#206 | Tamar Banner, To Øl

Meet Tamar Banner, a veteran of the craft beer industry, having started brewing professionally in the US in 2001. In more than 24 years of brewing, she has worked in the brewhouse, cellar, packaging, quality, and management. She is currently the brewmaster at To Øl Brewery in Denmark where she manages brewing, packaging, quality and recipe development. Prior to To Øl, she worked for Harpoon Brewery in both Boston and Vermont, New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado, and BrewDog Brewery in Canal Winchester, Ohio. As a Certified Cicerone, she has a passion for beer/food pairing, and speaks regularly at beer dinners, festivals, and events. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree in Brewing and Distilling Science from Heriot Watt University.  She has been on the board of two different chapters of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas, and is currently an active member of the Danish Brewmasters Association.  In her spare time, she loves experimenting with other forms of fermentation, and makes her own cheeses at home. And with such a decorated career, we invited Tamar to deliver a keynote address at our Brewers Congress event in London last Autumn. In this extract from that talk, Tamar asked brewers if they thought their beer tastes the way they intended when the customer is drinking it? And if brewers are satisfied with how their beer tastes at the end of its shelf life. She also emphasised the need for industry collaboration, better refrigeration practices, and consumer education to ensure fresher beer.