In what way(s) do you feel terroir is most dramatically expressed in beer?
malt? hops? water? yeast? other catalytic bacteria and whathaveyou? something else?
Yeast and water without question.
I wish I had a little more time this morning to discuss, but I will follow this thread.
The Czech Saaz hop is basically the same as the Tettnanger hop from Germany,but they taste and smell different. Cascade hops grown in the Yakima Valley are different from Willamette Valley Cascades. Larger breweries will work with the same farmer year after year to reduce any flavor/aroma differences.
On the malt side, Czech Pilsner malt tends to be more malt focused, while German Pilsner malt tends to be a little grassier. This is the same strain of malt, but definitely different flavors. I use a blend of the two in my Pils. I can’t speak for North American malt because I don’t use it.
I suspect that yeast/bacteria would create differences as well. I don’t think that Belgian beers can be perfectly replicated here, but why would you want to? We have our own critters for making beer.
Water is pretty easy to manipulate if you have the money and the motivation. Certainly the reason that Pale Ales were developed in Burton on Trent, Pilsner was invented in Pilsen, and Bock was developed in Bavaria was due the different brewing water in these locations.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the water in Burton on Trent has an incredibly high level of dissolved solids — do you know if that’s true, Rick?
I think terroir more accurately reflects things that you can’t control…almost everything in brewing is a choice. I’d assume most breweries treat their water, so that’s out. Yeast, malts, hops…choices. Unless you’re doing wild ferment I don’t see much of an argument for terroir and even then the yeasts and bacterias in wild ferments may not even be “native” to the area.
I typed this up before I read Rick’s response, so there are some redundancies.
I agree about the water, Nolan ---- once it has been treated, it no longer counts (in my eyes).
As for yeast, malts, hops — although they are choices made by the brewer, it seems to me that all of them (hops and malts, for sure) speak of the place at which they were grown/cultured. I don’t know enough about yeast to know if that holds true for yeast, however.
Actually we don’t treat our water except for one very dark beer we make. Our water is actually softer than Pilsen, so we have that leg up over many other brewers that way.
For lager beers, I don’t think the origin of the yeast makes much of a difference. My yeast came from the Carlsberg Brewery. The place where you start to see more terroir from yeast is in Belgian beer.
Burton has very hard water that’s high in sulfate which emphasizes hop bitterness. Yes, it’s famous for pale ales but the original Burton ales were actually dark beers and are the parent style of old ales and barleywines.
I think there is a terroir to beer ingredients just like there is to anything that’s harvested from the earth but because beer has been viewed primarily as an industrial product as opposed to an agricultural one, the differences have been downplayed and brewers have focused more on consistency rather than playing towards the differences. As Rick said, Cascades from Yakima are different than Cascades from Oregon, but Cascades from different parts of Yakima vary as well. But people expect consistency in beer that they don’t in wine, so I think brewers are pushed to diminish terroir in beer ingredients while winemakers are expected to amplify it.
Maybe that’s why LA breweries are so sub par, LA has crappy water 
The one thing that brewers cannot control- spontaneous fermentation. That is where terroir comes into play, I would think. Lambics, etc. Just my 2 cents.
I know that BMC treat their water extensively to ensure consistency in product, but obviously that’s a much bigger factor when producing very lightly flavored beers.
I do see the terroir in hops and yeast, less so in malts. My question is what about the terroir of the brewery? I am thinking specificaly about Anchor Brewing-they seem to have a “house” terroir that I think comes from their shallow, open fermentors and pastuerization process. Any thoughts?