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 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.
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C'est...
What Is Beer All About?
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.
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 Japanese
sake, has for years been mislabeled "rice wine."
Because rice is a cereal grain, sake is really a
form of beer.
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."
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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 in order 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.
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 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."
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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, macrobrewers (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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 in order 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).
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IPA
or India Pale Ale was originally formulated with
the idea of surviving shipping from Great Britain
to India. It was aggressively hopped in order to
survive shipping from the old country to the chaps
in the colonies.
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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.
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One of the first
lager beers was produced in the town of Pilzen in
Czechoslovakia leading to the popular style pilsner
or pils.
American brewpubs often offer beer for take-out that is poured from the tap into glass jugs called growlers. This name dates back to pre-Prohibition time, 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
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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.
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.
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Beer
Aromas
Aromas associated with beer mainly come from malt and hops. Malt can smell perfumy-sweet to rich and carmelly. 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.
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