How science is putting the ‘micro’ into microbrewing

It had previously been assumed that doing experiments at very small scales wouldn’t produce accurate results, but after running a series of tests with the tiny test vials, Mr Kerr found it worked perfectly.

“We were trying to find what was happening with the proteins and enzymes in the grain we were brewing, which is a really complex biochemical process,” he said.

“The results we got with the micro brews were almost completely consistent with a larger brew in terms of the behaviour of the mixture.”

Mr Kerr’s supervisor, Associate Professor Benjamin Schulz, said in addition to reducing the amount of lab time required to test different batches, the technique would have an obvious benefit to commercial brewers as well.

“This…