Why do people love coffee and beer? It’s the buzz, not the taste, study finds

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“People like the way coffee and alcohol make them feel. That’s why they drink it. It’s not the taste,” a Northwestern University researcher said.

Whether you prefer a Café Latte or a diet soda may actually depend on how the drink makes you feel, rather than how it tastes, a new study finds.

This idea contradicts what scientists previously thought: that our taste genes determined why we preferred one drink over the other.

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Have we reached peak beer?

When craft brewers get together, we agree that this is the greatest time in history to be a beer drinker in America. In 1981, there were only 82 breweries in the United States, and our beer, fizzy and flavorless, was the laughingstock of the beer world. Today, America is home to over 5,300 small, innovative craft breweries making unique, flavorful, creative brews.

But we also agree that the horizon isn’t so bright. After years of 15 percent growth, the craft sector is down to the single digits. Part of that is to be expected in a maturing part of any market — but it’s also a result of a pushback by a handful of gargantuan global brewers, aided by slack government antitrust oversight. I worry that yet another major shift in the beer landscape is upon us — and this time, American consumers will be the losers.

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Brewbot lets you download, brew and drink craft beer right in your own home

brewbot

Brewbot

It isn’t easy to brew your own beer. It’s also hard to brew a good batch of beer, and even harder to duplicate that batch to drink later on. And it is near impossible to simplifying the process so that it’s as effortless as baking cookies because of all the factors involved with the brewing process, including fermentation, location, temperature, and of course the availability of equipment itself.

 

 

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Scientists unlock the future of beer

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The prospect of yeast-by-design is tantalizing for many researchers in the brewing industry.

Man-made yeasts could irreversibly change everything from the biofuel to the brewing industry. A team of geneticists led by Jef Boeke at Johns Hopkins University is genetically engineering a yeast from scratch, as part of the Synthetic Yeast 2.0 project. They have designed and written a code made up of roughly 11 million letters of DNA—the As, Cs, Gs, and Ts that write the book of life—which they are synthesizing and subbing in for a yeast’s natural DNA.

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Brewbot: a smartphone controlled brewing system for homebrewers

Brewbot

A delicious and rewarding hobby is brewing beer at home.  It is also a complex and time-consuming hobby. If your beer is going to come out right you will need the right amount of hops, barley, yeast, and water.  They must be combined and heated at very specific times and temperatures. Homebrewers taking on a new batch of golden brew must dedicate an entire day to its creation — not including bottling. But a handy new robot, developed in Northern Ireland, is putting an end to all that lost time.

 

 

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
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By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.