Organic Brewing

[Fiery Sword]

Cynicism abounds!!!!

Taking this industry-wide blows the scope of out little brewing community, IMHO. breworganic.com is the only source I know (though I haven't looked) for organic BEER ingredients, and this is how they define and descripe their business:

Q: When you say "organic," what standard are you referrring to?

A: This is a very good question, becuase there are many different sets of organic standards throughout the world. Our guidelines for "organic" are those spelled out by the USDA National Organic Program, a national, enforcable set of laws governing organic products in the United States. Basically these standards state that food items labelled organic must be grown without synthetic chemical pesticides, herbacides, or fertilizer, in soil that has been free from such chemicals for at least 3 years. In addition, no other toxic substances may be used as fertilizer such as sweage sludge or radioactive waste, and no chemicals may be used in the processing of organic ingredients, or used near the storage area (insect killers, rat poison, chemical cleaners, and the like). Also, no Genectically Modified Organisms (GMO's) are allowed. Seven Bridges is certified organic by California Certified Organic Farmers as a handler and retailer of organic products, which means we are required to adhere to these standards (and be able to verify that our suppliers adhere to the same standards) in order to sell products labelled as organic.

 

[zoebisch01]

Pre-comment buffer: I'm not being argumentative, just curious!

I don't understand your thoughts that if an item is shipped or transported it ceases to meet your definition of 'organic'. Let's be idealistic for a second and say that a farm in New Zealand makes 'organic' hops that meet your standard of the definition of the word. They package them up nicely, and ship them via jet to California. They sit in their nice little sealed package for a bit until I order them. They then jump into a UPS van and trek across the country. If I understand you correctly, you would not consider these hops organic once they got to my home near Boston, Mass. I don't get it!

Sure, I'd like to be able to buy from a local farm with 20+ varieties of hops, but that is simply not a realistic possibility.

Yes and no

What I am truly getting at is that Organic has come so far from the heart of the philosophy that in many (not all) cases the growers have said "What do we need to do to satisfy the bare minimum requirements to be certified Organic?" You see the open door, I am sure. The whole Organic movement was established by people (like Rodale, Sir Albert Howard...etc) who were more along the idealism of "How can I grow the best produce to be consumed locally, while at the same time building the environment instead of depleting it".

It meets the label, but I don't consider it 'Organic'. Would I still buy them? Sure.
In some cases you might find a superior product. Then again, you might find an inferior one. I guess my whole point in all of this is to really expose another layer that isn't commonly talked about with Organic goods. It gives the illusion of being better when in some cases it isn't.

 

[abracadabra]

Cynicism abounds!!!!

.[/I]

You got that right.

Here's the problem as I see it.

The FDA imposes fines so small in comparison to the profits that can be made there is no disincentive to cheating. Just the opposite.

So how do you really know what you are getting?

That's where I go by taste like you were saying about the hops if I can taste a difference then the price may be worth it to me.

 

[zoebisch01]

That's where I go by taste like you were saying about the hops if I can taste a difference then the price may be worth it to me.

Exactly! That is also at the heart of what I am saying...don't be quick to think it is better because it is Organic! Let your taster decide, and don't worry about the rest (in other words don't be prejudiced because you paid more for the organic product). . I just want to expose the illusion going on with the industry.

 

[Fiery Sword]

I completely see your point - and you BOTH <edit> obviously are extremely well informed on the issue. I think a lot of the times it's pretty easy to 'smell a rat' when it comes to things like these......like seeing 'Organic' Pop Tarts or something. .....It has more or less become a marketing idea for many large companies as opposed to a quality idea. I can totally see that.

I guess it's all about research and trust. It's hard to factor in being lied to when choosing to purchase something like organic products - and this could be a large cause for being skeptical of the entire 'industry'.

I guess I'm still safe, though, as I brew organic simply due to quality of ingredients, and view any potential envorinments benefit as a fringe bonus. Perhaps this is missing the issue in a way, or perhaps it''s being aware of the potential mis-use of the issue.

