Could someone give a summary or the highlights of the Future of Homebrewing panel session on Friday? The Fermentis Academy sessions and the AHA had a time conflict. I hope it brought us some positive news. Thanks!
Hello. I’ll be drafting an AHA at GABF summary for members to publish in Zymurgy and our website. The panelists were optimistic including me with technology, AI, equipment access, ease of fermenting, and community all necessary ingredients to help interest more homebrewing in the next 5-10 years. Cheers.
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AI beers. Yay.
I can’t say that this excites me.
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Thank you, Julia. Looking forward to the summary.
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I know…right? I emphasize that ‘if’ using AI it should be balanced with validated research. For example, AHA’s National Homebrew Competition recipes provide this value. Validated/BJCP judged recipes judged and awarded based on merit and sensory evaluation are trusted. #BrewOn
I mentioned this before, but I’ve been using AI (Chat GPT 4o and Google Notebook) to help me with my recipe book project, but more as a fancy search engine to help sort through ~13-14 thousand pages of pdfs that are both text and non-ocr’d images.
That’s been useful.
AI for gen purposes, I could see it working ala an “Average brew” for a style, but I generally find the recipes I’ve asked for to have one or two things that I would never do or recommend doing. (Also get annoyed that if you ask Chat GPT saison questions it spits back phrases I’ve written and I know I’m in the training corpus - so’s Denny and Palmer and others)
That said - sometimes Chat GPT is interesting. I asked it to describe my writing style and Denny’s and here’s what it came back with
Drew Beechum’s writing is lively, humorous, and experimental, encouraging creativity and pushing boundaries. His tone is playful, high-energy, and filled with quirky analogies. He’s great for brewers looking for fun and unconventional approaches.
Denny Conn, on the other hand, has a more laid-back, practical style. His writing is clear, accessible, and focused on simplicity, offering tried-and-true methods with easy-to-understand advice. He appeals to brewers who want no-fuss, reliable guidance without overcomplicating things.
In short: Drew is for adventurous, creative brewers; Denny is for those seeking practical, straightforward advice.
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AI to make homebrew??? Seriously ??? Seems more like an attempt to use buzz words to stay relevant.
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For ■■■■■ and giggles, I asked an AI program to design a recipe for 5 gallons of 80 shilling Scottish ale (Scottish export). The computer recipe included eight ounces of peat smoked malt. Eight ounces!
I use a little smoke in all my Scottish beers, but damn!
Jeebus, did it tell you to fly-sparge and rack to secondary, too? I guess ChatGPT never learned not to believe everything it reads on the internet.
AI gone alien … 
I don’t remember. Seeing eight ounces of peat scared me away.
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