In September 2017 I had the honour of hosting a panel discussion that sought to explore beer’s inherent terroir—the idea that a beer, and its ingredients, can be representative of a certain time and place. It featured Mark Tranter, founder of Burning Sky Brewery in Sussex, Averie Swanson, former head brewer at Texas’ Jester King and now the owner and brewer at Keeping Together in New Mexico, and renowned Herefordshire cidermaker, Tom Oliver.

Over 30-or-so minutes the four of us discussed the romanticism inherent to beers (and ciders) that are respectful of how they are made, and where their ingredients come from.

Surely, we argued, if a beer is utilising locally grown hops and barley, and is being fermented using ‘wild’ yeast—either spontaneously or through inoculation with a closely-guarded house culture—then that beer is absolutely able to express terroir. If, indeed, a beer is reflective of this, then we agreed it's a quality that should also be cherished by those who would drink and enjoy it.

I have come to realise, however, that this is all bollocks. By pushing the idea that beer is a terroir-driven product, instead of taking it at face value, I believe there is a risk of alienating those who might be interested in trying it. Throughout its history, beer has largely been considered to be a drink cherished by the working classes.

By dressing it up in this way, I feel there’s a genuine danger of gentrifying something that otherwise should be relatively accessible. Take Belgian lambic as an example. Its mythology is heavily reliant on this style of beer being produced only in Brussels and the Senne Valley, but what was historically a ‘drink of the people’ can now sell for upwards of £50 a bottle (or more) if it’s particularly sought after.

““I have come to realise, however, that this is all bollocks.””

I respect the importance of linking beer back to its agriculture—in fact this is something I feel personally invested in—but this is not the same thing as terroir. Beer is not merely a representation of the land from where its ingredients came, and to advertise it as such underplays the significance inherent to the production of both beer itself, and its individual raw materials.

Brewing is also far more complex than simply ‘making beer’. To do it well requires the creativity of a chef, the scrutinisation of a scientist, and the knowhow of an engineer. Making beer is a true ‘craft’, and I believe this human element is crucial to how that beer in your glass eventually ends up tasting. I consider that by claiming a beer demonstrates terroir, it shows a lack of respect to how it was produced, and an ignorance towards the industrial nature of its production.

***

The idea of terroir in alcoholic drinks is centuries old, arguably dating back to ancient Greece. To translate it literally from French to English it means ‘earth’ or ‘soil’. However, this is the French language we’re talking about, and a more romantic definition would be ‘of the earth’—meaning that when the term is applied to what you’re drinking, that beverage is a literal expression of the place in which it was grown, and the season or vintage (year) in which it was cultivated.

The term is commonly attributed to wine, but can just as easily be applied to fine cider and perry (ie, not from concentrate,) as they are produced in much the same way. Because it’s so widely accepted in wine, however, I feel it’s best to use it as an example when explaining what terroir is. Essentially, it draws from four key components, the sum of which is the expression of terroir, defined in how the finished product tastes.

The first of these is the shape of the land where the fruit is cultivated, or to be more specific, its geomorphology. Were the vineyards located on low, flat plains, or along rolling mountain slopes at elevation, influencing how much sunlight the vines have access to? Are they in a coastal region, or are they located deep inland? The vines’ location will factor in how easy, or difficult, it is to cultivate healthy fruit, and these conditions will influence how its juice will taste—and most importantly, ferment—once pressed.

Climate, too, is a huge factor within terroir. Warmer climates, for example, will encourage grapes to produce more sugars, leading (depending on when they are picked) to higher alcohol content, and more full bodied wines, whereas the opposite is in effect within cool, rainy environments. More extreme variations of temperature between day and night, and the relative humidity will also affect the flavour of a finished wine, even if there are just minute variances between regions.

““Even so-called ‘wild’ yeast such as Brettanomyces can be selected by specific strain, and cold-chained to your brewery in a test tube.””

Soil is also a key component of terroir, in that where vines are planted will also have a direct influence on how a wine tastes. This can range from rich, volcanic soils, to clay, limestone and chalk seams, each of them offering a different amount of drainage, and retain varying levels of heat and nutrients. What grows around the vines is also a consideration when determining terroir. Are they planted in organic soil, and surrounded by a vast menagerie of flora and fauna? Or are they produced industrially, with the land vigorously maintained to limit these outside influences?

As with beer, there are also human elements involved in the winemaking process that can limit the expression of terroir. Common examples would be pitching a commercially available yeast strain to produce specific results during fermentation, or maturation in oak barrels to develop tannins and further build upon a wine's complexity. However, wine is inherently an expression of the fruit used in its production, rather than of the tools and processes used in its creation. For example, if you were to describe a glass as tasting like “a fruit basket of flavour, with notes of cantaloupe melon, bright acidity, and a sharp, mineral finish” you would be directly explaining the influence of its terroir. It’s a relatively simple thing to make sense of.

Which brings us to beer. Brewing is inherently a more complex process than wine or cidermaking as it utilises more ingredients. To attempt a discussion around any potential terroir it may or may not possess requires you to first break it down into its component parts. Perhaps the most obvious ingredient to look at first of all are hops, as so much of beer’s flavour—especially in modern examples—is centered around them.

***

This is where the argument that beer can express terroir immediately collapses. Sure, hop varieties presented individually can certainly express ‘terroir’ in that the flavour and aroma they provide will be directly influenced by their growing conditions. For example, Cascade—developed as part of the Oregon State University hop breeding program in the 1950s—when cultivated in its native Pacific Northwest, expresses pronounced aromas of grapefruit. When grown in the UK, however, that profile mellows significantly, becoming more floral, and a little more vegetal—just like classic English varieties such as Fuggles, or Bramling Cross.