 

[Cheesefood]

I smell hippies. Hippies so stinky I can smell them through the internet. Hippies...they're coming closer. I can hear their drum circles. What? You want me to buy some heady glass off you? No...get away hippie! Take your veggie burrito with you. I don't want a goodball!

 

[zoebisch01]

I smell hippies. Hippies so stinky I can smell them through the internet. Hippies...they're coming closer. I can hear their drum circles. What? You want me to buy some heady glass off you? No...get away hippie! Take your veggie burrito with you. I don't want a goodball!

Roflmao.

I do actually work with ex-hippies lol. :fro:

 

[user 574]

 

[roggae]

I smell hippies. Hippies so stinky I can smell them through the internet. Hippies...they're coming closer. I can hear their drum circles. What? You want me to buy some heady glass off you? No...get away hippie! Take your veggie burrito with you. I don't want a goodball!

this post made me laugh. my goo-balls are extra heady and my veggie burritos are extra veggie!! we have a word for those folks: wookies.

 

[zoebisch01]

Hey man, it's coming. They feed cows their own kind, why not peeps? . Just a few more adjustments to the populations tasters and we are one step closer hehe.

LONG LIVE THE HOMEBREW REVOLUTION!!!!

 

[Fiery Sword]

...Anyone wanna play some hackeysack? Maybe frisbee?

 

[abracadabra]

I I brew organic simply due to quality of ingredients, and view any potential envorinments benefit as a fringe bonus. .

That's a fantastic reason. I can't wait to try the hops from the site you posted

 

[Fiery Sword]

That's a fantastic reason. I can't wait to try the hops from the site you posted

I actually just ordered some whole Saaz and Perle plus a bunch of their pellet Hallertauer Mittlefrueh (one of my staples) this morning. Their New Zeleand Pacific Gems (16% alpha acids!!!!) are f*ing awesome for bittering - and I haven't found them anywhere else.

 

[nmcabee]

I brew organic beer from www.breworganic.com. The company's name is seven bridges cooperative. They are the only organic brewing supply I've found. I brew their beers and they taste incredible. I think the flavor is the same you just have to ask yourself what are the grains, the cotton strain bag, and hops and everything else grown in.

 

[Cheesefood]

this post made me laugh. my goo-balls are extra heady and my veggie burritos are extra veggie!! we have a word for those folks: wookies.

The word I always used was "Unsanitary". Seriously - how dirty were some of the couples that walked around selling food?

Would you want those people working at McDonalds? What are the chances that they used a hairnet or plastic gloves when preparing food?

 

[zoebisch01]

The word I always used was "Unsanitary". Seriously - how dirty were some of the couples that walked around selling food?

Would you want those people working at McDonalds? What are the chances that they used a hairnet or plastic gloves when preparing food?

As an aside, my friends mom knew many hippies growing up. From her experience they were some of the nastiest (attitude wise), dirtiest, and careless people she knew. That was her experience anyways. Nothing against hippies myself, I just think that part of the modern idea of 'hippie' doesn't really suggest that. Interestingly...for a little trivia...the word 'hip' was supposedly derived from the practice of laying on one's side or 'hip' when spending time in an opium den. From there the word evolved into a reference of being a part of that culture as the phrase went "Are you hip?". The word 'hippie' is reportedly derived from 'hip'.

 

[Fiery Sword]

The hippie topic is one where is show my true inner conflict: I hate hippies. Yet many (more consevative-type) friends I know think I am one.....or at least some sort of nuvo-mongoloid hippie. I say sucks to them.

 

[nickwc5]

http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr02-08-07.mp3

Listen to that Basic Brewing Interview with breworganic.com to see why you should brew organic.

 

[kvh]

Sorry to chime in a couple days late folks -

It's been stated in numerous research studies that locally grown food is better for the environment than organic that is flown in from ... well, however far away it needs to be for it to be flown in. Hence the interest lately in the 50, 100, 200, and 500 mile diets - eating food produced within a local enough area to minimize the co2 emissions of transporting it farther than necessary.

