EXCLUSIVE: The future of beer: 5 ways beer is changing forever inside Carlsberg’s cutting edge beer-lab, and the Willy Wonka-like scientists making it happen
Specialty ingredients, booze crossovers, green brewing and more!
The future’s bright. The future’s bubbly. And though we can never be certain of what tomorrow will bring, we know one thing will be certain — we’ll be sipping on plenty of exciting new beers.
That’s because we’ve had a glimpse into the future of beer, at Carlsberg's scientific lab brewing the world’s next generation of beer.
Inside the Carlsberg Research Lab (CRL) at the brewery’s Copenhagen HQ, magical things are happening. In a grand building which has stood in the city since the 1800s lies a curious combination of old-meets-new science. Think ornate 19th century wooden staircases leading to labs which were once lacquered with lead paint and where horses used to deliver the ingredients. Heck, the fragile glass test tubes which were used to invent the world’s first pH scale, which was invented here, are hanging right here on the wall next to us.
But despite the history, something new is brewing. At the CRL, around 100 beer scientists — the highest concentration of PHD brewmasters in the world — are working behind closed doors to invent the future of beer, where the innovations they work on tend to be around ten years ahead of the current market. Leading the work is Zoran Gojkovic, Carlsberg’s director of brewing science, yeast and fermentation: the Willy Wonka of lager, who has been experimenting with beer here for over 15 years. He describes himself as the “Gordon Ramsay of brewing,” — as much to do with his his colourful vocabulary as it is his skills with ingredients.
“My job is to be an alchonaut — like an astronaut, but with alcohol,” Zoran tells us, as we get a rare look at the usually under-wraps lab. “I explore everything.”
Whereas wine involves planting wines and “praying” to see how a particular vintage may grow, Zoran tells us that brewing beer is an exact mix of art and science. “Beer is different, beer is consistent,” explains Zoran, “the most boring job in the world is making wine. That would kill me. Here, you can experiment — and the sky’s the limit.”
And experiment, they do. It turns out that the humble beer is not just a drink, but an ever- evolving craft — and the future of it might just surprise you. With an exclusive look inside the lab, here’s what you can expect to be sipping in the next ten years and beyond…
1. Better tasting non-alcoholic beer, brewed in a totally new way
The demand for non-alcoholic beer is one that Zoran is seeing increase exponentially, and it’s being driven by the younger generation. That means one of the biggest roles of the lab is to create the ultimate 0% beer. That’s easier than creating a non-alcoholic wine or spirit, the scientist tells us, because beer has a lower alcohol content to cut down from in the first place.
Usually, breweries create an alcoholic drink, and then take away the alcohol for their 0% version — but this process can make the beer taste bad, so the lab here is working to eliminate that process entirely for an all-new way of brewing 0% alcohol beer.
"Our ultimate goal is to have a fully fermented beer, but with yeast which does not make alcohol,” explains the scientist.
“We like the taste of a fermented product, but the fermentation creates alcohol. Now, we have to trick the yeast to convince it not to do it. It’s easily said, but difficult to do.” But, we can expect a big booze(less) breakthrough soon, as Zoran adds that as we speak, “We are very, very close."
2. The future of beer is not beer at all… but a ‘crossover’ between beer, wine and spirits
“There is no clear difference anymore,” explains Zoran, of the similarities behind the scenes of beer, wine and spirits — which is especially exciting for a beer scientist.
“It's not just beer, it’s not just wine, and it’s not just a spirit. It’s like how cocktails mix everything in. Our industry is moving towards having the freedom to mix whatever you want, when you want, how you want.”
It’s certainly true of the lab’s experimental Carlsberg Brut, which we pop the cork of like a bottle of champagne, and is ideally paired with fish, like a sparkling white wine, and of the lab’s “grape skin” brew, which is also like drinking and fresh and floral rose wine. “This is a first step, and a first step can change the world,” Zoran tells us of the futuristic brews, with a twinkle in his eye.
“I will bet that honestly, beer will become much more of a gastronomic experience. That is my dream. You could find a beer for everything. So, when people come to me and say, ‘I don't like beer,’ I tell them, ‘You’ve simply not tried enough.’ There is a beer for every occasion, every food and every personality - you just have to experience it."
3. Unusual speciality ingredients for unique tastes
Forget hops — the team here is experimenting with something else entirely. Unique ingredients like red barley and fonio, a drought-resistant cereal cultivated in West Africa, are being tested to develop innovative flavour profiles for premium beers. We sample the lab’s recently-revealed Carlsberg and Brooklyn Brewery fonio lager — uniquely brewed using only these grains — and the result is a strikingly special serve more akin to a fragrant sparkling wine than a typical beer.
“A lot of craft breweries focus on a taste which is hop driven. We spend a lot of time testing different yeasts, because different yeasts have different tastes, and looking into speciality raw materials and special barleys, like red barley, but also some future grains like fonio, which is traditionally a service cereal — very few people are looking in this direction for taste.”
And when the team was tasked with creating an all-red beer in honour of their sponsored Liverpool FC, it wasn’t just a red label they developed here in the lab, but an innovative red beer made from red barley.
4. More trending flavours than you can imagine
We can expect even more distinctive beer flavours in the future, explains Zoran:
“The younger generation want a huge variety. You have to be relevant. You have to be exciting. You cannot be boring. You need a new taste constantly. It’s a bit like fashion — there used to be a summer and winter collection, and now Zara comes out with new lines every two weeks. For me, it looks like the beverage business is going in the same direction.”
“People still prefer a lemon taste. But then every summer there is a new trend. Now it’s passion fruit, then it will be cherry. That will reflect in our portfolio,” teases Zoran, of future flavours.
5. Saving the world… with beer
Those experimental grains we’ll be drinking soon aren’t just for flavour — they’re more sustainable to produce, too. The fonio cereal, for example, can be grown in Africa even with very little water. Zoran tells us that sustainability is built into everything he experiments with - so much so that he doesn’t give it a second thought: “It’s funny, the Japanese never talk about quality because it's such an integrated part of their work — I don't talk about sustainability because it should be an integrated part of your life."
"Brewing uses energy and it’s water heavy, so we work a lot with the future of barley: how to make a barley climate-resilient, to use no water - a lot of our resources go directly to sustainability research."
"Regenerative farming, new farming practices and new beers - they’re all connected. You have to look through the entire chain, otherwise changing just one little part doesn't make sense,” adds Zoran.
“Maybe we can save the world!”
Cheers to that!
