Beer Brewing For Beginners: 108 Home Brewing Beer Recipes Even Dummies Can Do Easily!
This now-hot water is then stored in a hot water tank. Fermentation takes place in fermentation vessels which come in various forms, from enormous cylindroconical vessels, through open stone vessels, to wooden vats. It is during this stage that sugars won from the malt are converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide , and the product can be called beer for the first time. Most breweries today use cylindroconical vessels, or CCVs, which have a conical bottom and a cylindrical top. CCVs can handle both fermenting and conditioning in the same tank. At the end of fermentation, the yeast and other solids which have fallen to the cone's apex can be simply flushed out of a port at the apex.
Open fermentation vessels are also used, often for show in brewpubs, and in Europe in wheat beer fermentation. These vessels have no tops, which makes harvesting top-fermenting yeasts very easy. The open tops of the vessels make the risk of infection greater, but with proper cleaning procedures and careful protocol about who enters fermentation chambers, the risk can be well controlled.
Fermentation tanks are typically made of stainless steel. If they are simple cylindrical tanks with beveled ends, they are arranged vertically, as opposed to conditioning tanks which are usually laid out horizontally. Only a very few breweries still use wooden vats for fermentation as wood is difficult to keep clean and infection-free and must be repitched more or less yearly.
There are three main fermentation methods, warm , cool and wild or spontaneous. Fermentation may take place in open or closed vessels. There may be a secondary fermentation which can take place in the brewery, in the cask or in the bottle. Brewing yeasts are traditionally classed as "top-cropping" or "top-fermenting" and "bottom-cropping" or "bottom-fermenting". Thus the method of collection no longer implies a species association. There are a few remaining breweries who collect yeast in the top-cropping method, such as Samuel Smiths brewery in Yorkshire, Marstons in Staffordshire and several German hefeweizen producers.
For both types, yeast is fully distributed through the beer while it is fermenting, and both equally flocculate clump together and precipitate to the bottom of the vessel when fermentation is finished. By no means do all top-cropping yeasts demonstrate this behaviour, but it features strongly in many English yeasts that may also exhibit chain forming the failure of budded cells to break from the mother cell , which is in the technical sense different from true flocculation.
The most common top-cropping brewer's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae , is the same species as the common baking yeast. However, baking and brewing yeasts typically belong to different strains, cultivated to favour different characteristics: As such, the yeasts involved in what has been typically called top-cropping or top-fermenting ale may be both Saccharomyces cerevisiae and complex hybrids of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces kudriavzevii. Three notable ales, Chimay , Orval and Westmalle , are fermented with these hybrid strains, which are identical to wine yeasts from Switzerland.
Brewers in Bavaria had for centuries been selecting cold-fermenting yeasts by storing "lagern" their beers in cold alpine caves. The process of natural selection meant that the wild yeasts that were most cold tolerant would be the ones that would remain actively fermenting in the beer that was stored in the caves. A sample of these Bavarian yeasts was sent from the Spaten brewery in Munich to the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen in who began brewing with it.
In Emile Hansen completed a study on pure yeast culture isolation and the pure strain obtained from Spaten went into industrial production in as Carlsberg yeast No 1. Another specialized pure yeast production plant was installed at the Heineken Brewery in Rotterdam the following year and together they began the supply of pure cultured yeast to brewers across Europe. Lambic beers are historically brewed in Brussels and the nearby Pajottenland region of Belgium without any yeast inoculation. Specific bacteria cultures are also available to reproduce certain styles. After an initial or primary fermentation, beer is conditioned , matured or aged, [] in one of several ways, [] which can take from 2 to 4 weeks, several months, or several years, depending on the brewer's intention for the beer.
The beer is usually transferred into a second container, so that it is no longer exposed to the dead yeast and other debris also known as "trub" that have settled to the bottom of the primary fermenter. This prevents the formation of unwanted flavours and harmful compounds such as acetylaldehyde. Lagers are stored at cellar temperature or below for 1—6 months while still on the yeast. During secondary fermentation, most of the remaining yeast will settle to the bottom of the second fermenter, yielding a less hazy product. Some beers undergo an additional fermentation in the bottle giving natural carbonation.
They are bottled with a viable yeast population in suspension. If there is no residual fermentable sugar left, sugar or wort or both may be added in a process known as priming. The resulting fermentation generates CO 2 that is trapped in the bottle, remaining in solution and providing natural carbonation.
Bottle-conditioned beers may be either filled unfiltered direct from the fermentation or conditioning tank, or filtered and then reseeded with yeast. Cask ale or cask-conditioned beer is unfiltered and unpasteurised beer that is conditioned including secondary fermentation and served from a cask, either pumped up from a cellar via a beer engine hand pump , or from a tap by gravity.
Filtering the beer stabilizes the flavour, and gives beer its polished shine and brilliance. Not all beer is filtered. When tax determination is required by local laws, it is typically done at this stage in a calibrated tank. There are several forms of filters, they may be in the form of sheets or "candles", or they may be a fine powder such as diatomaceous earth , also called kieselguhr.
The powder is added to the beer and recirculated past screens to form a filtration bed. Filters range from rough filters that remove much of the yeast and any solids e. Filtration ratings are divided into rough, fine, and sterile. Rough filtration leaves some cloudiness in the beer, but it is noticeably clearer than unfiltered beer. Fine filtration removes almost all cloudiness. Sterile filtration removes almost all microorganisms. These filters use sheets that allow only particles smaller than a given size to pass through.
The sheets are placed into a filtering frame, sanitized with boiling water, for example and then used to filter the beer. The sheets can be flushed if the filter becomes blocked. The sheets are usually disposable and are replaced between filtration sessions. Often the sheets contain powdered filtration media to aid in filtration. Pre-made filters have two sides. One with loose holes, and the other with tight holes.
Flow goes from the side with loose holes to the side with the tight holes, with the intent that large particles get stuck in the large holes while leaving enough room around the particles and filter medium for smaller particles to go through and get stuck in tighter holes. Filters that use a powder medium are considerably more complicated to operate, but can filter much more beer before regeneration.
Common media include diatomaceous earth and perlite. Packaging is putting the beer into the containers in which it will leave the brewery. Typically, this means putting the beer into bottles, aluminium cans, kegs , or casks, but it may include putting the beer into bulk tanks for high-volume customers. Brewing by-products are "spent grain" and the sediment or " dregs " from the filtration process which may be dried and resold as "brewers dried yeast" for poultry feed, [] or made into yeast extract which is used in brands such as Vegemite and Marmite.
Brewer's spent grain also called spent grain, brewer's grain or draff is the main by-product of the brewing process; [] it consists of the residue of malt and grain which remains in the mash-kettle after the mashing and lautering process. The brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers known as microbreweries or regional breweries depending on size and region.
Brewing at home is subject to regulation and prohibition in many countries. Restrictions on homebrewing were lifted in the UK in , [] Australia followed suit in , [] and the USA in , though individual states were allowed to pass their own laws limiting production. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Brewer disambiguation.
