Once upon a time, wooden barrels were simply cheap ways to transport goods. Today, creative brewers let their beers age in these wooden vessels for months at a time to produce complex taste adventures. But they need an array of knowledge and experience to pull off the trick. Wooden barrels have become a rare sight in the brewing business. The...
The beverage industry is facing huge challenges while also seeing itself confronted by a large number of issues. One of them is digitalization. Every company must make its own decision about which digital innovations it wants to add to its operations. Today, blockchain is one of the newest buzzwords. This technology has what it takes to completely transform scores of...
“Product personalization is an important trend. We will see more and more of it in the future,” says Dr. Jens Rothenstein, Senior Project Manager at IFH in Cologne, Germany. This is a trend that producers of nonalcoholic beverages should take into account if they want to hold their ground in the market. The trend toward personalized beverages is no longer...
As one of the most innovative hot beverages, mulled wine – or Glühwein, as it is called in German – has had an incredible career over the past fifty years. The drink debuted in the German consumer segment as a packaged product at traditional Christmas markets in the 1950s, quickly becoming a bestseller. Beginning in the 1960s, inventive wine masters...
Manufacturers of brewing equipment and systems are increasingly having to respond to the individual wishes of new target groups. And size is not always everything: Small, state-of-the-art brewhouses are enabling Krones AG, Rolec, and others to tap new markets around the world.
Conserving resources and improving the efficiency of the entire company while meeting today’s sustainability demands – this is now the top priority of every production process. A company that makes its successes in sustainability publicly known and demonstrates how truly “green” it is may more successfully be able to distribute its products to consumers.
In mid-2010, the Zukunftsinstitut (Future Institute) in Kelkheim, Germany identified what it called the “sommelier effect” as one of 50 microtrends. And indeed, there is growing interest in various sommelier training courses, a development confirmed by Dr. Peter Schropp, head of seminars at Doemens Academy. The academy’s latest project is the world’s first fruit juice sommelier training course, held in...
Plastic is an important raw material in the beverages industry. It seems the industry simply can’t do without it – at least for right now. Plastic bottles are the default for filling beverages. Except of course for some alternatives such as glass and cans. Over the past years, a number of manufacturers have been trying out ecologically sound plastics. But...
In previous years, aroma hops have been a real money spinner for many producers. With increasing demand for bittering hops and a troublesome harvest, the global hops market is currently on the brink of yet another change. European and American hop growers are once again having to plant more high-alpha crops.
Global wine production in 2018 is improving the wine supply situation considerably. Average to good harvests in the major wine-producing countries in the southern hemisphere at the start of the year and a larger grape harvest than in recent years in many European countries are ensuring that significantly more wine is flowing into the cellars of winegrowers, wine estates and...