Beer
| Beer is the first alcohol known to man. Ancient civilizations
drank, worshiped with, and paid workers with beer. It was
considered food. Of course, you can’t compare it to
the beer of today because their beer was crudely warm and
usually had grain floating in it. |
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Today beer is either one of two types; ale or
lager. Ale is top fermenting and Lager is bottom fermenting.
You should also know that in 1516 The Reinheitsgebot Law was enacted
in Bavaria, Germany requiring that beer be made from malt, hops,
yeast, and water only.
How It’s Made
1. A malt has to be made by soaking barley with water. This allows
it to germinate (grow).
2. The malt is then cleaned, ground, mixed with corn grits then
cooked. The sugary liquid it produces is called wort (wert).
3. The wort is put into kettles and boiled with hops. Hops
comes from an herbal vine and is where beer gets its flavor
and it also serves as a preservative. |
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4. The wort is now moved to a cooler and this is where either
ale yeast or lager yeast is added. This is where the magic happens
(fermentation). The wort is chilled even more to stop fermentation
and the yeast is removed.
5. Flavors can be added then it's filtered, pasteurized then stored
into bottles, cans, casks or kegs.
There are over 20,000 brands of beer are brewed
in 180 styles worldwide. Here are the most popular.
Ale: Stout, porter, wheat, bitter, lambic, brown, cream,
and pale.
Popular ale brands; Guinness, Sierra Nevada, Full Sail, Hefeweizen,
Bass, Sam Adams Boston Ale, Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, Sam Adams
Cream Stout, Killians, Rolling Rock, Pete’s Wicked Ale,
Pyramid, Red Hook, and Yuengling Porter.
Lager: Bock, dry, light, pilsner, ice, malt, amber, and
export.
Popular lager brands; Budweiser, Michelob, Miller, Sam
Adams Boston Lager, Fosters, Stella Artois, Carlsberg, Labatt,
Molson, Moosehead, Beck’s, Red Stripe, Corona, Heineken,
Zima, Icehouse, Smirnoff Ice, Red Dog, Colt 45, Mickey’s,
Lone Star, Falstaff, Pabst, Schlitz, and Yuengling Lager.
Steam Beer: The Anchor Steam Brewery in San Francisco
uses a brewing process that produces a beer half-lager/half-ale
(half top and half bottom fermenting yeast).
Beer is the only alcohol that is packaged in many forms and served
in many types of drink ware.
Packaging: Kegs/barrels, bottles, and cans.
Drink ware: Stein, yard, half-yard, mug, pint,
pilsner, weizen, tankard, goblet, thistle, pitcher and more.
Beer Facts
The first beer brewery in the U.S. opened in Manhattan in 1623.
The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810 in Munich, Germany.
Sake is a Japanese rice beer.
Beer is usually stored in dark glass bottles because they found
that ultraviolet rays convert the hop oils into a bad smelling
chemical.
Home brewers experiment with beer aged in used Jack Daniel’s
white oak barrels, chocolate, peanut butter, espresso beans, candied
ginger, oysters, seaweed and wild bacteria.
In the 1100’s, Germany brewed cold temperature lagers and
stored it in caves and England brewed mild temperature ales and
stored it in cellars.
