Two things that surprised me

[Blktre]

I was hanging out with Dustin, John Dean, and Jenson at Brewfest and they mentioned some things that made me think. Dustin, as we know is brewing at Flying Dog in Denver told me their latest hop order from the next harvest for Cascades was $9.75/#. John Dean head brewer at Blind Tiger concurred. He said the Europeans have started to love the American varieties and are willing to pay top price to get them. John mentioned specifically Cascade, Centennials, and Simcoe. I wonder how this will effect home brewers as these guys have already been effected.

Also, John Dean amd Jenson said alot of co2 thats coming down the line is being recaptured from ethanol plants. The main problem with this scenario is that this co2 has sulfur in it. If brewers use this type of co2 to force carb. with the sulfur stays in the beer and effects flavor. But if you just push beer the sulfur will blow off. If this is true, id still think that a homebrew keg thats under pressure can still acquire some sulfur character just because our kegs sometimes take longer to dispense than commercial brews.....It was also mentioned that a filter can be used inline of the kegging setup to filter out the sulfur compounds. Anyways, thought I would throw this out there for general info. or discussion.......

[philip]

Maybe this is why Budweiser started specifying specific CO2's for their taps. Just a thought.