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This article is about the brewing of beer. For homebrewing, see Homebrewing. For other uses, see Brewing disambiguation. History of beer and Women in brewing. Malt and Mash ingredients. Brewer's yeast , Saccharomyces cerevisiae , and Saccharomyces pastorianus. The process of brewing beer. Add yeast to fermenter. For the role of wild yeast in winemaking, see Yeast in winemaking. This section does not cite any sources.
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. April Learn how and when to remove this template message. Beer bottle , Beverage can , Widget beer , Draught beer , and Cask ale. The Oxford Companion to Beer. Origin and History of Beer and Brewing: Supplement to the Journal of the American Oriental Society.
The Ingredients of Beer. Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow revised ed. University of Texas Press. Retrieved 16 November Retrieved 4 November The Midwife of Civilization". Assyrian International News Agency. When people of the ancient world realised they could make bread and beer from grain, they stopped roaming and settled down to cultivate cereals in recognisable communities. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Retrieved 21 June The Story of the Pint. Archived from the original on 2 October Retrieved 5 November Retrieved 18 April Retrieved 18 June Carolyn Smagalski, Bella Online.
The Transfer of Knowledge. Retrieved 20 May Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Retrieved 31 July Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved 1 August A History of Beer and Brewing. Royal Society of Chemistry. The Art of Fermentation.
Archived from the original on 29 June Retrieved 28 September Archived from the original on 19 August Mukerji 1 March Laboratory Manual of Food Microbiology. The Dictionary of Beer and Brewing. Chaston Chapman 22 Mar Botany, Cultivation and Utilization. Young 31 October Consultation Responses pp71, 5 October Retrieved 19 June The Science of Drinking: Archived from the original on 3 November Retrieved 12 November Archived from the original on 16 February A History of Beer and Brewing 1st ed.
Bamforth; Robert Edwin Ward The Oxford Handbook of Food Fermentations. Retrieved 30 July The Illustrated Guide to Brewing Beer. Retrieved 13 November Alcohol in Popular Culture: Foods and Nutrition Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 19 April Retrieved 15 December Archived from the original on 11 April Retrieved 31 March Archived from the original on 17 June Retrieved 15 November The Science of Beer.
Bamforth 9 September Bamforth 4 October Essays in Brewing Science. Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing. Malting and Brewing Science: Hopped Wort and Beer. A Gauge for Enthusiasts. A Guide to Historical Records. Young 31 August Hybrid beers cross over ale and lager style guidelines. Specialty beers, on the other hand, are practically limitless. This unofficial style of beer covers a very wide range of brews that are hard to define, much less regulate. Typically, specialty beers are brewed to a classic style such as Porter or Weizenbier but with some new flavor added; some are made from unusual foods that are fermented.
Guidelines are useless, and brewing anarchy rules the brewhouse. The rules-be-damned attitude is what makes specialty beers so fun to brew and drink. The following sections provide pointers for buying, serv- ing, tasting, dining with, and cooking with beer. Buying beer Beer is food. And like most foods, especially bread, beer is perishable and becomes stale over time, so the fresher the beer, the better it is. Beer freshness has three enemies: Check out Chapter 9 for the full scoop on buying beer wisely. As with all beverages that contain alcohol, governments maintain strict con- trol over the labeling of those beverages.
Similarly, breweries take liberties when they market their beers; these marketing liberties also lead to confusion on the part of the consumer. Chapter 10 walks you through this minefield of label laws and liberties to help you make good beer-buying choices. Failing to properly serve a beer can have a measurable effect on your beer drinking pleasure. Here are some pointers for proper beer enjoyment: Most beers should be served around 42 degrees Fahrenheit. But some beers should be served lightly chilled or at room temperature.
Getting a Taste of Beer Always pour your beer into a drinking vessel. In other words, never drink straight from the can or bottle. Dirty, smelly glasses can ruin your beer and be a bad reflection on you. For more tips on serving and tasting beer, have a look at Chapters 1 1 and People everywhere are discovering just how versatile and interesting beer is when you pair it with appropriate food choices. Here are a couple of simple rules to get you started: When compared to ales, lagers have the following characteristics: When compared to lagers, ales have these qualities: Still curious about dining with beer?
Turn to Chapter 13 to learn more about successful beer and food pairings. Beginning with Beer Basics Intimidated by the thought of cooking with beer? Consider the following fac- tors when choosing a beer for cooking purposes: Beers brewed with a lot of dark grain, such as Stout and Porter, are likely to transpose their color to your meal — not an appetizing hue for fettuccine Alfredo or scrambled eggs.
In general, go with a mild beer rather than a bold one and avoid highly hopped beers, such as some Pale Ales. Reserve the sweeter, heavier beers such as Belgian Tripels or Scotch Ales for dessert mixes and glazes. As water and alcohol boil off, both the sweet and bitter flavors of the beer intensify.
Chapter 14 has good info on this topic and some great recipes! Taking a Tour of Beers around the Globe Craft and artisanal beer has gotten so popular in the past several years that people are even organizing vacations and launching spontaneous jaunts in search of good beer. In the following sections, I introduce you to the beer scenes in North America, Europe, and other spots around the world.
Make your way to Chapters 15, 16, and 17 for more about beer travel. People can find lots to cel- ebrate and explore in North American breweries, beer festivals, and brewery museums. With more than 2, craft brewers or brewpubs now plying their trade in the United States and Canada more than 1, in the U. The majority of these craft brew- ers are brewpubs where you can sample the local brew while enjoying a good meal. The same can be said for the growing number of beer bars and gastro- pubs that continue to spring up in urban areas. Commercial brewing has been serious business in Europe since the 12th century.
Not just the beverage itself, but also European technology and expertise to make good beer have helped build the brewing industries in Asia and elsewhere. You can drink well in almost all European countries, but the crown jewels of beerdom are Germany especially Munich and Bavaria as a whole , the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, and the Czech Republic. The pub culture in most of the major brewing nations is mostly intact, and a visit to practically any local bar is likely to yield a good beer discovery.
In Germany, you can become overwhelmed by the sheer number of breweries that exist Bavaria alone has more than , while beer trekkers in Belgium may get thoroughly bewildered by the variety of unusual beer styles served at any given bar. Japan, China, and Thailand owe their brewing successes to the Germans, who greatly influenced beer production and consumption in these Asian coun- tries. In more recent years, however, the American craft-brewing industry has begun to attract interest in these Asiatic countries — especially Japan.
This practice continued well into the Middle Ages, when beer making became more of a business, although homebrewing never stopped completely. In fact, brewing beer at home is what got thousands of Americans through 13 years of prohibition, when production of alcoholic beverages was against the law. Homebrewing is also credited with sowing the seeds of the current craft beer renaissance.
