Geographical Connections in Brewing: Locating Place and Placelessness in Beer Production

Massey, Aron D.; Higgins, Alanna

Abstract

Unlike its place-oriented cousin, wine, beer production has a complicated relationship with geographic concepts of place and scale. The act of brewing and beer itself both simultaneously exhibits qualities of placelessness and rootedness. Therefore, beer stands out among other fermented beverages with this dichotomous relationship to place. Wine production is linked to terroir, the characteristics imparted through the physical conditions of where something is made, and appellation, legal status tied to geographical indication. Beer production itself often exhibits a more tangential connection to place. A homebrewer in Taiwan, a brewpub in Botswana, or a large commercial brewery in the United States could all theoretically produce a Czech dark lager, a Belgian Tripel, or a hazy New England IPA, all without the limitations of geography. Grains, hops, yeast strains, or adjuncts which are not produced locally are accessible to brewers around the globe. Even local water profiles can be replicated in order to produce facsimiles of beer styles originating from distant locales. While concepts of rootedness and terroir are not wholly absent from beermaking, they are conceived of and executed within different spatial terms. This chapter critically examines how geography (via concepts such as terroir, place, scale, and localness) is both present and absent within the world of brewing and beer, and how actions like making beers in a particular regional style outside of that particular region both supersede and reinvent beer geographies. Using the Reinheitsgebot, the 1516 Bavarian purity law, as our framework we explore the geographies of barley, hops, yeast, and water. We discuss where these geographical connections are prized, where they are protected, or where they are ignored almost entirely. Additionally, we highlight a temporal aspect through the social and market popularity of certain styles, hop types, and yeast types within beer brewing and consumption.

Citation

Massey, A. D., & Higgins, A. (2023). Geographical Connections in Brewing: Locating Place and Placelessness in Beer Production. In M. W. Patterson, & N. Hoalst-Pullen (Eds.), The Geography of Beer: Policies, Perceptions, and Place (341-348). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39008-1_26

• Online Publication Date: Dec 2, 2023
• Publication Date: Dec 2, 2023
• Deposit Date: Dec 6, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 3, 2025
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 341-348
• Book Title: The Geography of Beer: Policies, Perceptions, and Place
• ISBN: 9783031390074
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39008-1_26
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/28143558
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-39008-1_26