Save Time & Money by Shopping For Your Food Gift Baskets Here
For All Your Food Gift Basket Giving Needs...Cheese and Wine Unlimited...The Peoples Choice for More Than 50 Years! We Can Customize Any Food Gift Basket As Well

How Beer Variety Happens*
Choices the Brewer Makes in the Brewing Process
by Charles Hiigel

The possibilities for variety in beer seem endless when you think about the many changes that must take place in converting barley, water and hops into a fermentable liquid. Fermentation is the conversion of sugars to alcohol and CO2, and extracting a sugary liquid from barley, which is neither liquid nor sweet, is the fundamental goal of the brewing process. But the decisions that each brewer makes along the way, and then in the fermentation process itself, result in a wonderful array of beer varieties.

Malting

The first change is in the inside of the grain as it is converted from barley to malt. A week long steeping of the grains starts a germination, and the starches inside are made soluble. The grains are kiln-dried, stopping germination. At this time, the maltster may use an extended roasting at higher temperatures to achieve a variety of malt colorings. The choice of barley types and region where they were grown, the amount of modification of the grain during germination, the moisture content of the grain at the time of roasting, and the amount of roasting, are all variations that the brewer will take into account in selecting the amount and proportions of malt varieties for his brew. The beer's color will be the most obvious result of these decisions, but also the amount of unfermentable sugars extracted in the mash, and the beer's body and head retention are affected.

Mashing

The heart of the action at the brewery takes place in the mash tun where the malt, after being precisely cracked into grist in the mill, is brought into contact with warm water, and the enzymes in the malt convert the starches into sugar. The mineral balance of the water may be manipulated to assist the starch conversions and emulate the water of famous brewing cities in Europe. The temperature of the mash is carefully controlled, and the brewer may hold the mash at a sequence of temperature settings during the one and a half to two hour process. As the new sweet liquid, called "wort" is drained off, fresh water rinses the last stubborn sugars from the spent grains, and adjusts the specific gravity of the liquid to the desired level. In this decision, the brewer begins to determine the alcohol strength of the finished beer.

Brewing

The wort is transferred to the brewkettle, and is brought to a full rolling boil, again for one and a half to two hours. Here the wort is stabilized, proteins coagulate and drop out, any bacteria is killed, and most importantly, the brewers favorite choices are made: which hops to add, how much, and when. The resins in the cone of the hop flower give the brewer the bitterness necessary to balance the sweetness of the malt, act as a natural preservative, provide a wonderful floral aroma, and the hops may even serve as a filter when the wort is run off out of the kettle. There are many different varieties of hop, some best known for their bitterness, and others for their aromatic contributions. The former are added at the beginning of the boil, and the latter at the end. Intermediate additions of hops may be used to add character. Each hop has its own personality and can often be identified in the finished beer. The amount of hop bitterness imparted will be the determining factor in the beer's "balance."

Fermenting

The brewer now has a fermentable liquid with the desired color, potential strength, and malt/hop balance. All that remains is to ferment it. As you might guess, many more decisions will be made.

Whether the beer will be an ale or a lager will be determined by the choice of yeast strain used, the temperature during primary fermentation and aging, and the duration of the aging. Ale fermentation is the old method, using a top-fermenting yeast, which acts best at easily available cellar or cave temperatures, and finishes in as few as two weeks. "Lager," the German word for "to store," gained popularity with the advent of modern microbiology and modern refrigeration, since it employs a bottom fermenting yeast, and must be kept at very low temperatures for four to twelve weeks. Bottomfermentation may result in a cleaner, crisper beer character, topfermenting yeasts will be more likely to remain a part of the finished beer's character, and enhance the beer's fruitiness and complexity.

Packaging & Serving

The beer is now finished, but even in the packaging, more decisions such as filtration, pasteurization, and additional fermentation and aging in the keg or bottle will be made.

The last decisions are left to the drinker. Which beer variety will match the mood and situation. What serving temperature suits the beer, how much C02 will be released in raising a foam during pouring, and what glass will best enhance the beer's color and aroma?

It would be impossible to sample every permutation of beer variation. But one can't help thinking it would be fun to try!

* Taken from the program notes for the San Luis Obispo Varietal Beer Festival, August 24, 1996.

Reproduced here with the permission of Charles Hiigel.