Ever dream about making your own beer at home? Well you may be surprised by how easy the process is — and how great the reward. All you need is access to a good equipment and ingredient supplier, good instruction see Chapter 18 , and some patience. Chapter 2 From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: The taste and style of beer are profoundly affected by the individual ingredients used in the beer-making process, even though only four ingredi- ents are absolutely necessary to make good beer. The fab four are: This chapter explores the four main ingredients of beer and their contributions to that delicious brew.
Getting a Taste of Beer Barley: Cereal for Beer, Mot for Breakfast What comes to mind when you think of cereal grains? You may be surprised to know that cereal grains not the flakes, the grains and many other grains can be used to make different kinds of beer. But the cereal grain that lends itself best to beer making is barley shown in Figure Barley, a cereal grain, has natural starches that brew- ers convert into sugars that feed the yeast during the fermen- tation of beer.
Before barley grain can be used to make beer, it must undergo a process known as malting, in which moisture stimulates the natural germination pro- cess inside the grain see Chapter 3 for more about beer processes. Malted barley gives beer its color, malty sweet flavor, dextrins to give the beer body, protein to form a good head, and perhaps most important, the natural sugars needed for fermentation. Malted barley comes in a variety of colors, flavors, and degrees of roastiness that profoundly affect the color and taste of the beer.
Although barley is the most commonly used grain in beer making, many brewers use additional grains, such as wheat, oats, or rye, to imbue their beer with different flavors. These specialty grains all serve the purpose of cre- ating different flavors and levels of complexity in the beer and perplexity in the beer critic. Floaters for FlaOor and Aroma Hops are the pinecone-like flowers of a female climbing plant in the cannabis family of plants see Figure Hops are vining plants with cone- like flowers that give beer its bitterness and unique aroma and flavor.
Lupulin contains the essential oils, bitter acids, and resins that do the following four big jobs in beer making — a lot of work for a tiny flower: Beers with strong hop aroma and flavor are said to be hoppy, and beer fans who crave this kind of beer are said to be hopheads. While the alpha acids in the hops are responsible for bittering the beer, the beta acids have been found to counteract and delay the inevitable effects of bacterial spoilage, thereby giving beer a longer shelf life. Getting a Taste of Beer Hops history In ninth-century central Europe, hops were cul- tivated for the first time instead of being picked in the wild.
Records show that hop growing flourished in Bohemia in Priorto hop usage in beer making, brewers bittered their beer with flowers, leaves, berries, spices, and a host of odd and unpalatable ingredients, many of which failed miserably. By the 16th century, hops had become the most widely accepted spice for beer. In the following sections, 1 talk about hop varieties and their bittering poten- tial, aromatic properties, and flavor qualities.
I also touch on what types of hops brewers use during different stages of the brewing process. Nothing that occurs naturally in the beer-making process is pathogenic, or virally harmful to your health. Note the use of the word naturally. North American hops are pretty assertive, meaning that they leave no doubt about their presence in the beer. The vast majority of the hop varieties or cultivars are hybrids of original varieties, cross-bred to capitalize on specific genetic qualities, such as high yields and resistance to disease.
Beer Ingredients Hopping or bitterness, aroma, and more Each kind of hop is distinctive in its bittering, aroma, and flavor profile. The differences between them are sometimes so subtle that even experienced beer judges are hard put to recognize the use of different hops in a given brew. Each hop variety is more or less bitter, just like rejected lovers. Only instead of being measured in the number of forlorn letters and pleading phone calls, hop bitterness is measured scientifically and expressed in terms of alpha acid content, from a low of about 2.
Brewers learn these bitterness numbers so they can determine what they call the bittering potential of each hop variety, which allows them to substitute different types of hops because of availability or price and to determine the exact quantity of hops needed for a particular brew recipe. The distinctive aroma of each type of hop comes from the essential oils that dissipate during the boiling part of brewing, so some hops are added after that stage in order to get their aroma into the beer, in a step known as late kettle hopping.
Brewers take into account all these variables — bitterness, flavor, and aroma — when designing a beer recipe. People actually know and appreciate this stuff! Many brewers consider their yeast to be their most secret ingredient and often guard its identity jealously, calling it a proprietary ingredient. Yeast is in the fungus family and, because of its cell-splitting capabilities, is self-reproducing. Yeast has a voracious appetite for sweet liquids and produces abundant quantities of alcohol ethanol and carbon dioxide in exchange for a good meal which means that yeast is also responsible for pro- ducing brain-splitting headaches if you drink too much.
Getting a Taste of Beer The vast majority of beer contains between 4 and 6 percent alcohol, but occa- sionally, brewers make beer with higher alcohol contents. In these beers, after reaching a level of 8 or 10 percent alcohol by volume, the beer yeast falls into a stupor, and fermentation is effectively over. When the brewmaster wants higher alcohol levels, he uses hardy champagne yeast to do the job. Ale yeast has a lineage that reaches into antiquity — wild, airborne strains did the trick. This discovery began with the invention of the microscope in the early s and was furthered by Louis Pasteur nearly a century later when Pasteur proved that a rapid heating pro- cess would kill bacteria and other microorganisms.
Pasteur was more inter- ested in beer than milk, by the way, as am I. The genetically engineered lager yeast variety was perfected only in the mids. They had to brew ale, ferment and store it at cold temperatures, and hope for the best. In the early days, knowing only that the frothy, sludgy substance that accu- mulated on the top of a vat of fermenting beer was somehow responsible for turning raw, sweet stuff into finished beer, English-speaking brewers spoke from the heart when they christened it Godisgood, and when warm-weather fermentations went sour, they blamed it on beer witches.
Nowadays, brewers can order yeast strains from a catalog, by number: Since the late s, numerous pure yeast strains — more than different types — have been isolated, identified, and cultured. Commercial yeast banks inventory these strains in the form of sterile slants test tubes , and some individual breweries keep their own sterile cultures on hand for future brews. Yeast can also take credit for the classification of the beer style. Brewmasters pick a yeast according to the recipe or the style of beer they want to make. Because of the temperature differential, each yeast strain produces the vastly different flavor and aroma characteristics that, in turn, create the different beer styles you know and love and drink.
Yeast, in combination with differ- ent fermentation processes, can also contribute fruitiness and other flavor characteristics to the beer. Beer Ingredients Yeast genus and genius For all you biology fans out there, here's the scoop on yeast I'm talking about two different species of the genus Saccharomyces: And bread or baker yeast is part of the same genus, in case you wondered.
Do you recognize a familiar root word in the ale yeast strain's Latin name? Cerevisiae is based on Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. It's also the root of the Spanish word for beer: Do you recognize a familiar root word in the lager yeast strain's Latin name? Carlsbergensis is named for the giant Danish brewery, Carlsberg. The founder's son, Jacob Christian Jacobsen, who counted Louis Pasteur among his friends and colleagues, set up a company laboratory in In this lab in , the first single-cell yeast culture was definitively isolated.