This being said, I eat organically produced food when I can (however falulty the system may be in places), and locally grown veggies from the farmers market when possible. Additionally, my garden this summer should provide for at least half of my summer vegetable intake... I hope anyway.

But being on the east coast, I wasn't thrilled at the thought of ordering from california and having it sit on a truck or in a plane all the way across the country.

A quick google search brought me to www.foothillhops.com, a part-time farmer and full time electrician living in upstate NY who grows and sells organic hops. He's only a few hundred miles from me, and sells them already vacuum sealed in 4oz or 1lb packages, shipped on ice.

I understand it doesn't meet all of your brewing needs, and he doesn't carry EVERY hop ever made, but it's nice to see that a region of the country which originally flourished in the hop industry is slowly getting back into the business.

A quick extra note as well.... If you're ordering now--and I can't tell you if he still has any in stock this late in the season--ask him about his hills of hops which are being raised organically, but have not yet been certified. There is apparently a 7 year waiting period from when pesticides were last used on a field before that space can be called organic. He raises these hops with the same pesticide free methods, but sells them for a discount.

My freezer is overflowing with this past years' harvest (I bought way too much) but they are both delicious in beer, and easy on my conscience.

kvh

 

[IHA-Brew]

Quite the heated discussion in parts of this thread, not to mention quite a few off topic forays. Here's my opinion on the matter: go ahead and brew organic, at least brew a batch just to say that you have and you can decide for yourself if its what you want. Will it taste better? Probably not. Both organic and non-organic ingredients that are fresh and combined using good brewing techniques and healthy yeast and good sanitation to keep out the bad bugs will produce equally good beers. Wollavers, Butte Creek, and Peak Organic offer good commercial examples of organic beer for you to try if you don't feel like brewing your own batch but you want to see what all the buzz is about. Benefits of organic farming - no pesticides, fertilizers etc to leach into the ground water which can cause farther reaching damage than what is done in the immediate area - maintains the natural nutrients in the soil rather than stripping them away and thus requiring more fertilizer as in conventional farming - healthier for farm workers since they are not exposed to toxic chemicals - etc, etc, etc. As for the cynical view that organic farmers can cheat and get away with little more than a slap on the wrist I have this to say - although the fines may be small if word gets out that a company is cheating, people who are truly interested in buying organic will stop buying from them and that farm will not be able to sell as much product. Also, it has been my experience that people who adhere to organic farming principals do it because they want to for reasons other than jacking up their prices. Again, all this is just MHO and like I said, try an organic brew or try brewing your own batch and make your own decision. And like a wise man once said, "Relax. Don't Worry. Have a Homebrew!"

 

[Cheesefood]

Here's my thought on organics:

If I had ringworm, I'd put a cream on it.
When I get a cut, I put neosporen on it to fight any infection.
When I'm sick, I take antibiotics.
If I had crabs, I'd blame Orpheus and get that special comb.

All these things make me healthy and strong. Why wouldn't I want food that was both healthy and strong? Raising food organically is sort of like taking the Christ Scientist view on gardening.

 

[Desert_Sky]

just a little FYI I found out last night....

I guess in June you can no longer use bulk CO2 and still call your beer organic. Gotta go naturally carbed or nothing at all.


now I dont know if this still covers serving CO2 or not

 

[zoebisch01]

Interesting. One more example of wierdness. I never knew there was a difference between CO2 and CO2.

 

[ski36t]

Here's my thought on organics:

If I had ringworm, I'd put a cream on it.
When I get a cut, I put neosporen on it to fight any infection.
When I'm sick, I take antibiotics.
If I had crabs, I'd blame Orpheus and get that special comb.

All these things make me healthy and strong. Why wouldn't I want food that was both healthy and strong? Raising food organically is sort of like taking the Christ Scientist view on gardening.

