Craft beer city Profiles???

I looked a little bit around the forum and the web and all i can really find is the big time international cities that Palmer has listed in his book.

I was wondering if anyone had a spreadsheet or documentation of some of the smaller towns water profiles, like New Glarus, WI (New Glarus), Grand rapids, MI (founders), Escondido, CA (stone), etc...

I don't know of any existing information. We can probably start a database and get members to enter in their city's water report into it, I'm sure towns like that will start popping up.

Parker36 said:

I don't know of any existing information. We can probably start a database and get members to enter in their city's water report into it, I'm sure towns like that will start popping up.

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That's a great idea!

Well here is Chicago's numbers and Breweries would include Goose Island, metropolitan, and Half Acre. Those are the 3 I can think off the top of my head, now this is just assuming the brewery doesn't do anything to the water, but at least we can see what base they are using.

CaCO3: 102
CL: 13.8
SO4: 28.3
Ca: 35.5
Mg 11.7
Na: 7.8

I guess this would be nice, but how do we know what the breweries do to their water, or what the exact source of their water is.

I guess short of emailing or calling the brewers and finding out what water they use and the water profile for beers we won't know for sure, at least we would know what the water is like from the city they are located.

At the same time can't we say this for the cities in Palmer's book, just because that is the make up of the water there doesn't mean that breweries in the town doesnt treat the water, or use a different source and people use those numbers all the time.

Yeah I would think many, if not most, breweries treat their water, so matching the city water profile wouldn't help much.

These breweries likely have the equipment to do real time water analysis and correction. I mean Dogfish has a system that automatically injects the right amount of yeast into the chilled wort on its way to the fermenters. I don't think they take their water as is from the city.

Joetuo said:

At the same time can't we say this for the cities in Palmer's book, just because that is the make up of the water there doesn't mean that breweries in the town doesnt treat the water, or use a different source and people use those numbers all the time.

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Yes I agree with you on this. I think the only reason though that people try to match a well-known brewing city's water is because before brewers knew how to adjust water certain styles came out better in certain areas because of their water. Therefore those water profiles would be good to mimic for the appropriate styles. The same probably can't be said of today's brewing cities because they probably didn't choose their locations based on water profile.

I also think that listing a City's water profile is only confusing people who are new to brewing and water adjustments. I imagine that lots of brewers are adjusting their water. I know that New Holland does, because their brewmaster and uber science dude gave a water seminar this past spring.

I was just going over some water adjustment calculations, trying to get a handle on what to do for what style of beer, and the City information suddenly seemed worthless.

I want to brew all kinds of different styles of beer. Malty, Hoppy, Light, Dark... I think it would be in the best interest of homebrewers everywhere if the focus was on beer styles, and not city's water profile. I mean, other than historical reference, does a city's water profile mean anything to the rest of us?