Brews, Booze & Bonds: The Chemistry of Drinks

Beer. What is it exactly, and why do we love it? In this talk, we’ll explore how the key steps in brewing beer create its unique chemistry and how generations of brewers have developed such a dazzling variety of flavors and styles from just a few primary ingredients.
Along the way, we’ll take a look back at a bit of beer history and even take a peek into the future of beer.

There is more to scotch whisky than meets the eye. There are arguably very few drinks that can boast such a broad range of tastes and smells. The reason for this is that whisky production entails several separate steps in which many different biological, chemical, and physical processes shape the molecular composition of the liquid.

In this talk, chemist and journalist Lars Fischer will explain why fermentation is war, that using traditional copper stills is really about much more than tradition, and why producers always make such a fuss about the exact type of barrel.