One Of The Most Expensive Beers In The World Sourced Ingredients From Space - Tasting Table

Beer styles once emphasized drinkability, but craft brewing expanded interest in unusual techniques and ingredients. Sapporo created Space Barley beer in 2008 using barley connected to experiments on the International Space Station. Agricultural trials began in 2003 with soybeans and later included peas, wheat, lettuce, and finally barley. Barley was cultivated in Russian research modules for five months and then returned to Earth. The first batch of Space Barley beer was only 100 liters, yet brewing still required far more barley than the space facilities could grow. Space-based farming at that scale remains unrealistic, even though the ingredients were tested in orbit.

"There was a time not so long ago when beers were relatively simple creations, tailored to well-defined styles. The giants of the industry focused largely on producing beers that ranked highly in what we call "drinkability" - though that word wasn't even coined until beer marketers thought it up in the 1960s. As craft beer has exploded, the world of beer has changed, and interesting techniques and novel ingredients often draw the most intrigue."

"The trials began in 2003 with soybeans, which then progressed to crops like peas, wheat, and lettuce, and finally on to barley - one of the four central ingredients in beer production along with hops, yeast, and water. The barley was cultivated in the Russian research modules of the International Space Station over five months before being returned to Earth."

"Unfortunately, as fun as it would be if this beer had been brewed entirely with space-grown grain, that was not the case. The first batch of Sapporo's Space Barley beer was only 100 liters, but even a brew of that size requires much more grain than can be cultivated in these space station research facilities. That kind of cosmic farming operation still only exists in the stories."

"We aren't quite ready for extraterrestrial farming. The quantity of barley used in brewing varies quite a bit by the style of beer, but a standard lager might take about two pounds of barley per gallon. 100 liters is about 26.4 gallons, so that'd call for a little under 53 pounds of barley."

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