7,000

November 30, 2018

Number of breweries expected to be operating in the U.S. by the end of year 2018. While the late 20th to early 21st centuries saw a steady uptick in openings, the real boom has come in the last five years with the craft beer market exploding. In 2017, craft beer grew 8% in sales growth and had a net worth of $26 billion.

Maybe We’re All Just Evolved

“It’s hard to talk about flavor. Tasting something is such a direct neural jolt; words will always seem clumsy and vague. ‘Spicy’ does not begin to express the riot of electrical fires sparking through your skull after you eat a Thai chile. ‘Sour’ hardly touches the way a fresh lemon grips your whole consciousness and squeezes until it weeps.

So we turn to metaphor. Elderflower kombucha is a bottled Scandinavian summer: mild, light, yellow, easy. Coconut water is a Caribbean afternoon. Chianti, as any sommelier will tell you, is the blood of a mortally wounded Vespa. … Coca-Cola is all the gallons of lighter fluid harvested from discarded Bics in the aftermath of a Bruce Springsteen concert.”

—René Redzepi and David Zilber in The Noma Guide to Fermentation (Artisan 2018)

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