Water, barley, hops and… automation!
Being from Bavaria I’d like to claim that we invented beer. While I learned just the other day that beer may not have been invented by Germans (apparently they had it in Mesopotamia in 5000 BC), we sure know a thing or two about brewing and revolutionised the process by introducing hops, using larger kettle sizes and having strict purity laws. Having some brewers in my family, I knew the basic process but not all that goes into it, so I was looking forward to filming at a local craft brewery in Stourbridge and learning more about it.
The brewery had expanded their facility and updated the new brewing kit with an automation system, helping them keep up with production demand. By automating the more tedious day-to-day tasks they now have more time to spend on the craft of brewing and developing new recipes. While automation often gets a bad rep for taking away the human aspect of things, this is a really cool example of how it supports and promotes a craft.
And of course, we had to film the perfect pint being poured. Purely for content reasons, not because we wanted to wrap up a day’s filming with a nice cold pint… Prost!