224: Julia Herz of the American Homebrewers Association Connects the Dots Between Beer and Flavor

Julia Herz is only a couple months into her new role as Executive Director of the American Homebrewers Association, but she's long been a craft beer voice and advocate with deep experience in the realm of food and beer pairing. As the former Craft Beer Program Director for the Brewers Association, she developed a library of resources to help brewers understand the nexus of beer and food, and to increase the number and quality of occasions for beer drinking. Now, in her new role as head of the world’s largest association of homebrewers, she starts her next chapter thinking about how homebrewing, and craft beer in general, can mean more to even more people than it has in the past.

In this episode, Herz discusses:

• The immediate challenges to homebrewing and long term goals
• Connecting the professional and amateur sides of brewing
• Thinking about flavor in a way that’s externally relatable
• Understanding the food flavor triangle
• Pairing strategies with bridges, links, hooks, and echoes
• Developing a mind-palate connection and articulating a language of flavor
• Overcoming flavor bias
• Making brewing more relevant to those from all walks of like

And more.

“So many brewers are world-class sensory experts when it comes to beer, but I still want to see brewers come along and understand how to describe flavor and what their beers go with,” says Herz. “Winemakers do know how to do that. Winemakers are in that arena, day in and day out.”

*This episode is brought to you by: *

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