Emil Hansen set the stage for modern lager brewing by giving the brewmaster the ability to choose a specific strain of yeast that produced good beer and thereby establish brand consistency. Another member of this order, but of a different genus, is Brettanomyces the term Brettanomyces comes from Greek for British fungus. Oddly enough, Brett is becoming quite pop- ular in certain circles within the beer community even though beers fermented or aged with Brett have a very distinct barnyard aroma and acidic tinge in the flavor see Chapter 6 for more info.
Like its lager yeast cousin, Brett was also discov- ered atthe Carlsberg Brewery in Some of the classic world styles of beer became classics because of the water used to make the brew. The famed Pilsner beers of Bohemia, such as Pilsner Urquell, are considered premier examples. These crisp, hoppy lagers are made with extremely soft water pumped from the aquifers below the brewery.
By contrast, the legendary British Ales of Burton-upon-Trent, such as Bass Ale, are made with particularly hard water. Brewers attempting to emulate these British beers simply add minerals called Burton salts to the brewing water in a process named Burtonizing. But any given water source can be, and usually is, chemically manipulated to match another source — some of the tradi- tional sources are treated anyway. Additional grains, natural sugars, and flavorings are often added to create unique flavors or to cut costs.
These little additions are referred to as adjuncts. Brewing artistes like to use a wide variety of nontraditional ingredients, including spices, fruits, and grains, to give their beers unique and unusual fla- vors. Big beer factories, on the other hand, tend to use adjunct grains to cut costs rather than to create different or innovative brews.
Many industrial brewers use adjunct grains that include unmalted cereal grains, such as corn and rice, to save money because barley is a relatively expensive grain. Using corn and rice as adjuncts also produces lighter and less malty beers. While some European brewers use between 10 and 20 per- cent adjunct grains in their beers, some large U. In Germany, the use of adjuncts — or anything other than malt, hops, yeast, or water — in lagers is prohibited by the famed German Purity Law see Chapter 10 for info on this law. Non-grain adjuncts may include the following: All these ingredients are permitted under U.
That some brewers put rather odd ingredients into their beers is no longer unusual. These days, adventurous beer lovers can find beers with fruits and fruit flavorings, licorice, herbs and spices, even whole jalapeno peppers right in the bottle! And as long as the market can stand it, brewers will continue to introduce beers with new and unique ingredients. Chapter 3 A Little Brew Magic: Understanding How Beer Is Made In This Chapter Identifying equipment at a brewery Walking through the brewing process rewing beer is fairly complex and involves a lot of equipment, espe- daily when compared to winemaking.
The ingredients are roasted, ground, heated, cooled, boiled, stirred, and so on. Brewmasters have plenty of room to assert their taste and demonstrate their talent, but brewing takes a lot of work and skill. After you read this chapter, you can appreciate how hard a brewmaster must work to achieve a balance of all the flavors, aromas, and textures that the various ingredients and processes contribute to this complex beverage. The struggle to balance the final aroma, palate, and finish of the beer and to take into account all the variables is well worth the price of a pint when it works.
Just so you can recognize when it works, check out Chapter 12 for the nuances of appreciating beer, Chapter 2 for a rundown on beer ingredients, and Chapter 4 for a look at the styles of beer. A visit to any brewery will show you that although all breweries are in the business of brewing beer, no two breweries are exactly alike in terms of the equipment they use and the processes they follow. Brewpub owners usually like to show off their breweries. Brewing Equipment Although the equipment needed to brew beer traditionally was fairly simple, large commercial breweries today use equipment that does everything from crack the grain to seal the cases and a multitude of chores in between.
The following list gives you the basics see Figure for a schematic of the brew- ing equipment and process used in most breweries: Somewhere nearby is usually a second, sometimes smaller, similar-looking vessel called a mash tun, and if the place is big and brews lagers, it has yet another one, called a lauter tun. These vessels are vented through stacks that carry the steam out of the brewhouse, consequently treating the whole neigh- borhood to the intoxicating, malty-sweet aroma of beer in the making. Traditionally, these vessels were made of copper and were often referred to simply as the coppers which always reminds me of Dick Tracy in his black fedora, but he was no brewer.
Nowadays, the term has fallen out of use, mostly because modern brewing equipment is fab- ricated from the relatively cheaper and easier-to-obtain stainless steel. For sanitation pur- poses, fermenters are usually airtight vessels that allow only for the escape of the carbon dioxide pressure built up inside. However, some traditionalists in the industry, particularly in Britain and Belgium, still allow their beer to ferment in open vessels, and some even encourage spontaneous fermentations caused by wild, airborne yeast Belgian Lambic brewers, for example.
Aging tanks are often called secondary fermentation tanks because the primary fermentation took place in the previous tank ; finishing tanks are alternatively called conditioning tanks by packaging breweries or serving, holding, or bright beer tanks by brewpubs bright because the beer has clarified by this point.
Understanding How Beer Is Made Because the beer must be regularly transferred from one vessel to another throughout the brewing and aging processes and because everything has to be super-clean, various pumps and hoses are scat- tered throughout the brewery, making some setups look like a Rube Goldberg device. Although the actual size and complexity of the brewing equipment and process vary among breweries, this sche- matic shows the basic brewing process.
The BreiOiny Process Explaining the usual sequential steps to making beer on the commercial level gets a bit technical — you have my permission to skip this section and move on. Getting a Taste of Beer Mega, micro, and more It takes all kinds to make the world work, espe- cially in the world of beer. Brewers tend to fall into categories by size, with some correlation to styles brewed. You often hear these terms: These brewers are the big- gest of the bunch. European giants Heineken and Guinness brew somewhat less, and the relatively new partnership of Miller and Coors cleverly called MillerCoors also produces millions of barrels of beer on an annual basis.
That's why they're called megabrewers. These guys fall between the big and the small. They distribute mostly on the regional level and may produce either gourmet or mass-market beer under their own or other labels. Anyone with a good recipe and a ton of cash for marketing can have a commercial brewery usually a regional one make beer for them, perhaps at several locations. Only one contract brewer ever broke the million-barrel-a-year mark and that brewer eventually went on to operate two of its own brewing facilities. Small entrepreneurs with breweries that make less than 60, bar- rels a year are called microbrewers.
Some people disregard the quantity qualifier — and the dictionary — and simply associate microbrews also called micros with good, artisanal, flavorful beer. Brewpubs include the folks who brew on the premises of their own bar or restaurant. They rarely brew more than several thousand barrels a year. Malting The first step of brewing is malting, in which raw barley or sometimes wheat is converted to malted barley also known as barley malt or just plain malt.
If you want to get technical, the malting process involves preparing the starchy insides of the kernel the endosperm for conversion into soluble sugars called maltose by stimulating the natural germination process with moisture. Most often, professional maltsters the companies that malt the grain with large malting plants handle the whole process and sell the malt to the brew- eries.