Motueka is another interesting example. The Aotearoa New Zealand variety is directly descended from Saaz, one of the four ‘noble’ hop varieties along with Spalt, Tettnang and Hallertau Mittelfrüh. It was created by beeding a variety known as Belgian Saaz, or B Saaz, and crossing it an unnamed variety native to New Zealand, and retains the sharp, herbal characteristics of its parent, making it excellent for use in lagers. However, because it’s cultivated in a subtropical climate, deep within the Southern Hemisphere, it also expresses characteristics of tropical fruit, and honeydew melon. A good comparison would be the treasured Sauvignon Blanc grape variety, which is grown widely in France and New Zealand, and, like Motueka, tastes remarkably different depending on where it was cultivated.

But when you consider that these hops were bred to produce specific results, from yield through to flavour and aroma, you must also consider that human influence is directly influencing how they make a beer taste. Super aromatic, modern varieties such as Mosaic and Strata and the powerful flavours they present in beer are the direct result of manipulation through breeding. Are they still able to present terroir as a result?

It’s also crucial to look at the way hops are used in the brewing process. It is incorrect to think of them in the same way as fruit. If you were to take a grape, an apple and a hop, for example, and then consume them in their raw form, only two of these would likely provide you with a pleasant experience. On their own, hops are remarkably unpalatable. It’s only once they are processed, boiled, or used to add aroma during or after fermentation that they become enjoyable. The best way to think of hops in brewing is as a herb, spice, or seasoning. The brewer is the chef, and their palate (plus the equipment they are using to brew) will determine the correct amount to add. Do you consider your marinara sauce to have terroir because you seasoned it with basil?

A far more crucial component within beer is malted grain, and in the majority of instances this will mostly, or exclusively consist of barley malt. If any ingredient in beer can express terroir, then surely it is this magnificent grass, the kernels of which allow brewers to conjure glorious sweetness. Compare it to the way winemakers use their grapes, however, and it quickly becomes apparent that beer does not express the potential locked away in barley as terroir.

Grapes are harvested, pressed, and fermented. Barley is harvested, dried, steeped, germinated, kilned, combined with water and mashed, combined with hops and boiled, and then fermented. It is not a romantically cultivated product that expresses the flavour of the earth, but a product of industrial agriculture, its sole purpose to provide brewers with the correct amounts of extract sugars to produce a beer of a desired strength.

““You can connect beer to its agriculture and its seasonality, but this is not the same as its flavour being a direct expression ‘of the earth.’””

The further a malted barley is taken away from its harvested state—for example if it is roasted and made into crystal, or chocolate malt—the further it is removed from expressing any inherent terroir. I will admit to having tasted pale malts created from different varieties of barley, grown in different parts of the world, and can tell you that they have the ability to taste wildly different (and is indeed one of the most exciting frontiers in brewing as far as I am concerned), but I do not believe brewers have yet found the best means to express this in their beers. We could be on the cusp of it, but until we can read about specific farms on beer labels with regularity, and are told how this influences the flavour of what we’re drinking, then we cannot argue that barley can express terroir in beer.

Which brings us to yeast and water, the latter of which, in terms of brewing, is typically tap water sourced from a mains supply, further altered by the brewer to achieve specific results. A good example of this would be the addition of Calcium Sulphate, with the altered mineral content allowing for the increased absorption of hop compounds during the brewing process. You could make a case that specific water supplies, such as that of Burton-upon-Trent, have terroir. But if that water is combined with barley from Norfolk, hops from Kent, and yeast grown in a lab in Cambridge, then how can it possibly express a true taste of the land?

Yeast, however, is where things get interesting. Not in terms of commercially available brewers yeasts, as even so-called ‘wild’ yeast such as Brettanomyces can be selected by specific strain, and cold-chained to your brewery in a test tube.

Terroir works as a concept in wine and cider because of its inherent romanticism, and in brewing there is little more romantic than the idea of spontaneously fermented beer, inoculated solely by true wild yeast that exists in the air we breathe, imbuing a beer with a true sense of place. If you have ever visited the Cantillon brewery in Brussels, you will probably argue that you can sense terroir, dripping from every wooden beam and dangling cobweb. They will even tell you that they can only make this beer during the colder months of the year, when the yeast is not competing with the various unwanted strains of bacteria that thrive in warmer conditions, and will cause the finished product to spoil.

And yet, I have tasted wonderful spontaneously fermented beer made during the middle of a hot Californian summer, as I have made in a warehouse, on an industrial estate in Scotland. The influence of any yeast or bacteria on a beer during fermentation, is still at the mercy of the hops, and the malt, and the water, and any other ingredients or processes involved in its production.

Unlike wine, beer is not made, it is brewed. Therefore, beer cannot possess terroir.

I accept that you could produce a beer using ingredients grown on a single farm, brewed with the same untreated well water that was also used to irrigate the hops and barley used in its production, and fermented only with the yeast airborne above those same fields. You could even take this a step further and not boil it, creating a ‘raw’ beer, further removing the human element that takes the nature of a beer away from the land on which it was born. I believe there is a future for a small amount of beer to be produced in this way, even if this method is as challenging as it is commercially unviable. Yes, you can connect beer to its agriculture and its seasonality, but this is not the same as its flavour being a direct expression ‘of the earth’.

Although, I still believe in the potential for beer to truly express a sense of place, but maybe that place isn’t a field, or an orchard, or a hillside. Maybe, that place is one with dark wooden furniture, and a deeply worn, patterned carpet. One soundtracked by the hum of gentle chatter, and a friendly face behind the bar that asks the question “same again?” If beer is expressive of anything, then this expression is found, not where it is grown or made, but where it is served, and this, surely, is what makes it so special.