Great Beer, Great Debate
3rd January 2018 by OFC press team
An unsurprisingly willing crowd talked beer at The Great Beer Debate, the second joint event between the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) and the Real Oxford Farming Conference. Held in the university’s St Edmund’s Hall, a panel of beer producers and associated experts shared some fascinating insights into hops, what makes a good beer, and the British terroir that makes British beer unique. The audience, which included farmers from all over the UK as well as from the United States, tasted beers from various breweries, learning about their assets and enjoying wider discussion around the table in a convivial beer hall atmosphere.
The Great Beer Debate follows on from the successful Grate Cheese Debate last year, which was the first joint event between the two conferences. Kat Lewis, of Innovative Farmers, the not-for-profit network supporting on-farm innovation, which sponsored the event, said “It’s a fun evening to to bring people together - and a great opportunity to get a spectrum of farmers together to talk about what farmers are doing all the time - trying new things. As an industry, we can’t compete on production with world markets, but we can compete on provenance and quality, and an event like this highlights how the quality of ingredients, how they are grown and processed, makes a difference to the food we eat. It’s something we can all relate to, and bringing us all together broadens the debate on where food comes from and how to market it.”
Chris Garratt of Warminster Maltings explained how malt is the heart and soul of beer, and the importance of getting it right. He relies on professional farmers to produce the quality he needs and, when necessary, to react quickly to adverse conditions, to ensure the barley is cut and stored appropriately so, as malsters, they get the right quality and germination.
Farmer David Wilson, of Duchy Home Farm, wowed with the stat that a tonne of barley makes 11,000 pints of beer. He also emphasised the importance of food genetics, and how the UK has lost 80-90% of our food genetics in the last 100 years, but that this is crucial to maintaining quality and nutritional food production. Rob Saunders, agronomist at Hutchinsons gave an agronomist’s view explaining the field trials underway to improve hop production, and Will Godwin, Farm Manager at Hampton Estate, gave a fascinating insight into the importance of terroir, and how the British cloudy, maritime climate is unique and makes British hops distinctive.
“Our climate means there is a much lower level of essential oil is produced in the hops, and the delicate flavour allows other flavours to come out. It makes our hops distinguished and measurable not only in pounds and ounces but in palate.”
The Great Beer Debate was sponsored by Innovative Farmers