The megabrewers, on the other hand, often do their own malting in an effort to control the process as well as the financial expenditure. When this little shoot called the acrospire reaches a certain length, the maltster blows hot air through the bed of grain, stopping the germination cold sorry — hot! Understanding How Beer Is Made After the malt is dry, the maltster takes some of the malt and roasts it further in a kiln to bring out various colors and roasty or toasty flavors that create different colors and flavors in the beer, much as with coffee beans and coffee.
The maltster also heats some malt to the point of becoming crystallized, charred, or deeply browned, slyly called crystal malt, black malt, or chocolate malt, respectively. Milling Before brewers can put the grain which may include malted and unmalted grain into the mash tun and begin brewing see the next section for details , they have to mill it.
The brewer then transfers the cracked grain, now called grist, into the mash tun. If the grain has to be moved up or around, it must be moved by an auger or conveyor in the old days, everything was moved by gravity, from one floor to the one below. Mashing After the grist is in the mash tun, the brewer infuses it with hot water, just like making a couple thousand pots of tea.
Quite often, a brewer blends several different kinds of malt or specialty grains like those mentioned in Chapter 2 to achieve unique colors and flavors.
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Together, the grist and the water create a thick porridge called the mash. Strict time and temperature controls help to effectively convert the starches to natural sugars within the kernels of grain. Brewing through the ages A team of Yale archaeologists excavated the remains of a 4,year-old bakery and brew- ery outside Cairo, Egypt.
They believe that the remains are from a village that housed pyra- mid laborers on the Giza Plateau. In addition to earthenware pots and petrified grain stores, they discovered tombs and clay tablets with hieroglyphics. One of these tablets describes the brewing processes and sings the praises of a Sumerian beer goddess. The "Hymn to Ninkasi" has been studied not only by students of ancient history but also by brewers who want to learn more about brewing in the past. Getting a Taste of Beer Malt whisky: A beer without hops The Scotch whisky-making process starts somewhat similarly to that of beer, its barley malt-family cousin.
Malt whisky is made from malted barley which gets its smoky character from being kilned with peat , which is also milled and mashed. Malt whisky is also fermented with yeast, but the similarity stops there: Maltwhisky doesn't use hops. Whisky makers sometimes call the result of this fermentation the beer! Beer the regular kind and whisky especially unblended, single-malt whisky share a scent of malt and, as you can expect, many fans. In fact, at least one magazine, The Whisky Advocate, covers both beer and whisky, along with some coverage of cigars. However, at last report, cigars weren't known to be distilled or hopped, but like whisky malt, they are smoked.
Brewing - Wikipedia
You had to see that one coming. When the brewer determines that the mash is complete, he transfers the thick, sweet, sticky wort as the malt juice is now called over to the brew kettle for the boil see the next section for details on this part of the pro- cess. Depending on the mashing method, the brewer either drains the liquid through a false bottom that keeps the grain in the mash tun or, if the beer is a lager, transfers it first to a lauter tun, which is built like a giant kitchen colander. The grain, now called spent grain, is no longer of use to the brewer after mash- ing, so the brewer often sells or donates it to local farmers to be used as hog slop.
Some brewpubs use the spent grain to bake a high-fiber bread. Boiling After the mashing process, the wort is boiled in the brew kettle — usually for an hour or so. The boil accomplishes many things, not the least of which is the complete sterilization of the liquid and any other ingredients added to it.
The brew kettle is also where the brewer goes about balancing the sweet wort with the pleasant bittering effects of the hops. By choosing a measured amount of a certain hop variety or a blend of several varieties and adding them at prescribed times bittering hops at the start, flavoring hops late in the boil, and aroma hops at the very end , the brewer gives the beer its indelible hop signature.
The next section has more details about fermenting. Understanding How Beer Is Made After an hour or two of boiling time, the brewer shuts off the heat and pre- pares the beer, now called bitter or hopped wort, for transfer to the fermenta- tion tank. The hops can be removed by a hop extractor, which functions much like the false bottom of a mash tun, or by a whirlpool, in which centrifugal force forces all solid matter to the center of the vessel, and the now-clarified wort draws off from the side.
The brewer pumps the wort from the kettle through a wort chiller, or heat exchanger, which works like the radiator in your car and utilizes cold water or a food grade coolant to quickly drop the temperature of the wort. Now rid of unwanted solids, the hot wort needs to cool down quickly for two reasons: Fermenting After boiling the wort and letting it cool, the brewer pumps the wort into the fermentation tank, and pitches, or adds, a slurry of fresh, aerated yeast to the tank. Commercial brewers use about a liter of yeast for each barrel approxi- mately 31 gallons of beer.
That little bit of yeast packs a wallop. During the primary fermentation, the yeast consumes the liquefied maltose sugars created during the mashing process. In return, the yeast produces carbon dioxide and alcohol. Within 24 hours of the yeast pitching, vigorous fermentation takes place, and a thick layer of dense foam appears on top of the turbid liquid. This process goes on for five to ten days, depending on the yeast strain as well as the fermentation temperature — determined, again, by the recipe. The cooler the fermentation temperature, the slower the action of the yeast.
Aging Beer ages quickly, compared to wine and people especially people who drink beer, of course. As I mention earlier in this chapter, after primary fermenta- tion is complete, the brewer transfers the beer to an aging tank called a sec- ondary fermentation vessel for — guess what — secondary fermentation and a period of aging and maturation that ranges from a couple of weeks for ales to a couple of months for lagers , depending on the beer style.
A small brewpub may curtail aging and send the beer straight to the bright beer tank for the final stage and sale as draught beer see the next section for more information. Getting a Taste of Beer The pros and cons Some brewers, mostly very small brewpubs, are able to circumventthe mashing procedures by using a dehydrated wort called malt extract.
Extract brewers, as people who use this stuff are called, need only to pour these extracts into their brew kettle and rehydrate them with boiling water. Malt extract can also be used to increase the gravity and, thus, the alcohol level, of a regular beer made from grain. There's no such thing as a free lunch, or even a free beer, forthat matter. In brewpubs, where the beer is meant to be served on the premises, the pub- keeper transfers the finished beer to the finishing tank, which, in this case, is often called the serving, holding, or bright beer tank.
The tank, which acts like a giant keg, is usually connected directly to the tap standards at the bar where the beer is drawn. In most packaging breweries, where the beer is packaged and shipped, the brewer draws the beer from the tank, after the appropriate amount of con- ditioning, to be filtered and kegged under pressure or bottled or canned. Bottled or canned beer may be pasteurized to kill any rogue yeast cells or bacteria that may have slipped through the system.
The pasteurizing process stabilizes the beer by heating it up to relatively high temperatures. Tunnel pasteurization, favored by megabrewers, sprays hot water over the bottles and cans for up to an hour. A gentler method, favored by some microbrewers, is called flash pasteurization, which may use extremely hot water or even steam, but for no more than a minute or so.
