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By: Living a Stout Life<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meet Dr. Yin Li<\/strong><\/p>\n Dr. Yin Li is the Senior Manager of Research and Innovation at Malteurop Malting Company (MMC). He has been with MMC for nine years based out of the headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His goal is simple: to make people happy. “To help the craft brewer to achieve their success is my success.” <\/p>\n <\/p>\n What is your education background?<\/strong><\/p>\n Growing up in China, Dr. Li enrolled in a Bachelor’s program specializing in food, beverage and brewing: science fermentations. Before moving onto his graduate classes he had to make a crucial life decision. He had to choose between the science of beer, wine or liquor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr. Li likes to joke about his decision-making process at the time:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “I can’t drink too much. I can’t drink 80 proof.” Liquor was out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Wine is fancy and beautiful. But the professor of this program is tough.” Wine was out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The beer professor is the most famous beer professor in China.” Beer was in.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “I started it and can’t stop now.” He was, and still is, all in with the science of brewing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moving from China to the U.S. when he was 28, he landed in North Dakota at North Dakota State University for the best barley and malt program in the U.S., where he became fascinated with the science behind raw materials.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He wasn’t joking when he said he couldn’t stop. Dr. Yin Li went on to receive his Ph.D. in fermentation focusing on malting technology and brewing science.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr. Li’s list of credentials and accomplishments are impressive:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n What is your mission at Malteurop Malting Company?<\/strong><\/p>\n While working diligently within his research position at NDSU, Dr. Li focused on raw materials. Transitioning from NDSU to MMC, his work became more focused on the malts. Because of his background with science fermentation, raw material research and love of beer, his goal for what he could do for MMC and its customers became clear. Dr. Li and the entire team at MMC provide malt solutions, not just a product.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “My education is brewing science. Always starting from the brewing – my malt is directly to be consumed by consumers. We’re talking about beer. So we need to provide not just a product, not just malts. What I provide is a malt solution, an innovative solution to the brewers. I can give you not just the malts to your door, but I can tell you from scientific evidence how you achieve your next innovation goal.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Working with top brewing institutes, his team creates different approaches and out-of-the-box thinking from other science industries and then brings those pieces into the spirit of the malts and the brewing industry. “Craft brewers are innovative. If they’re not innovative, their business struggles. They must be innovative.” Dr. Li gets it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Through continuous value creation, design thinking, and strategic innovation management, we deliver innovative products and services and ultimately craft brewing and distillation solutions to our valuable customers.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In other words, just because something has been done for years, doesn’t make it the right way to do it today. Dr. Li looks at the big picture for the craft brewing industry and the malts needed and magnifies it all the way down to the beer that ultimately ends up in your glass. He then asks himself, “What is the right way to do this? To give our brewers the best possible malts in the most efficient way?” And if in the future, the reasoning changes, then he will change the process.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Like the Steve Jobs of malting, Dr. Li is coming up with ideas for you, the craft brewer, before you even know you need them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What are your research and innovation areas?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What does that mean for the craft brewer?<\/strong><\/p>\n Malts from MMC are going to change the way you look at brewing your beer. The flavors you seek, the fermentation properties you need, the stability in each batch brewed, will become nothing short of a miracle because you are a part of something bigger than just a grain. You are a part of MMC and its innovative ideas to keep your beers the best beers, not just in your brewery, but in the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And at the rate Dr Li’s moving forward, your beer will be the best in the universe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What are some of the product developments or innovations that you’ve created that have translated directly to the craft brewers?<\/strong><\/p>\n Craft brewing innovation brings new opportunities and challenges to the brewing industry. Because of this, innovation with brewing raw material needs to adapt with the changes of the environment. Dr. Li believes in incremental innovation, meaning new ideas aren’t just something done on a continuous basis to keep up with the market. Rather, it means that innovation happens because you can foresee what’s coming based on the environment surrounding you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used for the craft brewer. That and the idea of incremental innovation, combined with radical, disruptive, and sustainable innovations are what gives MMC that ability to create exactly what the craft brewer needs now and in the future. Innovation and design thinking are what ensures business value streams and sustainable competitive advantage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Through our innovative approach we are building the next generation of craft beer and the products will give more intense flavor attributes and will bring craft beer to the next level.” We are always trying to make what we have better. By adding new products to the line, MMC goes above and beyond the expectations for both the craft brewer and the consumer.