June 2022 Microbe 2022

Poster - Sewage Effluent Discharge Selects For A Biodegrading Microbiome

F. Osman. H. Aslam Butt, and A. Pringle

This research showed that there was a prevalence of biodegrading microbes downstream of a sewage discharge site.  This makes the discharge site suitable for bioprospecting for microbes with bioremediation capabilities.

Spring 2021 Maryville Magazine

Breaking the Code by Nancy Fowler describes metagenomics reasearch being carried out in Alastair Pringle's lab.

See the full article 

May 2021 Reseach Mentoring Award from Maryville University

An award to identify, acknowledge, and reward excellence in mentoring student research. 

January 2021 Master Brewers Association Technical Quarterly

Focus Issue on Yeast and Fermentation

Alastair Pringle appointed as Focus Issue Editor along with Bill Maca

October 2020 Publication in the Master Brewers Technical Quarterly 

A Brewer’s Guide to Applying PCR in a Quality Assurance Program​​ by Alastair Pringle 

MBAA TQ vol. 57, no. 3, 2020, pp. 190-199

See the abstract

You can also see the full text in ResearchGate 

August 2020 World Brewing Congress Connect 2020

Presentation - A Brewer's Guide to Rapid Microbiology. 

See the abstract

June 2020 ASM Microbe on line 

Poster - Metagenomic Insights Into Microbiome and Antimicrobial Resistance in River Sediments from Three Major Midwestern Rivers by Fujr Ibrahim and Alastair Pringle 

see abstract

December 2019 Faculty Spotlight Award from Maryville University

Alastair Pringle was recognized for introducing the hardware and protocols for  nanopore DNA sequencing to the University. 

July 13, 2018 - A decade after Anheuser Busch's sale beer still pours from the St. Louis brewery, but much has changed. 

This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.  Alastair began consulting with Schlafly a year after leaving AB. 

February 2017 - Recognition from Jim Kuhr of Matt Brewing 

This is an excerpt from an interview with Jim Kuhr in the Master Brewers of the Americas Techncial Quarterly vol 54, no 1 2017 pp 52-54

August 2016 - New appointment

Alastair Pringle became assistant professor of biology at Maryville University Saint Louis.

He will be developing an Applied Microbiolgy concentration, which will prepare students to work in all industries that use microbes to make their products or wish to keep microbes out of their products.  

Alastair will still be consulting and carrying-out lab projects in the summer. 

August 2016 - World Brewing Congress - Denver 

Alastair Pringle gave two presentations 

• Brewing Microbiology - Challenges and solutions 
• Brewing Innovation - Why you need it and how you get it. 

April 2016 - Craft Brewers Conference - Philadephia May 3rd to 6th 

Alastair Pringle assisted Rheonix Inc at their booth at the Craft Brewers Conference.  It was great to see such a lot of interest in the latest system for the rapid detection of beer spoilage microbes.  

February 2016 - MBAA District St. Louis

Alastair Pringle gave a talk on 'Packaging Quality and Packaging Quality Control' 

October 2015 - MBAA District Philadephia - Philly Tech

 Alastair Pringle gave an invited talk  '' Packaging Quality - The final frontier'  

May 2015 - International Section of Institute of Brewing and Distilling

Alastair Pringle was appointed Secretary of the International Section of the IBD.

April  2015 - Craft Brewers Convention in Portland Oregon 

Alastair Pringle gave a talk entitled 'Yeast - The Owners Manual'   This talk dicussed the basics of handling yeast in a small to medium sized craft brewery. Several attendees commented that it was the most useful yeast talk they attended at the conference. 

November 2014  - All About Beer Magazine 

BEER INNOVATORS: MEET THE PEOPLE IMPACTING THE BEER WORLD

Alastair Pringle was chosen as one of the 26 Innovators.

"He advocates a practical approach to “beer quality”—which could be focused on process improvement and control or beer flavor and stability—telling brewers to identify the major factors they can control. “That’s usually seven or eight things, rather than making it very, very complicated,” he says. At Anheuser-Busch, then-CEO August Busch III famously demanded one-page solutions, so that people in production could easily implement them. “You didn’t get anywhere at A-B giving complicated talks where you looked clever.”

Read more at Beer Innovators 

September 2014 - Food Quality and Safety

See the article 'The Art Behind Quality Craft Beer' by Tim Donald.  The front cover has the tagline - Quality brewing experts discuss what goes into crafting their increasing popular products. Alastair Pringle is quoted in the sections 'Making the Yeast Happy' and 'Education'

April 2014 - Wort, the root of good beer

This talk at the Craft Brewers Conference in Denver was attended by 1,000 brewers.  It covered the most important wort factors to control for consistent fermentation and beer flavor.

From the Brewer and Distiller International - Alastair Pringle was as competent as tackling everything you need to know about wort ...

January 2014 - Fresh Beer in New England   

Fresh Beer, Fresh Ideas was presented at the MBAA New England section meeting on January 18th at the Anheuser Busch Brewery in Merrrimack, New Hampshire.  Approximately 65 people braved the snow to listen to this presentation, which covered both the theory and practical aspects of beer freshness  

October 2013 - Do you want to know more about a 20% solution for beer consistency?