In other parts of the world, the chances are that draught beer for export has been pasteurized. Understanding How Beer Is Made Cleaning Brewers say that more water ends up on the floor of the brewery than in the brew kettle because of all the cleaning and rinsing that must take place before and after each brew be sure to wear your galoshes when you visit. Sanitizing the brewing equipment is as critical to making good beer as clean- ing the kitchen is to cooking good food most gourmet kitchens are spotless.
So cleaning is an integral part of the brewing process. So dive right in! Beer is now being brewed in a great profusion of styles, so much so, that new styles are actually being invented. Looking back through beer history, ales are considered the beer of antiquity. Eventually, in the midth century, lager beer took hold.
And somewhere along the way, the concept of hybrid beer was introduced. In this chapter, 1 sift through the main differences among ales, lagers, and hybrid beers. I also note a few important beer traits that you can use to describe various beer styles. Taking a Look at Beer Styles — Old, New, and Revived, Too All beers are made as ales or lagers; ale and lager axe the two main branches classifications of the beer family tree and are closely related branches at that.
Ales are the older, distinguished, traditional brews of the world, predat- ing lagers by thousands of years, whereas lagers are a relatively modern creation, less than years old. In the following sections, 1 explain how brewers use different types of yeast to create ales and lagers, and 1 note the differences in taste that you may find in ales and lagers. You have ale yeast and lager yeast, and these types of yeast, in turn, typically dictate the temperature at which the beer is fermented.
Ales are traditionally fermented at warmer temperatures 55 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 12 to 21 degrees Celsius , while lagers are typi- cally fermented at cooler temperatures 38 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, 3 to 10 degrees Celsius. The cooler fermentation and aging temperatures used with lager yeast slow down the yeast activity and require a longer maturation time. The cold envi- ronment inhibits the production of fruity aromas called esters and other fermentation byproducts common in ales.
Long aging or lagering' also acts to mellow the beer. Every beginner wants to know how ales taste different than lagers. If only it were that easy! This question is sort of like asking how red wines taste different than white wines. Ales share many common characteristics, and so do lagers, but the two groups overlap so much that any absolutes about either class are usually wrong.
This overlap creates some confusion and the need for experts to explain the different characteristics, but it also creates the need for beer exploration. Ales, Lagers, and More Gimme a beer — no, an ale! When the lager beer style was fully commer- cialized in the late 1 s, it was an instant hit in Germany and most of Europe, but lagers never really caught on in Belgium, Britain, and Ireland. Even today, if you ask for a beer in those coun- tries, you'll likely be served an ale, unless you specifically ask for a lager. Lagers quickly became the beer in North America, where the brewers were mostly German.
Until recently, if you asked for a beer in North America, you were likely served a lager. Beware the occasional beer menu that categorizes the brews as Beers and Ales — the correct division is ales and lagers, because both are beers. But the beer renaissance is changing that. Even in the remote villages of the hinterlands, beer drinkers can choose from among most, if not all, the world's beer types and styles — ales, lagers, and hybrids of every hue, strength, and flavor. Beer exploration is called for! Neither is clear One consequence of the craft-brewing renais- sance has been the creation of newer, nontra- ditional styles, such as Red Beer and Amber Beer.
Before the profusion of Red Ales and Lagers mostly brewed by megabrewers or their subsidiaries hit the store shelves, no such style existed. The parameters for Red Beer are hard to outline; Red Beers are pretty much what- ever the brewer or marketing genius wants them to be, though these beers tend to be light- to medium-bodied, fairly well malted, with a distinct caramel, nutty or toasty flavor directly attributable to the grain used to infuse the beer with a reddish-brown color. Amber Ale and Amber Lager were designated true styles.
Because this designation is based primarily on beer color, though, distinguishing between Pale Ales and Amber Ales is often difficult as many Pale Ales tend to appearamberin color. Understanding Ales As I note at the start of this chapter, ale is the beer classification that pre- dates written history. Presumably, the very first beers brewed by our homi- nid forebears were a crude form of ale spontaneously fermented by wild airborne yeasts. Hence, ales are, likewise, considered top-fermented beers.
They even called it Godisgood! Dating back into antiquity, most ales were thick and gruel-like, often con- taining bits of the grain that was used to make the beer and opaque from the yeast that fermented it. Archaeologists and anthropologists have determined that people used straws to drink the beer from huge communal bowls. Ales were also fairly dark and often smoky due to the process of drying the grain over a fire. In Scotland, where grain was dried over peat fires, the local ale took on the character of its sister swill, whisky.
The basic premise of brewing ales is to ferment them at fairly warm tem- peratures 55 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 12 to 21 degrees Celsius. At these temperatures, the yeast tends to remain quite active, thus completing the fermentation process in rather short order — in about a week or so. Ales, Lagers, and More likes to float on top of the beer as it ferments it, so ale yeast has come to be known as top-fermenting yeast. Pretty much any beer style introduced prior to the advent of artificial refrig- eration in the s qualifies as an Old World ale style; however, those ale styles that are on the lighter end of the color spectrum, as well as those styles that are served crystal clear, have certainly benefitted from the technologies of our modern era.
Beers are no longer all dark and smoky and cloudy, thanks to state-of-the-art grain drying apparatus and filtration systems. Not unlike the wild-fermented potions brewed by our Neolithic ancestors, some commercial brewers still produce their unique ales in a very antiquated and somewhat risky method. After brewing their beer, they pour it into large, shallow, open-topped vessels and allow Mother Nature to take over. Resident microflora find their way to the unprotected beer and have their way with it, producing some of the most odd and esoteric — not to mention, sour — beers on the planet.
The "New" Beer on the Stock: Getting Familiar With Lagers The key to understanding lager beer is in the word lager itself. The German word lagern means to store. Lagers are aged, or stored, for long periods of time at temperatures ranging from 38 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, 3 to 10 degrees Celsius. Early brewers of lager beers often located their brewing facilities on or near mountainous terrain so they could dig beer cellaring caves to store their beer. Flatlander brewers who had to forego Alpine caves, cut huge blocks of ice out of local lakes and rivers in the winter to store in an icehouse in order to achieve the same lagering effect in their beer.
With the advent of compressed-gas refrigeration in the late s, brewers who could afford this newfangled technology were able to set up shop anywhere they wanted — with nary a hilltop or frozen pond in sight. The yeast also drops out of suspension, settles on the bottom of the fermen- ter very early in the process, and continues to do its work there.
Therefore, lager yeast is also known as bottom-fermenting yeast, and lager beer is consid- ered bottom-fermented beer. By any measure, the introduction of artificial refrigeration is the dividing line between Old World ales and New World lagers — even though lagers were already being produced without that technology. But their lager quality was immeasurably enhanced by the total control brewers now had over the fer- mentation and aging process.
The length of the lagering process also had a secondary effect on the beer: It was more crystal clear at packaging time. Taking Note of Hybrid Beers As in many families, beers can have mixed parentage. These types of beers have been dubbed hybrid beers. The processes vary from one brewer to the next, as do the beers they create.
