Brewing 101

Believe it or not, beer as we know it is comprised of four basic ingredients.  With those four basic ingredients, one can make any style of beer.  Toss in some extra ingredients like fruits and spices and the combinations are endless.  Here, we will explore the contributions that each of the ingredients makes to the beer and the general process used in brewing your favorite pint.

First, what are the big four? 

Malted barley is simply grain that has been sprouted and then dried in a kiln.  The type of grain and the amount of time it spends in the kiln have a lot to do with the flavor, color, and aroma of the end product.  The longer grain is roasted, the darker it becomes.  Darker grains, naturally, give the beer a darker color and often imbue the beer with coffee, chocolate, and roasted flavors.

Water is—wait, I think you’ve got this one.

Hops are the flower of the hop plant, which look kind of like tiny green pinecones.  When the malted barley is added to the water, it releases sugars.  Hops bring a bitterness to the beer, which is primarily used to balance the sweetness of the malt and produce a beer that tastes like beer.  In some styles of beer, such as IPAs, more hops are added throughout the brewing process to add the flavors and aromas of the hops to the beer itself. 

Yeast is a single-celled organism that is primarily responsible for turning beer into beer.  The yeast eats the sugars that come from the malted barley and converts them into two very important waste products:  alcohol and CO2.  Without the yeast, beer is just hop and grain tea.

Now that we’ve got that, how do they come together to make beer?  While we’re at it, we’ll define some of those beer terms that nerds like us throw out from time to time. 

The first step in brewing is called the mash.  This is when the malted barley (which has been milled so that each grain is cracked open) is added to hot water and allowed to soak at a constant temperature for usually an hour.  There is a ton of science that happens here, but the cliff notes version is that during this time, the water extracts sugars from the malted barley.

After an hour is up, the grain is rinsed with more hot water.  This process is called sparging (or lautering if you prefer).  During the sparge, the sugars that were extracted during the mash are rinsed off of the grain bed and drained out into a different vessel.

Now, the liquid is called wort.  This is basically beer before it’s beer.  The wort is then brought to a boil.  Boil times vary, but most beers are boiled for an hour.  During this time, hops are added to the wort.  The timing and variety of hop are specific to each beer and important to how it turns out.

Once an hour is up and the hops have been added at various points during the boil, the wort is quickly cooled to about room temperature.

After it reaches room temperature, the wort is transferred to a fermentor (the conical bottom tanks you tend to see at breweries) and the yeast is added.  At this point, it’s time to let nature do its thing.  A few days (or weeks, depending on the yeast) later you have beer!  All that’s left is to cool it, carbonate it, bottle, can or keg it, and drink up!