How Beer is Made: The Ingredients Click on the items below to learn about each ingredient, or just keep scrolling down the page. |
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Glossary | Ingredients | Procedures |
Water
usually comprises over 90% of a beer’s weight, so the characteristics of the brewing water are important in determining the flavor of the beer. Certain types of water are good for different styles of beer. This is why certain cities are famous for a particular type of beer. A famous example of this is the pale ale of Burton-on-Trent in England. The water there is high in a chemical called sulfate, which amplifies the hop character of a beer, giving it a notably dry finish. The water of Burton-on-Trent is also low in residual alkalinity, which makes it suitable for brewing relatively light-colored beers (like Bass ale).The water of Albany, NY, is also low in residual alkalinity, so it is good for brewing light-colored beers. Albany water is also low in most other chemical species, making it a good, neutral foundation from which many different beer styles can be brewed with only minor adjustments to the water’s mineral content.
Malt is the next most abundant ingredient in beer. Malt is made by steeping a seed, most often barley, in water and allowing it to germinate. When the young plant is about the same length as the seed it is dried to halt its growth. The grain is then roasted in a kiln. The degree of roasting determines the color and flavor of the malt.
There are many different types of malt, and each is used to lend different colors, flavors and aromas to the beer. Pilsner malt (sometimes called pale malt in Germany, lager malt in England) is roasted at relatively low temperatures (~160-180 ° F) and is thus the lightest of all malts. The next lightest malt is British pale malt, also referred to as pale ale malt. Black malt is roasted at a very high temperature (~400 ° F) and is acrid and burnt tasting. Small amounts of highly roasted malts can be used in very dark beers like stouts and porters. Malt is important to the brewer for more than just the flavor and color it imparts to beer:
There are some "special malts" that are used in relatively small quantities to impart distinctive characteristics to beer. The most commonly used special malt is called caramel (or crystal) malt. As the name suggests, it adds a candy-like sweetness to the beer, which is desirable in certain styles.
We use many different types of malt to produce Evans’ beers. The most abundantly used are pilsner and Munich malts. Candy-like caramel malts are used in small quantities in some of our beers, including the pale and brown ales. Wheat malt is used in our wheat beers and Quackenbush BlondeTM. Almost all of the malt we use is produced by Weyermann of Bamberg, Germany. Visit their website at http://www.weyermann.de/ for more detailed information about malt production.
Adjuncts are defined as anything that provides food for the yeast ("fermentable material") that is NOT malt. Since brewer's yeast can only metabolize relatively simple sugars, the simplest adjunct one can use is some form of sugar. Corn sugar, candy sugar, honey, maple syrup and molasses are just a few of the sugary adjuncts available. Since the yeast will convert all of the sugar present in such adjuncts into alcohol and carbon dioxide, they will not sweeten the beer, but make it drier.
Starchy adjuncts can also be used, if they are mixed with the malt during the mash so that their starch is converted to sugar. Rice and corn are two of the most commonly used starchy adjuncts. They will add no flavor, color or body to a beer, but they will provide fermentable material for the yeast to convert to alcohol.
The large U.S. breweries all use large quantities of adjuncts in their flagship beers (40% or more of the total fermentable material). In this way they can brew very light-tasting, light-colored beers that still have the alcoholic strength of most other beers (4.5-5.0% alcohol by volume). Since corn and rice are also cheaper than malt, it makes their beer more profitable.
Many brewers of full-flavored beers use adjuncts, too, but in much smaller amounts than the average U.S. "Megabrewery." Unmalted barley and wheat are often used to improve the head retention and body of many craft beers, and various forms of sugar are used for different flavor effects. Usually the amount of adjunct in a craft beer will not exceed 15% of the total fermentable material.
Adjuncts cannot be used in Germany, because of their ancient beer tax law, the Reinheitsgebot (pronounced, rIn hIts ga bOt). Many of America's craft brewers, including the C.H. Evans Brewing Company, refrain from using adjuncts when brewing German-style beers.
