What’s new in brewing over the past 4 years? Getting back into the hobby.

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thisisbeer

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A few years back some family a job issues had me put a halt on my brewing passion. I had a great set up. Used to harvest my own yeast, great kegerator my wife allowed me to put in the kitchen. I brewed almost every weekend, man I loved it. Anyways I’m really excited to jump back into it this year. The only thing I have currently is a 15 gallon stainless kettle that needs drilled and hardware added. Where is everyone buying hardware and accessories from these days? I live in Houston and have some good brewshops(I assume there still good) that I buy grain, yeast and all that from. But hardware a brewing supplies always seems marked up pretty high. Any new resources pop up or new brewing equipment I should know about? Thanks!
 
Brew Hardware is my favorite place for advanced hardware. https://www.brewhardware.com/

We have all stopped using secondary. At the homebrew scale it does nothing for you.

Northern Brewer and Midwest supplies were bought by AbInbev. Nobody knows quite what they are up to. So far the world hasn't ended, but I avoid them just in case.

Brulosophy is a website and podcast that has set the homebrew world on it's ear by proving that many of the things we might do to tweak in our brewing process are imperceptible to most tasters! http://brulosophy.com/

Brew in a Bag (BIAB for short) started in Australia but has become pretty common place as a way to do a low cost/low equipment way to do all grain brewing.

That's a start, I can't wait to see what others think the big news from the last few years is.
 
In the last 4 years....
Some new yeast suppliers have appeared, as well as a few new hop varieties, most on line suppliers offer low flat rate or even free shipping, you can now buy some brewing stuff on Walmart's online site, and maybe homebrewing is on the decline? Don't know if there's any truth to the last statement, I just heard it somewhere.
 
In the last 4 years....
Some new yeast suppliers have appeared, as well as a few new hop varieties, most on line suppliers offer low flat rate or even free shipping, you can now buy some brewing stuff on Walmart's online site, and maybe homebrewing is on the decline? Don't know if there's any truth to the last statement, I just heard it somewhere.

I just got into homebrewing recently after wanting to try it for awhile(didn't think I had time with small kids). I'd be interested to know the reasoning behind that statement, whoever/wherever it came from. I know craft beer has exploded the last few years, with breweries opening everywhere. Maybe people are brewing less because there's such an insane amount of beer options now. Craft beer is actually what made me want to try homebrew though.
 
http://beerandwinejournal.com/decline/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/taranu...d-heres-why-you-may-be-to-blame/#5f9ae01851fd

Who can say if this is a blip or a trend? The growth over the last 10 years was pretty robust, so some decline isn't the end of the world. The graph on the Beer and Wine Journal article shows you just how far things have come and how much of a drop it would take to really shrink the market back to anything like what it was.
I think those articles are misleading. They are basing things on local Homebrew store sales. The decline could be coming from people buying from online instead.
 
Some other things that are new or have gained in popularity recently:

Dry hopping during fermentation, especially for NEIPAs (New England/Northeast IPAs - hazy, low-bitterness, juicy hop bombs). Search for 'biotransformation'.

LODO - Low Dissolved Oxygen brewing, wherein brewers go to great lengths to minimize oxygen in the beer from the very beginning of the hot side to get a fresher malt character. This one's pretty controversial because it's a nearly bottomless pit of equipment, chemicals, and techniques that its practitioners swear by and most of us can't be bothered with because the threshold of where it apparently starts making a discernible difference is pretty dang high.

Brüt IPAs - I don't know too much about this one yet, I think it's basically an IPA with virtually zero malt character and sub 1.000 FG, but somebody else could tell you more. I've also heard it described as craft light beer and derided as dressed-up BMC clones, but I thought that was pretty much what a cream ale was already, so what do I know?

And of course, the recently-exploding concept of the wildlife koelschip (often spelled 'coolship' in English-speaking countries), wherein homebrewers are making lambics and other sours with local terroir by doing the first few days of primary in an open fermentation vessel, often outdoors, and occasionally catching whatever local animals they can - squirrels, raccoons, birds, the occasional deer or elk, probably an armadillo where you live - and dunking them in the wort a few times to innoculate the wort with local microflora (and macrofauna). The vegan alternative involves tree branches, pinecones, and ferns, and is decidedly less exciting.

I may have made that last one up. If you try it, save me a bottle or three; my brother lives in Pearland and I visit him and his family most summers so I'll be coming by for a tasting in July of 2020 when it's ready.
 
This is a truly amazing thread of all the things that have happened in the last four years delivered sarcastically and uniquely complete. All I can add is an observation of why there is a perception of a decline in craft beer:

1. There are more local breweries than ever before in America since before prohibition, but there are murmurs that the market is saturated and is so competitive that the constant opening of new breweries is a symptom of the loss of competition from the big guys and could result in a net loss of craft breweries over time.

2. LHBS stores are going out of business at an alarming rate. Many believe this to be caused by an extremely competitive online market that makes brick and mortar unable to match service and price point.

3. Making really great beer is quite difficult and sometimes expensive. 10 years ago making good beer was enough to get your brewery a place at the table, now expectations are higher to the point that if you aren’t hitting on all cylinders including volume, quality, marketing, price and leadership, you might as well pack it in.
 
1. There are more local breweries than ever before in America since before prohibition, but there are murmurs that the market is saturated and is so competitive that the constant opening of new breweries is a symptom of the loss of competition from the big guys and could result in a net loss of craft breweries over time.

I'm curious to see how this plays out over the next 5-10 years. The amount of breweries that have opened recently is astounding. Craft beer popularity has increased but I don't think proportionally. I had a fantasy football draft a few weeks ago and most of my buddies were still drinking macro-brews. Really only myself and one other buddy(out of 12) are REALLY into the craft beer scene.
 
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