What’s in a Beer?

Your basic beer is water, barley, hops, and yeast.

Beer is made by extracting sugars from malted grains. Usually barley and wheat, however, other grains like rye, oats, and rice can be used as adjuncts for extra flavor and other properties. The sugars are fermented by yeast and turned into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Prior to fermentation hops are added to give beer a bit of bitterness, flavor, aroma, and is used as a preservative.

That all seems easy enough. So why are there so many styles of beer? First, beer has been made for thousands of years all over the world. As you can see beer is plant based so its basically a vegetable. The issue with plants is they don’t all grow everywhere and year round. Prior to the discover of hops other plants were used for bittering, flavor, aroma, and preservation like Heather flowers and Mug wort. The use of anything other than hops for these purposes today is very uncommon.

Hops, a relative to marijuana are as diverse as weed, in that they come in a wide variety of strains. Because of this each strain can offer a different flavor, bitterness, aroma and so forth. Depending on how long you boil them in the brew process will determine how much of each property you will extract in your brew.

Lets focus on barley and try to keep it simple. Barley is a grain, much like wheat. It is subjected to a process called, “Malting” in which the harvested grain of the barley plant are sprayed with water. These seeds begin to germinate “grow” and the starches (complex sugars") begin to break down into the simple sugars we need for fermentation. If germination continues we get a whole new barley plant and it can’t be made into beer. So the partially germinated seeds are then killed and dried, or malted and read to be made into a beer.

Like coffee barley can be roasted, smoked, etc. to give them different flavor profiles and during the brew process these different malts can add different flavors and aromas and colors to your brew. You combine the right ratio of malts to get the right flavor, color, and aroma profile for the desired type of beer.

Last but not least is the yeast. And like hops, yeast come in different strains. Originally wild found and then cultivated for different purposes yeast can offer different flavors like anything else, and in my opinion is the most important determining factor in a beer’s style. Yeast and fermentation process determine if a beer is a lager or ale, which is another story, the beer’s clarity, and its flavor. Every wonder why a hefeweizen tastes like bananas. Its from chemical properties contributed from the yeast.

Check out “The Rotating Tap” page to learn more about our beer and what makes each one special.