The Lab Report: Meet Dr. Hops

I spent ten years wearing a hairnet in sterile industrial labs, analyzing pH levels and food safety data for companies that treated flavor like a logistics problem. It was efficient, highly profitable, and completely soulless.

The spark only returned when I realized that the most fascinating chemistry on Earth wasn’t happening in high-tech factories. It was happening in ancient clay pots in Japan and drafty farmhouse breweries in Belgium.

I eventually traded the industrial lab for a remote Data Analyst gig and a garage in Asheville, North Carolina. Now, I run this site as an Open Source Fermentation Lab dedicated to decoding the “magic” of brewing with hard data.

The Mission: Measurement = Freedom

I am Dr. Alex “Hops” Mercer, but most people in the brewing community just call me Dr. Hops. I travel three months out of the year to fermentation hubs across the globe to find forgotten or ancient recipes.

I bring those techniques back to my garage lab to break them down using modern sensors and scientific rigor. My approach is built on three core pillars that define every article and recipe you will find here.

1. Anti-”Bro-Science”

I have a deep-seated hatred for the “just dump sugar and pray” attitude that plagues many homebrewing forums. Hope is not a brewing strategy, and intuition is often just an excuse for a lack of measurement.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t control it. I believe that world-class products aren’t made by million-dollar facilities, but by small-scale brewers with the right data and the right tools.

2. Closing the Loop

Waste is nothing more than an engineering inefficiency. If I brew a five-gallon batch of beer, I feel a moral obligation to use the twenty pounds of spent grain for bread, burgers, or dog treats.

If I peel fruit for a melomel, the skins go into a tepache or a fruit-scrap vinegar. My goal is a Zero-Waste Brewery where every byproduct becomes the primary ingredient for the next experiment.

3. Open Source Innovation

Everything I learn, I share. I believe the future of fermentation belongs to the community, not the corporations.

Whether it is reverse-engineering the enzymatic potential of malted millet or tracking the pH drop of a three-year Solera, the data is open for everyone to use and improve upon.

The Nomadic Chemist

Three months of every year, I shut down the Asheville lab and head into the field. Whether I’m tracking down Koji mold strains in rural Japan or studying spontaneous fermentation in the Senne Valley, I am always looking for the next piece of the puzzle.

These travels aren’t vacations; they are data-gathering expeditions. I look for the “weird” stuff—the ferments that shouldn’t work according to the textbooks—and I bring them home to prove that they do.

Conclusion

You don’t need a million dollars to make world-class beer, hot sauce, or kombucha. You need a kitchen scale, a thermometer, and a notebook.

I am here to provide the science, the sensors, and the recipes. You provide the curiosity and the willingness to measure every step.

Welcome to the lab. Let’s make something fascinating.