This was explored at the MBAA Annual Conference in Austin, Texas in October 2013. In this presentation Alastair Pringle explains how to control the vital few factors so consistent beer quailty can be assured.  If you missed this presentation please contact us to receive a copy. 

What the Brewer and Distiller International had to say:

Ground-breaking research

We heard a nice paper from Alastair Pringle about how we need to focus on the 20% of the parameters and measurments that really matter.  29% of our results impact 80% of what we achieve.

June 2013 - Melanie Spangler becomes an affiliate of Pringle-Scott LLC  We are pleased to welcome Melanie who will be assisting with billing, taxes, and other administrative issues.   



December 2012 - Are you curious about the chemical stability of beer and how to improve freshness?  Alastair Pringle gave a presentation on beer freshness at the  MBAA District Western New York  in Utica New York.  If you are interested in this topic, but could not make it please contact us for a copy of the presentation

October 2012 - Physical and Chemical Stability of Beer

This presentation, which was given at the MBAA Brewing and Malting Science Course in Madison, provides both basic and practical knowledge on how to improve the physical and chemcal stability of beer.   Please contact us if you are a client and would like a copy. 

August 2012 - Putting Science to Work in the Brewery

This was presented at the World Brewing Congress in Portland, Oregon at 8:30 am on August 1st, 2012.   If you missed this and would like a copy please contact us by email. 

Dr Anthony Cutaia and myself have put together our thoughts on using the scientific method from our experiences in the brewing industry.  We will cover appropriate experimental designs for each scale, problems with process variability, and the pitfalls of analysis.   The talk will provide practical insight into how knowledge can be gained and problems can be solved in the brewery. 

Feedback from an attendee - In my opinion, the information you presented, was by far the most important (of the Congress). The fact that much published research is wrong is a realization vital to the best use of resources as we strive to accomplish what ever it is our efforts are directed toward.  The idea of designing factorialized experiments versus single variable experiments was clearly explained. I hope this discussion expresses how much admiration and respect I have for you... and I would like to say thank you!

May 2012 - Fresh beer, Fresh Ideas 

Catch this presentation at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego  May 2 -5, 2012 

Fresh beer tastes better and customers can drink more of it.   Fresh beer is neither achieved by accident, nor by focusing only on a single part of the brewing process.  Breweries can produce the freshest beer by controlling a number of freshness points in the brewing process.  This talk will highlight practical ways to control freshness in the craft brewery

October, 2011 - Constructing Beer Quality 

See this presentation at the 2011 Master Brewers Association of the Americas Annual conference.

Beer quality can be defined in many ways that appear complex.  New breweries are confronted with the daunting task of of having to design a program to meet the quality criteria of regulatory agencies, consumers and retailers.  To address this problem a step-by-step process for developing a brewery quality program was outlined in this talk. 

If you would like to know more contact us for a copy of the talk.

Apr 2010 - Fermentation Control

Catch this at the Craft Brewers Conference on April 10th.

Alastair Pringle reveals the secrets of one of the least understood, but arguably the most important, parts of the brewing process.

·        Learn how to spot the most important factors controlling fermentation-related flavors.

·         Discover how these factors can be simply controlled.

·         Increase your ability to trouble-shoot fermentation problems.

March 2011 - The Macro to Micro Career Path by Greg Kitsosk

In this article Greg features several people who have moved from larger breweries to the craft brewing industry.  The article features Mitch Steele who is now at Stone Brewing, Grant Wood of Boston Beer Co., Larry Sidor of Deschutes Brewing Co, and Florian Kuplent of Urban Chestnut Brewing Co.

The article says this about Pringle-Scott LLC;

'Among the few picked up by Schlafly is Alastair Pringle who spent 25 years with AB as director of scientific research and founded his own consulting company after his position was eliminated.  Pringle helps Schlafly in the field of quality assurance making sure that the beer it contract brews in Stevens Point and Latrobe, Pa., is identical to that brewed in St. Louis.

"At a lot of the big breweries the critical points of the process are automated," Pringle observes.  At craft breweries you're more dependent on people."

On the matter of compensation he reflects that "Anheuser Busch liked to pay high wages to people they thought were valuable."  But with the craft breweries, "compensation comes in the creativity, the fun, and the enthusiasm for the job."

"There are a lot more opportunites down the road than in a company that's stagnant.  It's nicer to be on an escalator that's going up."  

Oct 2010 - Joe Lazzara of JL Process Design becomes an affiliate if Pringle-Scott

We are pleased to announce that Joe will be an affiliate.  We look forward to using the synergies he brings to help us develop the best practical solutions for your business.   

Jun 2010 - A Fresh Look at Beer Flavor Stability

Catch this at the Master Brewers Association of the Americas at the Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence RI

• Get a practical view of controlling freshness that makes a difference to your product's acceptance in the marketplace.
• Learn the importance of controlling oxygen in the brewhouse and in finishing.
• Understand how to improve SO2 during fermentation.
• Improve your understanding of  TPO and ingress through the package materials. 

