Leah is on a research break this month so we are reprinting our version of the classic: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Beer (But Were Afraid To Ask).
Beer: The Basics
Beer is a fermented beverage principally made from four ingredients: Water, malted barley, hops, and yeast. Each one of these ingredients will impart its own flavour characteristics to the finished product, one which is almost as old as civilization itself.
One Egyptian recipe called for bread to be left out in the rain and then allowed to ferment. The result was a soggy but mysteriously invigorating concoction.
Some aboriginals in South America still make a brew called chicha. It is made of corn that is chewed by the tribal women, spat into a bowl, and allowed to ferment for a few days before being consumed by the whole tribe. This could possibly put a whole new spin on the role of women in advertising beer if it were introduced to Canada.
Rhine heights go… what?
You may have heard of the “Bavarian Purity Law,” also known as “Reinheitsgebot.” This German law, dated 1516 and still enforced today, stipulates that only barley malt, hops, and water may be used in the making of beer. It is one of the earliest, and longest running, examples of consumer protection legislation.
Inventive brewers, like inventive cooks, have often experimented with the addition of other ingredients in their search for the perfect brew. These additional ingredients are called adjuncts and are any source of carbohydrates other than malted grains. Many brewers, in their search for the perfect bottom line and a stable beer with a longer shelf life, add ingredients such as cane or corn sugar, molasses, corn, and rice to provide the sugars required for fermentation without incurring the costs of more expensive malted grains. Though these cheaper ingredients, in restrained quantities, can be used with intelligent care by a craft brewer, macrobrewers tend to be unrestrained in their use.
Japanese sake, has for years been mislabeled “rice wine.” Because rice is a cereal grain, sake is really a form of beer.
Macro vs. Micro
What is the big deal about a “microbrew,” isn’t beer all pretty much the same?
Microbreweries (the little guys, however you want to define them) almost universally use craft brewing techniques. This is the traditional method of making beer in single batches. Each recipe is produced to maximize the desirable characteristics of one beer.
On the other hand, the globally present brand makers almost always use high gravity brewing to produce their products. Although it may sound like work for NASA, the gravity that is referred to here is just another word for alcohol. In this process beer is fermented to an alcohol content approaching that of wine and then cut with water. It may also be further processed to produce more than one brand. These practices usually result in a less malty and more estery (fruity) product.
Another macro technique is the high budget advertising campaign to convince consumers that there actually is a difference between their brands.
The Old English word “draught” meant “to pull,” like the draught horses that used to deliver beer kegs back in the day. Before pressurized carbon dioxide and nitrogen were widely used to push beer from the kegs through the lines to the tap, the beer had to be “pulled” with a beer engine (a hand operated piston). Hence the term “draught beer.”
Water
Water, comprising about 96% of the final product, is a key ingredient. While some brewers like to evoke images of pristine glacier fed springs, effectively, water is an easy ingredient to modify by filtration (usually to remove chlorine) or the addition/subtraction of salts. Hard water tends to be more appropriate to ales while soft water compliments the subtler flavour profile of a lager.
The early Egyptians drank their beer through reeds or tubes so they would not choke on the barley husks left in the unfiltered brew. Many of the ruling class had golden straws made for sipping their beer.
Malt
This ingredient is made from grain, usually barley, that has undergone a process of wetting and drying called malting before the brewer can use it. Raw grain is soaked and begins to germinate (sprout) releasing enzymes that help convert its carbohydrates into fermentable sugars. It is then roasted to stop the germination process. The roasting can vary in duration to create different degrees of roasty flavour. The germinated/roasted grain introduces to the beer; colour, malty sweet flavour, body, and protein to form a good head. The yeast will consume the sugars and produce beer’s intoxicating ingredient (ethanol) and its bubbles (carbon dioxide, CO2).
Single malt Scotch is basically distilled beer. The beer that is produced for distillation is not bittered with hops but the malted barley is often roasted over peat fires which imparts a distinctive smokiness to the whisky.
Hops
Hops are the cone-like flowers of a female climbing vine in the cannabis family which can grow as tall as 18 feet. Hops contain oils, bitter acids, and resins that counterbalance the sweetness of the malted barley, add flavour, provide aroma, and help preserve the beer. Preservation is a key word – the same resins and acids that flavor the beer have been found to delay the inevitable effects of bacterial spoilage, thereby giving beer a longer shelf life.
Beer with strong hop aroma and flavour are said to be “hoppy.” Those who crave bitter beers are characterized as “hopheads.”
Prior to hop usage in beer making, brewers bittered their beer with flowers, leaves, berries, spices, and a host of odd and sometimes unpalatable ingredients, many of which failed miserably. By the 16th century hops became the most widely accepted spice for beer.
IPA or India Pale Ale was originally formulated with the idea of surviving shipping from Great Britain to India. It was aggressively hopped to survive shipping from the old country to the chaps in the colonies.
Yeast
Yeast, although present in all fermented beverages, was not discovered until the 18th century. It is a member of the fungus family that, because of its cell-spliting capabilities, is self-reproducing. Yeast has a voracious appetite for sweet liquids and produces abundant quantities of alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide (bubbles) as a waste product. There are limits to the amount of alcohol that certain yeast strains can tolerate without dying, hence one reason for the traditional difference in alcohol between beer and wine.
In the not-so-distant past, drinking warm ale in cold weather was commonplace. Because all taverns had large fireplaces, small iron pokers called “loggerheads” were hung by the fire to be used for warming drinks. In the heat of argument these pokers were often brandished by inebriated patrons giving rise to the expression “to find yourself at loggerheads.”
Until the mid-19th century all beer was made with top fermenting ale yeast which work best at warm temperatures (15 to 24°c) and produce fruity, distinctive flavours. Advances in chemistry led to the isolation and development of bottom fermenting yeast which thrive at lower temperatures (3 to 11°c). Lower temperature fermentation takes longer and lead to the term lager, from the German word “to store.” The cleaner, more subtle, flavours associated with lager fermentation have, with rare exception, swept the global mass market.
One of the first lager beers was produced in the town of Pilzen in The Czech Republic leading to the popular style pilsner or pils.
Beer Aromas
Aromas associated with beer mainly come from malt and hops. Malt can smell perfumy-sweet to rich and caramelly. Roasty, toasty, chocolaty are characteristics that come from more heavily kilned malts. Hop aromas are often described as herbal, perfumy, spicy, grassy, floral, piney, and citrusy.
Brewpubs often offer beer for take-out that is poured from the tap into glass jugs called growlers. This name dates to pre-Prohibition times, when factory workers regularly drank beer with their lunch. Children were paid to run to the local brewery or bar to fill the workers’ pails with beer. The pails were named after the growling stomachs of those waiting.