Beer color is measured in Standard Reference Method (SRM) units — a scale from 1 (straw-pale) to 40+ (opaque black).
Pitching rate — how many yeast cells you add to a given volume of wort at a given gravity — is one of the most underappreciated variables in homebrewing.
Mash water volume is one of those numbers homebrewers often eyeball early on and then regret when the mash is too thick to stir or too thin to hold temperature.
Strike water temperature is the temperature your mashing water needs to be before you add it to the grain, so that the mixture (mash) stabilizes at your target mash temperature.
Bottle carbonation is one of the most satisfying parts of homebrewing — cracking open a bottle weeks after packaging to find perfect carbonation, fine bubbles, and a head that holds — but getting there requires accurate priming sugar calculation.
International Bitterness Units (IBU) is the standard measure of hop bitterness in beer, quantifying the concentration of iso-alpha acids extracted from hops during the boil.
Alcohol by volume (ABV) is the most fundamental spec of any homebrew — it determines whether you’ve made a session ale or a barleywine, affects carbonation calculations, and is legally required labeling information in most jurisdictions.
The beer industry in 2025 was navigating a more complex operating environment than at any point since the craft beer boom began.
Beer is the world’s most consumed alcoholic beverage by volume, and the global consumption landscape in 2025 reflected both the continued dominance of major markets and significant shifts in where growth was coming from.
The craft beer industry in 2025 looked meaningfully different from the explosive growth years of the early 2010s.