Craft Beers: Current Situation and Future Trends

During the twentieth century, the consolidation of large multi-national beer companies and the homogenization of the specified beer types have led to a consid-erable growth in the beer industry. However, the growing demand by consumers of a single and distinctive product, with a higher quality and better sensory complexity, is allowing for a new resurgence of craft beer segment in recent years. This chapter reviews some different alternatives of innovation in the craft brewing process: from the bottle fermented beers with non- Saccharomyces yeast species, to the use of special malts or specific adjuncts, hop varieties, water quality, etc. All of them open a lot of new possibilities to modulate flavor and other sensory properties of beer, reaching also new consumers looking for a specific story in one of the oldest fermented beverages.