesn't cost more.

I would agree with this... but only to a certain point. Imagine, if you will, if EVERY farmer switched to producing 100% organic products due to consumer pressure for organic foods. This would cause a massive drop in the availability of goods, because (like it or not) the use of herbicides, pesticides, and genetic engineering allows us to produce more food/acre than organic methods do.

In this scenario, the 'demand' for food in the world would remain constant, but the 'supply' of food in the world would drop... and we all know that supply and deman dictate the cost of just about everything.

I will agree that on a smaller scale, it can make things cheaper. For example; more demand for organic products at store XXX in town YYY allows store XXX in town YYY to buy in larger quantity from organic farmer ZZZ, and the larger quantity orders can result in lower prices for people in town YYY who shop at store XXX.

-walker
 
unfortanately with food products the market does not work like it should in theory. agriculture, particularly industrial agriculture is a completely subsidized industry. the market does not function right with a market perversion like subsidies interfering with it. the cost of food is drastically higher than what you pay for it. organic agriculture recieves no subsidies, and costs more in the store because of it. in truth, anything that requires less inputs will obviously cost less, organic ag recieves little inputs, and therefore costs less if you ignore subsidies. also, organic agriculture, particularly more intensive styles of it, produce much more per acre than industrial farms do. the smaller the farm the higher the ratio. an average 1 acre organic farm will produce 100x more food than 1 acre of the average industrial farm. 10 acre ones will produce along the lines of 10x more. if your interested in this i recomend reading 'fatal harvest' or reading into some peer reviewed journals dealing with the issue.
 
i'll definately check out that read, because this is not at all what I have found/learned on my own.

then again, I'm not very good on my own.... i'm trying to work weekends now, because I'm always a mess on Monday after two full days of not being supervised. :)
 
I use a lot of organic meats/veggies (my wife has for a long time, and I kind of got dragged into it), and like was stated, organic != quality. You still need to shop at a reputable place. The organic beef I get is absolutely fantastic, but you will go poor eating it.

I have a line on a place to get organic hops whole for 6.90/lb (I think that was it). It is only Cascade though. I am trying to find out if I can get other types. I will report back whether it was worth it or not.
 
its a decent book, not always fun to read though. a lot of what ive learned comes from the personal experience of working on organic farms, in non-profits devoted to the cause, and as a research assistant for a profesor studying this. sustainable agriculture/agro-ecology is a component of my degree so ive studied alot of it, and some of the information is somewhat divergent, but if you look at the sources and weed out the propaganda-ish ones the real scientific studies come to similar conclusions.

truble- you can really taste the difference in quality with beef, and if you see a sustainable ranch compared to a feedlot you'll never go back.
 
Pumbaa said:
... If ya grow a 3rd eye or a set of boobs maybe organic is the way to go . . . .even then who here doesnt like a nice set of boobs, could make brew night a "touch" more interesting :D

Wow, if that happened, I'd never have to leave the house - depending on the cup size! That's the best laugh I've all day, Pumbaa!

On a lark, I ordered some Organic New Zealand Hallertauer hops when I placed my last order with Freshops. I just got them this week. They have a higher alpha acid content than typical Hallertauers. I'm trying to figure out a good style/recipe in which to use them. Scroll to the bottom of this page for more info.
 
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