Amen

and to comment on the GMO thing way back in the thread.... we have been doing it since we figured out how to plant stuff in the ground and then eat it. The only difference is we can do it a lot quicker now. I am just saying...don't be so closed minded about a product that can do marvelous things if you give it a chance.
Do less worrying and more drinking )

 

[zoebisch01]

Amen

and to comment on the GMO thing way back in the thread.... we have been doing it since we figured out how to plant stuff in the ground and then eat it. The only difference is we can do it a lot quicker now. I am just saying...don't be so closed minded about a product that can do marvelous things if you give it a chance.
Do less worrying and more drinking )

Sorry man but we haven't. What we have been doing is genetic selection based on various properties that we like in a plant and want to encourage. We have not been hitting plants with radiation or gene splicing until somewhere in the 40's or 50's (radiation) and a later for the splicing. This is different. There are some serious issues related to the current GMO food that stretch far beyond just potential health problems (FDA has recalled stuff unfit for human consumption) including threatening open pollinated seed, and the encouragement of the liberal use of herbcides to name a few.

 

[abracadabra]

I agree with Zoe selective breeding is completely different than splicing a gene from an animal onto the gene of a plant. And other such mutations

While I would say that not all genetic mutation is bad. It most certainly is not all good either.

 

[fifelee]

I can&#8217;t believe I missed this organics thread as I have some personal info which I never hear in the media. My father and I farm barley (which is sadly sold to Anheuser Busch) and wheat. We looked into organic for about two seconds until we realized it is not nearly as great as people think. Ironically the people who get excited about organics are often the same people who say they care more about hunger, poverty, and the environment (sorry for injecting politics). While I sympathize with what organic proponents are trying to do in regards to health, I don&#8217;t think their concerns apply to grains. Plus there are some very serious environmental downsides to organic that are rarely mentioned.

I do somewhat understand, though I don't necessarily agree, the organic view when it comes to fruits and vegetables. These items often get sprayed directly with chemicals. But when it comes to grains, they are typically only sprayed with herbicides in the plants infancy long before the seed is even formed and not at all if the farmer had good weed control before planting. Organic lovers often mention pesticides, but I can&#8217;t even remember the last time we sprayed pesticides on grain fields.

From the vantage point of a farmer, I love organic because it takes land and makes it much less productive. The organic grain farmers around us produce about half the yield. This decreases the food supply and increases prices (Yippy). Now this is great for the farmer, but bad for the consumer especially the poor who struggle to afford food. Another side effect of less productive organic land is that more land has to be broken up from its "natural" state to grow the same amount of food. Yes, organic eaters cause more land to be harmed. Largely because of the high grain prices we are about to break up 700 acres that are currently in grass.

There&#8217;s more&#8230;to control weeds organic farmers have to go back to the old days of plowing a field. This drastically increases land erosion often into river and streams. I heard somewhere that the recent drought was just as bad as the dust bowl of the 1930's. The reason topsoil didn't blow away and the country didn't starve this time was because of newer farming practices, practices that organic farmers can't use.

In addition to erosion, plowing a field burns vastly more fossil fuels than the alternative. No need to add any final comments, you get the significance of an "earth loving" organic eating environmentalist consuming a product that uses vastly more fossil fuels.

My information mostly applies to grains but I assume some of the same logic can be applied to hops and most other foods. I hope it doesn&#8217;t seem like I am attacking organic supporters, as I am a strong believer in people doing whatever makes them happy. But I also think there is a lot of disinformation out there. I just want to add my 2cents and thank all the organic eaters for raising the grain prices. Sorry for the long post.

 

[ski36t]

Sorry man but we haven't. What we have been doing is genetic selection based on various properties that we like in a plant and want to encourage. We have not been hitting plants with radiation or gene splicing until somewhere in the 40's or 50's (radiation) and a later for the splicing. This is different. There are some serious issues related to the current GMO food that stretch far beyond just potential health problems (FDA has recalled stuff unfit for human consumption) including threatening open pollinated seed, and the encouragement of the liberal use of herbcides to name a few.

