The Beer Barons

Welcome to the first volume of the brewer’s corner. For those of you who have never even thought about how beer is made and what it is, this one is for you.

The basics

Beer can be as simple or as complicated as you would like to make it. For the Germans, it’s as simple as barley, water, hops and yeast. The Germans even made it their law, the Reinheitsgebot, that only those four ingredients (although yeast was not identified as an “ingredient” until the 1800s) could be used in brewing. Other nations were less willing to conform to the German’s snobbishness. The Belgians, for example, experimented with adding ingredients such as sugar syrups, spices and wheat. Regardless of style, most beers are based off the four ingredients in the German purity law.

Water

Water is the foundation on which beer is built. From Dublin, to Pilsen, to Munich, the great beer styles of the world evolved due to clean water sources that provided the right mix of minerals to compliment the style. The almost mineral-free waters of Pilsen allowed Czech brewers to brew light colored pilsners, while the mineral rich waters of Dublin allowed the Irish to showcase dark colored stouts. Regardless of style, good tasting water will produce good tasting beer.

Barley

Barley could be one of the most versatile and complex ingredients in the beer brewing process. This single ingredient can take countless forms, each having a completely different effect on the final beer. Much like coffee, barley is roasted in different ways to yield different results. To keep it simple, lightly roasted barley yields lightly colored beers, and darkly roasted barley yields darker beers.

Hops

What are hops? Well… they look like little soft green pinecones – or some sort of hybrid between a leaf, a flower and a pinecone. They are included in beer for a variety of reasons. First, they add bitterness to beer which balances the sweetness imparted by barley. They also introduce other flavors to beer, as well as distinct aromas that can range anywhere from grapefruity, to herbal and grassy. Flavor aside, one of the most important reasons they were added to beer in times past was for the antimicrobial properties of hops. Early beer makers were able to stave off spoilage by loading up their beer with hops.

Yeast

I find this ingredient to be the most mysterious and intriguing. Given the right conditions, these microscopic work horses can change your every day liquid into a delicious and alcoholic beverage in a matter of weeks. With out them, beer would be nothing more than darkly colored sweet water. Depending on the type of yeast, the same beer could potentially turn out clean tasting and smooth, or fruity, complex and even spicy.

How it all works

Like most grains, barley contains large amounts of starch. Brewers take advantage of this by mashing (or steeping in hot water) malted barley. The hot water provides the ideal environment for the grain’s naturally occurring enzymes to break down the starch into sugar. The result of mashing is a dark water – called wort – which is strained (or lautered) from the spent grains. It is flavored by both the roast on the barley itself, as well as the sugar that results from the broken down starches.

This sugary water is then boiled for about an hour, hops are added for bitterness and aroma, and then the liquid (wort) is cooled down to room temperature so that yeast can been added. The yeast can then get to work on eating the sugar and creating alcohol (and many other substances). When the job is done, low and behold, beer is born.

The beer can be bottled, kegged, or moved to a serving tank. In order to carbonate it, brewers can add fresh sugar, and then seal the beer in either a bottle or a keg. The yeast eats the new sugar and creates carbonation. As long as the carbon dioxide has no where to escape to, it will dissolve into the beer, and yield a naturally carbonated beer. Otherwise, the beer can be force carbonated by directly adding Co2.