June 24th,  2011-  From Contract Partnerships by Jenn Litz

'As we reported yesterday, Schlafly is pushing up against
capacity at its Bottleworks production facility in St. Louis, with no
land or space to build on. So they've worked out a deal with some
long-time brewing friends - Kent Taylor
et al. of Blackstone Brewery - to brew about 4,000 barrels over the next
12 months at their new production facility in Nashville, with partners
Stephanie Weins and Dave Miller. That represents a bit less than 10% of
Kent's brewing and packaging capacity, and 40% of their current cellar
capacity. The Schlafly bottles that come out of there around this time
next year might say, "Brewed and bottled by Schlafly, Nashville, Tenn."
He wants his customers to know where their beer comes from, and so do
they.

For this setup is almost more like a partnership than your traditional
contract brew model. The terms were written to be mutually beneficial
and complementary: Kent and Co. funded and built the brewery (albeit
with a lot of input from longtime friend Dan, even before the idea of a
partnership). But they'll get the added value of access to Schlafly's
experienced QA team in the deal, which includes Alastair Pringle and
other A-B alumni who have consulted for Schlafly and "will be spending a
lot of time in Nashville, start to hire their own staff to be based
there," according to Dan.  Schlafly also has bulk purchasing contracts
for the Nashville operation to tap'.
 

Chicago entertains -

Alastair Pringle considered the critical contol points for flavor formation both desired and less so.  He put the all the biochemistry over in a succinct manner and concluded there were just eleven critical control points to get right and just six process measures to keep tracking.  He made fermentation seem so straight forward!  A first class presentation which everyone could learn from, even old duffers like Jackson and Putman sitting in the front row!

From  Brewer and Distiller International June 2010, vol 6

Jan 2010 - Fuel Ethanol and all that

Read the latest information on ethanol production from corn, industry concerns, and the status of the next generation biofuels in this article authored by Alastair Pringle.  You can find it in the January issue of Brewer and Distiller International (v6 p18).  If you cannot access this publication, email us and we will send you a copy.

Jan 2010 - Denison University OH 

Alastair Pringle asks  "How Are You Creative?" at the Entrepreneurial Endeavors Workshop at Dension University, Granville OH.  He will be answering these questions:

• How important is innovation today?
• What are some of the barriers to innovation?
• How can creativity and innovation be enhanced through:  
  • Personal creativity
  • Understanding thinking patterns
  • Use of a process and tool box

This presentation will be held on January 12th at the Burton D. Morgan Center.  

Oct 2009 - Saint Louis IFT Meeting

Alastair Pringle will be presenting 'Enabling Your Company's Technical Future' at the STL-IFT meeting in October.  The meeting will be held at the Coronado Building at 3733 Lindell Boulevard, Saint Louis on Tuesday October 27th.

Sept 09 - Biofuels training at the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center.

Alastair Pringle is participating in a 4 week training class on Biofuels at the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center (NCERC) on Southern Illinois University's Edwardsville (SIUE) campus.  This training was made possible through the St. Patrick Center of St. Louis and the Go Network, which were awarded a grant from the U.S. Conference of Mayors and The Wal-Mart Foundation called Project GO! Green.  

This hands-on experience in both the plant and lab will enable us to better help our clients in the biofuels industry improve their starch conversion and fermentation operations. 

July 2009 - Review of 'Enabling the Technical Future' by the BDI  

38 papers came from universities and research establishments, suppliers supplied nine, and there were eight billed as from brewers: A-B, Polar, Fosters, Budvar, Heineken, Asahi, Kirin, and Miller-Coors. Theoretical more than practical perhaps?  Alastair Pringle (recently with Anheuser-Busch) tackled that very subject suggesting that researchers are all too happy to pop down their rabbit holes to examine minutiae and perhaps lose sight of the bigger picture.  Research should enable the technical future for the industry rather than be an end in its own right.  A solution focus was essential and robust, practical answers should be the outcome.  Will lab researchers be business-savvy knowledge brokers capable of directing problem solving efforts, he asked. He also described A-B's knowledge base where what the composite company has accumulated over years is available world-wide to personnel in an easily searchable format. This needs a will to contribute to it and an expert in the field to run it.  Sounds like and imppressive tool; it will be interesting to see whether it survives the InBev approach of doing business.

Brewer & Distiller International v5, July 2009

May 2009 - Alastair Pringle gave a talk entitled "Enabing the Technical Future of Today's Brewery".

This talk was given at the European Brewery Convention, which is the technological and scientific arm of the Brewers of Europe. It was presented as part of a Media, Management, and Industry issues session given in Hamburg, Germany. 

This talk dealt with the need to change the structure of the brewery laboratory to meet the challenges of the brewing industry.  The following key points were made:

• Success will be judged on how fast it can generate simple, cost effective solutions
• Treating brewing processes as black boxes can produce solutions faster
• Lab personnel need to become business-savvy knowledge-brokers, who can direct efforts, communicate solutions, and educate the whole company.