Innovation in brewing: here’s an interesting article on CNN.com about a guy in Germany who has come up with a new way to brew beer.

[The brewing] process is traditionally an uncontrolled one in which the yeast "free floats."

"You throw the yeast into the vessel and say, ‘Now go and work. I have prepared some food for you and it is nice and sugary, so go and do your thing’," he says.

His own process allows the yeast to work quicker and involves first fixing the yeast to the ceramic lining of a stainless steel cylinder.

The yeast fuses itself to the surface and feeds the wort at an increased rate, meaning the fermentation process takes only a few hours.

Sounds interesting, but I’m naturally a bit skeptical. Immobilizing the yeast by fixing them to ceramic doesn’t make much sense to me—the yeast need to reproduce as a part of the brewing cycle—how do they do that if stuck to a wall?

There’s also some interesting photos of his brewing system. Doesn’t seem to take much space at all; I wonder how many gallons he can brew per batch?