Hops are used to provide bitterness in beer. They can also be used to give the beer a distinctive, floral, spicy, herbal flavor and aroma. Without a source of bitterness, beer would taste very sweet and be marginally drinkable. All modern beers are brewed with hops, although other spices are also used in certain beer styles.
Hops are a cone-like flower that are harvested from a climbing vine. Hops exist as separate male and female plants; only the flowers from the female plant are used in brewing. In most hop-growing countries the male plants are eradicated to prevent the pollination of the female flowers, so that no seeds develop.
Hop flowers contain lupulin glands, which look like yellow powder. These sticky glands contain the aromatic oils and bitter resins that the brewer values for making beer. There are many different varieties of hops, and they all have different aromas, flavors, and bitterness potential. The location that the hops are grown in also affects their brewing properties. Hops are grown in temperate regions all over the world, but most are grown in the northwestern United States, Germany, and England. It should be noted that upstate New York was the hop growing capital of the nation in the 19th century, but disease wiped out the hop farms.
Hops must be boiled to extract their bitterness into the beer, but boiling also cooks off the delicate oils that give beer hop flavor and aroma. The brewer can use this property to carefully control the hop character of the beer. The longer the hops are boiled, the more bitterness and less fragrant flavor and aroma will survive in to the final product.
If a brewer wants hop bitterness and fragrant flavor in the beer, but minimal hop aroma, the hops will be added twice during the boil: one charge will be boiled for about 60 minutes and the second charge will be boiled for about 20 minutes. If the brewer also wants hop aroma in the beer, a final charge will be added at the very end of the boil. In this way the aromatic oils are preserved in the beer.
Another way to add hop aroma (and some flavor) to beer is to add fresh hops to the young beer after it is fermented. This technique is called dry hopping, and is commonly practiced in the United States and England. Our Kick-Ass Brown ale and pale ales are dry hopped to maximize the fresh, flowery hop aroma.
For information about growing hops, check out an article authored by my
friend B.R. Rolya and myself at http://hbd.org/mbas.
Search for it in the newsletter archives.
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Yeast is the last major ingredient in beer, but by no means the least important. It is not an exaggeration to say that brewers make wort, yeast make beer. Yeast are single-celled organisms that are classified as fungi. They eat sugar, converting it into alcohol and carbon dioxide through a metabolic process called fermentation (yeast also produce many other chemicals that are important to the flavor of beer during fermentation). It is the job of the brewer to provide the yeast with a proper environment in which to ferment the wort into beer.
Brewing yeast is divided into two major categories: ale yeast and lager yeast. These are also referred to as top and bottom fermenting. It is the choice of yeast strain that determines whether a beer is a lager or an ale. The following table should clarify things a bit:
Top fermenting (ale yeast) |
Bottom fermenting (lager yeast) |
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Fermentation temperature |
60-70 ° F |
45-55 ° F |
Aroma and flavor characteristics |
Often distinctive, giving the beer fruity or spicy tones. |
Usually neutral, allowing the malt and hop flavors to dominate. |
Fermentation characteristics |
Some strains rise the top of the fermentor during fermentation |
Yeast settles to bottom quickly after fermentation. |
There are hundreds of different yeast strains that fit into one of the above categories. Certain strains are suited to making specific beer styles. Some breweries believe the yeast they use to be the single biggest factor in determining their beer’s character.
Extreme examples of the differences between yeast strains can be seen by comparing our Bavarian-style Hefeweizen to our Quackenbush Blonde TM. The Hefeweizen has a rich, fruity, banana character and a clove-like spiciness. These attributes are all made by the special strain of ale yeast that is used to ferment the wort. The blonde beer will display few fermentation byproducts because the ale yeast used in its production is a relatively "clean fermenter."
Most yeasts, even other ale yeasts, tend to be more neutral in character than yeast strains used to make Bavarian-style wheat beers. Lager yeasts are the most neutral of all the strains, producing fewer fermentation byproducts, thus allowing the malt and hop character of the beer to dominate the palate.