Not a lot of beer styles represent this type of hybrid. The most famous style is known as Steam Beer, but because the San Francisco brewery that popular- ized the style also trademarked the name Steam Beer, the style is now generi- cally referred to as California Common Beer. The Steam Beer style is also recognized as Dampfbier in Germany. Though it can no longer be confirmed, one theory suggests that the origina- tion of the steam label had to do with the vigorous warm fermentation that caused the vessel to hiss, or steam, while venting the increasing carbon diox- ide inside it.
Because brewers tend to have individual ways of doing things, pinning down the exact fermentation temperatures or lengths of fermentation of these beers is difficult. Thus, you can expect individualistic beers from these guys as well. The first two styles are of German origin, and the last one is uniquely American. Baltic Porter is kind of in a class all its own. Typically, Porter is considered an ale and is warm fermented. Many brewers who make Porters in the Baltic States like to cold ferment their beer, though — most often with lager yeast but occasionally with ale yeast, too.
Everything hut the Kitchen Sink: Looking at Specialty Beers Specialty beers are one of the most fun and popular beer categories in the world. This category is fun for the brewers and popular for the consumers because it really has no clearly defined boundaries or guidelines. So how did specialty beers come to be? Well, most craft brewers approach their profession with the same passion as an artist; they love the creative aspect of their job. When they shed the constraints of conformity, they prove themselves to be impressively gifted artisans capable of producing nothing less than nectar of the gods.
They decided to add strawberries and vanilla bean to a batch of BCS and voila! They had concocted a creamy choco- late-strawberry-vanilla libation they dubbed Neopolitan — it was sublime! In other words, the more out there the ingredients, the better. The civets first eat whole coffee cher- ries for their pulp, after which the inner beans ferment inside their stom- achs. After defecated, the beans — still whole — are collected, cleaned, and roasted. The result is a remarkably complex, full-bodied coffee. At least three brewers are known to have made a beer with Kopi Luwak coffee as an ingredient.
Emmininy the Traits of different Beers In order to fully understand and appreciate the various beer styles that exist in the world, knowing how beer styles differ from one another and how those differences are measured is helpful. In the following sections, 1 explore three ways to differentiate beer styles, define several terms used to describe the flavor of beer, and introduce the concept of craft beer. The color of beer is determined primarily by the grain used to make the beer.
Light-colored grain results in a pale-colored beer; con- versely, darker-roasted grains produce darker beers. The spectrum of beer color ranges from straw to black, and this color range is measurable on the Standard Reference Method SRM scale 0 to Bitterness in beer is primarily the result of extracting alpha acids from hops which I talk about in Chapter 2 during the boiling process. Brewers know all about these varieties and use the hops accordingly.
The term gravity refers to the density of beer. Gravity is mea- sured on the day the beer is brewed and is determined by the amount of soluble sugars — known as maltose — dissolved in the beer. Maltose is derived from malted grain, and beer gravity can be raised or lowered simply by increasing or decreasing the amount of malted grain used to brew the beer. Gravity can be measured on the specific or original gravity scale 1. An American Light Lager may have an original gravity of 1. Taking a Look at Beer Styles — Old, New, and Revived, Too Using a feiV tasting terms I examine many tasting terms in Chapter 12, but you need to know at least the following ones to understand the beer styles 1 list later in this chapter.
Knowing these terms may also encourage you to explore and experiment and also give you something to talk about with any hophead you may encounter at the bar: Balanced simply means that the malt and hops are in similar proportions, and the flavor has an equal representation of malt sweet- ness and hop bitterness — especially at the finish.
The body is the sensation of fullness, or viscosity, of a beer on the palate, ranging from watery to creamy. Beer is generally described as thin-, light-, medium-, or full-bodied strong simply refers to alcohol content. Complex means the beer is multidimensional, involving many flavors and sensations on the palate the opposite of simple. Crisp means the beer is highly carbonated or effervescent. Beers regarded as crisp are typically on the drier side as well.
This term describes a buttery or butterscotchy aroma or flavor. Estery is full of aromas that are reminiscent of fruits. Floral is full of aromas that are reminiscent of flowers. Fruity means the beer has flavors reminiscent of various fruits. Hoppy means the hops have earthy, herbal, spicy, or citrusy aromas and flavors. Malty describes flavors derived from malted grain. Malty beers have a more pronounced malt richness and sweetness. Mouthfeel is the tactile sensations of alcoholic warmth, car- bonation, dryness, and the like.
Body is also part of mouthfeel. Robust describes a rich and full-bodied beer. Crafting great beers Taste, style, and variety: Ales, Lagers, and More To use another food analogy, the craft brewer is like a great chef. Just as gourmet bakers turn out bread in astonishing but now familiar varieties, from breadsticks to bagels with pumpernickel, jalapeno rye, and hot dog buns in between , brewers can come up with an almost infinite number of variations on the classic, traditional styles noted later in this chapter. Craft brewers tend to use more expensive ingredients all malted grains and lots more of them per barrel than the big commercial brewers.
Craft brewers are artisanal brewers who all together brewed just under 10 million barrels in the United States in about 5 percent of all U. So while the megabrewers, such as Heineken and Anheuser-Busch, are pro- ducing the beer equivalent to Wonder bread, smaller craft brewers are making a wide range of beer styles, and you can taste the difference.
Listing Common Beer Sty les If you were to use fruits as a metaphor for all the beer styles in the world, the beer styles would be kind of like apples, bananas, grapefruits, pineapples, or kiwis: In that case, the U. Many beer consumers have this same concept of beer! The beer lists and descriptions that follow are based on classic bottled brands; the fun thing about beer exploring is that your local brewpubs and friendly local homebrewers usually offer their own versions of these Part II: This list is by no means complete.
Beer nuts can have heated arguments over the subject of beer styles. Ales Ales come in a very wide range of flavors and styles. The following list covers some of the best known Figure shows the ale family tree. Barleywine is often served in a wine glass or brandy snifter. It can be found in English and American substyles; the English leans toward malty, the American leans toward hoppy. Originated at monasteries in the Middle Ages and revived after the Napoleonic era, Belgian Dubbel is a deep reddish, mod- erately strong, malty, and complex ale.
Traditionally this beer is bottle conditioned it undergoes a subtle secondary fermentation in the bottle, which means it contains yeast. Belgian Pale Ale is a fruity, malty, somewhat spicy, copper-colored ale commonly found in the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Brabant. It has spicy and fruity malt character with citric notes. This style was originally popularized by the Trappist brew- ery at Westmalle in Belgium.
Only religious brewers — Trappist monks — can use the term Trappist, so secular brewers market Trappist-style beer as Abbey beer also Abby, Abt, Abdif. The ale family tree. Berliner Weisse is a very pale, refreshingly sour, wheat-based ale from Berlin. To cut the sourness, a dollop of raspberry or woodruff is often added to the glass before drinking.