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n What does AI mean when it comes to innovating malts for the craft brewer? <\/strong><\/p>\n Dr. Li believes he and his team at MMC need to “stay forward of the customers’ thinking. What is the overall picture of millions of home brewers and the 8,000 craft brewers? What is the future of success to brewers? I need to be ahead of their thinking and then develop the product or service prior to the industry knowing it needs it.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You may think of AI as meaning all tasks will be taken over by computers. That is not how MMC utilizes AI. Dr. Li and the entire MMC team see AI as a way of collaborating with thousands of brewers, collecting big data, adding to AI, creating solutions not just for individuals, but for all looking to produce the best product for their consumers’ glasses.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n AI is helping us to understand how innovation and application lead to better flavor attributes while reducing usability and production costs, creating a better overall experience for the entire brewing industry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your dreams are big. Tell us more about the future of malting. We’re excited!<\/strong><\/p>\n “Malting in 2038 is an ultimate dream of modern malting practice. Breeders, growers, maltsters, brewers and distillers can work together to make this dream become true.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By 2038, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Deep Learning (MDL), meaning human to machine learning, will have been increasingly shaping all aspects of the malting business and operation. “The powerful capabilities of AI and MDL technology to process data, detect patterns, and co-relate human behavior make them unique solutions to develop smart digital assistants across malting and brewing industries.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MMC’s mission with AI is not to keep the secrets to ourselves, but just as in sharing a good craft beer, we are working to share our learnings and Machine Learning (human to machine learnings) capabilities as fully managed services and put them into the heart of all brewers and distillers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can hear the passion in your words, but what gets your heart racing more, the beer or the science behind it?<\/strong><\/p>\n The science behind the beer has always been a passion for Dr. Li, but the brewers’ passion to deliver their best product to their end users has also helped to drive him forward. He enjoys building upon the excitement for a product that is so well loved, and he wants to play a part in keeping that passion moving forward.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But he also has a passion for drinking good beer. “Drink beer. Beer is good. You want to make friends with strangers, the first thing we can talk about is beer, and I can talk for hours. A movie? I can’t say too much about it.” Beer brings people together. It builds community, and MMC has always been about building community. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n What’s your favorite style of beer? <\/strong><\/p>\n As a consumer: German Pilsen at first, but currently Dr. Li loves the Hazy IPAs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a scientist: Dr. Li and his team are looking to shake up the beer world by shaking up Hazy IPAs. As a fairly new genre of beer, one of the concerns is the flavor stability. If the haziness is gone, does that change the flavor? What are the components of the haze and what happens if it is removed? How this could impact flavor stability?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a part of Dr. Li’s research, MMC recently collaborated with Third Space Brewing in Milwaukee to celebrate the brewery’s 4th anniversary, as well as to innovate and dream about the future of craft beer. Using one of Dr. Li’s self-professed secret ingredients, Medium Color Crystal Wheat, they created Baby Yo, a Fuzzy Little IPA<\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This experimental IPA has notes of coconut, pineapple, peach and tangerine. Being a little bit hazy and clocking in with an ABV of 3.9% and 28 IBUs, it lends itself well to the name of a Fuzzy Little IPA<\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Craft brewers have a passion for the science and the art behind brewing; it’s what makes you innovative. And when MMC becomes your partners in your innovative ideas, and not just your malt suppliers, we work together to create the best tasting beers, the ones with consistent characteristics that you, the brewers, demand, and the consistent flavors that your consumers expect. There’s a lot of big breakthroughs in IPAs coming soon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The innovative ideas, the scientific research and the resulting products are not just trends in the craft brewing industry, here today, gone tomorrow. To become a part of something bigger and better, you’ve got to be bigger and better. And at Malteurop Malting Company, you are that. You are a part of a solution, not just a client. You are Malteurop.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There’s people behind the product, not just the product, so what three words or phrases define you, Dr. Li, outside of work?<\/strong><\/p>\n Before choosing a career in the science of brewing, Dr. Li was like almost any teenager in today’s world. He loved games. But true to his inquisitive and intellectual nature, he was not just any game lover, he was a professional Starcraft Gamer. For those of you that don’t know how that might play into creating the Dr. Li we know today, he credits this Science Fiction style real-time strategy on-line game with teaching him multitasking and collaborative real-life skills.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Today, those skills translate into a highly effective scientist within the malting and brewing industry. But more importantly they translate into being a full-time father.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the end, Dr. Li came up with four words to describe himself: creative, versatile, enthusiastic and visionary. Who are we to argue?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cheers. To the farmers. The maltsters. The brewers. The innovators. <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dr. Yin Li is the Senior Manager of Research and Innovation at Malteurop Malting Company (MMC). 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