I will only comment one more time because this is well beyond the scope of this forum and this thread. I completely recognize that there are potential problems with the GMOs and without good science and reasonable testing problems could develop. I guess I am just not as fearful as the rest of you guys.

Genetic recombination is basically gene splicing...genes from one chromosome are moved to another, deleted, doubled, changed. And all that occurs naturally. If the mutation is to great the plant dies. Same in the GMO's. Radiation constantly effects plants in nature and they develop all kinds of ways to repair their DNA.

Two more things to say.
1. the problem comes when we put in DNA that creates enzymes that make toxic chemicals. The products of these enzymes which usually enhance the characteristics of the plant may be harmful to use. This is a problem and it is something researchers think about.

2. As long as there are no strange and untested chemicals being produced (they know exactly what they are making because they know what enzyme they are making) then the new DNA and the new protein pose not threat.
with a little basic digestion science you can see that the original DNA and proteins are destroyed before they entire the part of your body where they can do harm.
strange foreign DNA-->nucleic acids (harmless)-->absorption
strange weird funky protein or enzyme---> amino acids (harmless)--> absorption
our body knows better than to absorb these things in there existing condition

there will always be what-ifs...but i think as brewers we have to have the midset to overcome what if I did this wrong, what it my beer doesn't taste good, what are those crazy yeast doing in my beer that could give off all kinds of bad things, and try the final outcome because it may be just fine, and it may even be better than we could have ever expected.

cheers

 

[zoebisch01]

While I sympathize with what organic proponents are trying to do in regards to health, I don’t think their concerns apply to grains. Plus there are some very serious environmental downsides to organic that are rarely mentioned.

In addition to erosion, plowing a field burns vastly more fossil fuels than the alternative. No need to add any final comments, you get the significance of an "earth loving" organic eating environmentalist consuming a product that uses vastly more fossil fuels.

That was my point in all of this. The true philosophy of what Organic means was swallowed up by those looking to make more money riding the label. I have mentioned in this thread that some of the 'acceptable' practices are in some instances far more harmful than 'non-acceptable' ones. The idea of Organic was never supposed to be more than a revolution of small local producers using the simplest methods that not only nourish the soil, but by growing a plethora of different crops that help buffer disease and increase diversity in the local ecosystem. Make it big, distant and try to find as many loopholes in the rules and you get what you describe. Nothing more than overpriced food that is not doing much of anything for the environment and may in fact be harming it more.

Sorry to have taken everyone on a seemingly radical journey, but the concept of Organic brewing and what that really means cannot be seperated from the philosophy of what it means to grow Organically, and hence the roller coaster ride. I hope I haven't rattled anybody's cage!

 

[zoebisch01]

I will only comment one more time because this is well beyond the scope of this forum and this thread. I completely recognize that there are potential problems with the GMOs and without good science and reasonable testing problems could develop. I guess I am just not as fearful as the rest of you guys.

Agreed, but I don't think it is as much fear as it is reality. Just because we can doesn't always mean we necessarily should.

I think we have beaten the topic to death anyways.

I think the thread should R.I.P

 

[abracadabra]

I. My father and I farm barley (which is sadly sold to Anheuser Busch) and wheat. post.

great post! Thanks

Really good to hear from someone in the business.

I had always heard that grain farmers used an extremely high amount of pesticide and herbicide.

Glad to know that's not the case

 

[Pumbaa]

For beer to be orgainc wouldnt the water use have to be untreated in any way as well? No city water, do distilled water, no softened water . . . just straight from the well or river of your choice?

 

[fifelee]

great post! Thanks

Really good to hear from someone in the business.

I had always heard that grain farmers used an extremely high amount of pesticide and herbicide.

Glad to know that's not the case

Thanks. A "high amount' is somewhat subjective. While I don&#8217;t think we use a lot of herbicide others may think we do, but I can guarantee you that we use as little as possible (farmer are very cheap). Plus there are some great technologies coming out that will make it easier to spot spray field (only spray weeds and not bare dirt).