In , Napolean referred to Berliner Weisse as the Champagne of the North for its elegant and lively character. A traditional farmhouse ale from Northern France, Biere de Garde is fairly strong and malt-accented. Like Saison, Biere de Garde is also produced in the spring for summer consumption. Along with other creature comforts from home, British royal subjects living in India demanded to have their favorite ales shipped to them, but the months-long journey on the open sea devastated the average cask of beer.
It's widely believed but unproven that a British brewer named George Hodgson recognized this problem and decided to brew an ale of greater alcoholic strength that could more easily with- stand the rigors of oceanic transit. The antisep- tic properties of the increased alcohol volume, coupled with a high concentration of hop acids, assured the colonialists of a palatable, if slightly more potent, product at journey's end.
For a long time, people believed that the gentle rocking motion of the ship on water caused the beer within the casks to pick up some of the oaky character, much like barrel-aged wine. But that myth has been debunked as beer bar- rels were typically lined with pine pitch, which would act as a liner to shield the beer from contact with the wood. Nevertheless, some brewers today press on and maintain that hypo- thetical link with the past by employing unlined oak barrels or using oakchipsforthe aging pro- cess of IPA.
Brilliant light yellow to golden with a bleached white head, Blonde Ale is similar to a Pale Ale in terms of flavor but its hop charac- ter is less assertive. Blonde Ale is a relatively new staple beer at many American breweries and brewpubs and is produced as a good entry- level transitional beer.
Brown Ales have both English and American versions. Brown Ales are good beginner beers for timid beer drinkers who are looking to try something beyond the ordinary not bad for old-timers, either. Not too malty, not too thin, with subdued fruity and caramel-like flavors, Brown Ales are mellow but flavorful. American versions tend to be more aggressively hopped.
Dry Irish Stout is a very dark, roasty beer with creamy mouthfeel. Dry Irish Stout is great for nursing beers, not babies, though in the past, it was often recommended for nursing mothers! Brownish in color with spicy aromatics, Dunkelweizen is the dark version of the very popular Bavarian-style Weizenbier or Weissbier. Its unique aromatic profile includes clove, banana, and occa- sionally bubblegum. This ale is a well-aged, fruity, and sour Brown Ale from Flanders Belgium.
Dark reddish-brown in color, this malty beer exhibits fruity complexity, often reminiscent of raisins, plums, figs, dates, and prunes. Ales, Lagers, and More Flanders Red: A complex, sour, wine-like ale from Flanders in Belgium, the Flanders Red is traditionally aged in oak tuns for up to two years. The more refined versions are blended with young beer. The Foreign Style Stout is a very dark, moderately strong, roasty ale. Foreign Style Stouts are a rather broad class of Stouts and can be fruity and sweet or dry and bitter. The Gueuze is a spontaneously fermented ale from the region near Brussels, Belgium.
Caramel malt char- acter and dark roasted malt flavor join to support aggressive hop presence. The India Pale Ale is a hoppy, moderately strong ale of golden-to-copper color. British versions accentuate English malts, hops, and yeast; the resulting beer is malty and fruity with a corre- sponding earthy hop bitterness. American versions accentuate North American malts, hops, and yeast strains; the resulting beer is drier, cleaner less fruity , and rather citrusy from American hop varieties. The Irish Red Ale is an easy-drinking, malt-focused beer with generous caramel malt notes.
Buttery or toffee flavors may also be experienced. The use of small quantities of roast malt provide for the reddish tinge in the beer. A complex, sour, wheat-based ale from the area surrounding Brussels, Belgium, Lambic Beer is spontaneously fermented by the airborne yeast around the Senne River Valley. Lambic Beers are also blended to create Gueuze and have various fruits added to them for fur- ther complexity and flavoring.
A decidedly British beer, Mild Ale or Mild was once one of the most widely produced beer styles in the United Kingdom. Most Milds are low-gravity session beers intended for extended drinking. Generally malty, Milds often exhibit caramel, toffee, nutty, and toasty aromas and flavors. Old Ales are fruity and malty with a variety of buttery, nutty, and toasty flavors.
These heavyweight sippers are great for casual after-dinner or late-night imbibing. Well-aged versions may display hints of souring. Pale Ales are rather fruity beers with light malt flavors and a pleasantly dry and often bitter aftertaste. English versions are more balanced and have more of an earthy hop character. See also India Pale Ale.
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A dark but not imposing ale, the Porter has light malt sweet- ness and pleasant dark grain flavors and makes for a wonderful sipping beer. Porters may range from medium-bodied and mild to big-bodied and robust. Porter and its cousin Stout are quite distinct from other beers. See also Baltic Porter in the later section on hybrid beers.
Baltic Porter is a very dark brew from countries that border the Baltic Sea and is influenced by Russian Imperial Stouts. Dark, roasty flavors evoke flavors of bittersweet chocolate, toffee, molasses, and licorice notes. Polish versions tend to be more malty sweet. Baltic Porter is typically cold fermented, but it may be fermented with either ale or lager yeast.
Oatmeal Stout is a very dark, full-bodied, roasty, malty ale with a complementary oatmeal flavor. Oats are added for body and complexity.
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Roggenbier is a specialty beer brewed in Bavaria as a more distinct variant of Dunkelweizen, using rye in place of wheat. These beers have a moderately spicy rye flavor, reminiscent of rye or pumper- nickel bread. Some American brewers add caraway seed to their rye beer to further accentuate the rye experience. A rich, intense, complex, and roasty dark ale, the Russian Imperial Stout has dark grain flavors that evoke bittersweet chocolate, cocoa, or strong coffee.
Saisons were traditionally brewed in Wallonia the French speaking part of Belgium in late spring to be consumed throughout the summer months. Scotch Ales are malt accented with a variety of caramel, nutty, and toasty flavors. This beer style is relatively unknown, and thus, underap- preciated in most of the world. Scottish Ales are more commonly found on draught rather than in bottles or cans. They possess a soft and chewy malt character that may be perceived as caramel or toffee and can range from golden amber to deep brown in color. Ales, Lagers, and More Two Entire-ly new beers In the mid-to-late s, working-class men in London gathered at their local pub to relax and solve the world's troubles over a pint of their favorite ale.
At one pub in particular, it became a habit of mixing two or three different draught beers into a single pint. One especially tasty mixture came to be known as Entire, and word of this beery concoction traveled to other pubs. When London brewer Ralph Harwood caught wind of this practice, he decided to create a beer that closely approximated the pub blend. He dubbed it Porter after the porters and other manual laborers who favored this beer.
After Harwood found success with his new Porter beer, many other London brewers imme- diately imitated it. The key to gaining attention for each new Porter that was introduced was to make it darker, richer, and bolder tasting. In a bit of one-upmanship, another brewer decided to call his new brew Stout Porter.
Eventually, the blacker, more intensely flavored beer became known simply as Stout — and the rest is history. Scottish Ales are identified by an antiquated shilling system based on their alcohol content.