The Basics of Brewing
At a very basic level, all beer is made the same way. Though there are many methods for making beer, they essentially achieve the same objective. For example, all coffee is made with a crushed, roasted coffee bean and mixed with hot water, etc. In this same sense, all beer is created the same way from a homebrewer's basement to Budweiser. Beer creation starts by extracting sugars from malted barley in a process called mashing. These sugars are dissolved into water creating "wort." The wort is boiled for about an hour and then cooled. Yeast is added to the cooled wort. The yeast eats the sugars and beer is created. This is the essence of nearly all beers. 1) Barley is malted:
Malting is sprouting and drying a grass seed (barley, corn, rice, wheat, rye, etc.). The sprout is allowed to grow only a quarter of an inch before the seed is lightly dried using a low heat. Malting is an exacting science which brewers usually do not perform. Dried barley malt contains enzymes (amylase, among others) which will break down the starch of the barley seed into sugar when placed in a warm, wet environment. This enzymatic activity is powerful enough to also convert other starch sources such as rice or corn that may be added to the "mash."
2) Crushed malted barley is mashed:
After crushing the malt (the seed is broken into 3 or 4 small pieces) it is heated into a porridge-like goo with the addition of hot water. The final temperature is about 150 to 155 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature, the enzymes (amylase) created during malting of the barley become very active and proceed to cut up the starch into sugar. The starch sources are the barley itself and other grains or starches that may be added at the brewer's discretion. The sugar that is created by the enzymatic activity dissolves into the water used to heat the mash. This sweet barley water (wort) is strained off and more hot water is applied to the top of the mash to wash off and capture residual sugar. This is called, "sparging." The sweet barley water (wort) is run off (lautering) with a pump to the boiling kettle.
3) The wort is boiled with hops:
Boiling the wort achieves several goals:
- Condensing the wort
- Coagulating proteins
- Adding hop bitterness and flavor
- Sanitizing the wort
Most of these processes are of little importance to the consumer but hops deserve some mention. Hops are an oily flower whose only close relative is marihuana. The oils in hops impart bitterness, a "green" or "piney" flavor, and aroma. The longer a hop boils, the more the aromatic and flavor aspects of the hop boil away and bitterness becomes predominant. The less time they boil, the more of these flavors and aromatic aspects are preserved without creating bitterness. For instance, in a pale ale we might add hops at 60 minutes before the end of the boil. These are strictly for bitterness. Hops added at 15 minutes before the end of the boil add very little bitterness but they provide a dry, green flavor and some aroma. Hops added at 5 minutes before the end of the boil add about equal amounts of aroma and flavor. Hop additions at the end of the boil add only aroma. The type of hops, quantity of hops, and timing of additions all change the flavor of the beer. For a thousand pounds of barley malt used in a beer, we may only use 10 pounds of hops or less. Pretty potent!
4) Fermentation:
After boiling, the bittered wort is quickly cooled and pumped to a fermenter. In the fermenter, yeast is added. The yeast is a microscopic critter that eats sugars. When it does, it also reproduces itself which creates lots of healthy young yeast that we collect and use again in the next batch. The yeast also excretes as it feeds. Their excretions are called carbon dioxide and ethanol, or bubbles and alcohol. Yeast poop is what we like about beer. As the yeast eats, the quantity of sugar in solution is reduced. The amount of sugar in the wort before fermentation is measured and we call that "original specific gravity" or "original gravity." If we measure it again after fermentation, after all of the available sugars have been eaten, that measurement is called "final Gravity" or "terminal gravity." The difference between the two can be an indicator of alcohol content. A high terminal gravity might also indicate more body and sweetness.
5) Clearing the beer:
With most styles, excess yeast must be cleared out of the beer before it can be served. A filter can do that, but it is expensive and has other negative drawbacks. "Fining" is the process of adding certain reactive substances to the cloudy beer. Yeast is strongly attracted to this fining agent and so they form large clumps that quickly fall to the bottom of the "bright" tank (flocculation). This leaves a clear beer within 2 days if performed correctly. After this process is complete, the beer is carbonated and kegged or bottled.
Beer falls into 2 categories: ales and lagers.
Ales have fruitier flavors (butterscotch, apple, lemon/clove, citrus, etc.) and lagers have more singular, straight ahead flavors (malt, bread, wheat, hop, yeast, etc.).
Color has little to do with the intensity, bitterness or sharpness of the beer. However, certain beers that are darker, in fact do have more body, more malty or nutty flavors. Some beers, like stout, get some of their sharp, acrid character from the highly roasted malts used in their creation. Both ales and lagers span the full range of colors and intensities. They go from blonde to pale to amber to brown to deep ruby to absolutely black. They range from sweet to deeply bitter and dry. Potency can range from nonalcoholic to 12% by volume (and even more!).
The technical differences between ales and lagers are involved and boring and have nothing to do with describing the flavor or body of the styles. Specific types of yeasts are used to make lagers and ales but some lager yeasts create ale-like flavors and some ale yeasts produce lager-like flavors. A beer is judged a lager or ale by flavor profile alone, not by how it was made. Taste is the most important identifier of style because flavor is what beer is about (not laboratory analysis).
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