California Groundbreakers

Here's our second "Icebreaker" mini-podcast focused on California Groundbreakers in the beer industry, in advance of our live "Brewmasters" event on October 11 . Charlie Bamforth, the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences at UC Davis, is nicknamed the “Pope of Foam,” which pretty much says it all. Throughout his 30-plus-year career, Bamforth has embraced every dimension of beer, from raw materials and processing to its impact on the human body, published multiple research papers and written nine books, and he is generally considered to be one of the world's leading writers and speakers on beer. He also is a football (soccer, to us Yanks) fanatic, has a witty sense of humor and is a much-loved professor who loves to teach. Pope Charlie is retiring next year after a nearly 40-year career helping breweries worldwide improve their beer and turning UCD students into in-demand brewmasters. He sat down to talk with us at 10 am, so no beer, but once we asked Bamforth about the firs