How the sudsy, delicious beverage goes from grain to your glass
The process of making beer has been around for thousands of years, and generally, it’s made from only four ingredients: water, grains, hops, and yeast. The formula begins with water selection, where brewers want a clean, easy taste, with no residual aromas or flavors. Since water makes up 90% of beer, it’s important to consider its composition, where things like chlorine or other contaminants can create an “off flavor.” Brewers consider pH level, alkalinity, and minerals like iron, lime, sulfate, chloride, calcium, magnesium, and sodium. Since brewing is like cooking (which we’ll get into shortly), many breweries tinker with their water, softening it for lighter beer like lagers or hardening it with mineral salts for a vibrant hoppy IPA.
Grains are next up, and contribute to the color, smell, and taste of the beer. Barley is used most often, but wheat, oats, rice, corn, and others can be used too, or a combo. Malting is when grains are soaked in water in order to germinate, and it’s a critical step that activates enzymes that will later break down starches into fermentable sugars. Once the grain is sprouted, it's then moved to a kiln to be roasted to preserve those enzymes and remove moisture. Warm kiln temps make malts darker, perfect for rich beers like stouts. Cooler temps create more pale malts, perfect for lighter ales like pilsners.
After the grains are roasted just right, they are put through a gristmill to crush or crack the grains. They're then transferred to the mash tun, where they'll soak in purified hot water for a steamy oatmeal-like steep. This allows those special enzymes to finally get to work, converting starches to sugars that will later help to create alcohol. The result is a substance called mash. When mash has steeped long enough, a sweet liquid appears called wort. Wort is strained from the mash tun and put into a brew kettle. Some brewers may pour the sweet wort through the mash one more time, or even use boiling water to remove as much of the sugary liquid from the mash as possible. The wort is then boiled in the brew kettle — and here's when hops finally come into play.
Hops: they’re possibly the most beautiful part of the brewing process, besides the delicious end-product. Hops are cone-shaped green flowers that when broken open contain pods called lupulin that provide the flavor, aroma, and bitterness in beer you know and love (and that bitterness is what balances out the sweet wort). Hops are kind of like grape varietals in wine, where each type delivers signature flavors that can be mixed and matched. Even cooler? Hops help preserve beer, warding off bacteria that could spoil the brew. Hops are added to the beer-making process usually during the kettle boil, to help release their resin and bitter quality, but they can also be added after in a cooler setting during fermentation.
Next up: yeast. It’s alive! Seriously though, it’s a living organism. There are thousands of different species, but only three types are used for brewing: bottom fermenting, top fermenting, and wild. Bottom yeasts sink to the bottom during fermentation creating clean, light beers, whereas top yeasts rise to the top and tend to be more fruit forward (like hefeweizens and IPAs). Wild yeasts are well, wild, and produce more funky beer that takes longer to produce. Once the kettle boil is complete, the wort is cooled to create the perfect environment for yeast. It's either rapidly cooled and then transferred to a fermentation vessel, where the yeast is added — or, it's cooled by leaving it uncovered, which exposes the wort to air and allows wild, naturally occurring yeasts to settle. Wild yeast can also be added in the more controlled setting.
And now we’re making booze, baby! Fermentation is when yeast eats all that sugar we've been talking about, creating alcohol and releasing carbon dioxide. If you've ever enjoyed a dry-hopped beer, this is when those additional hops are added. It's almost time to enjoy a cold one, but first the beer needs to be cellared or aged, or held in a cold tank for a bit. It's filtered a few times to remove any residuals and is then ready for canning, bottling, or kegging. Fresh beer is usually always the best beer, but sometimes beers are barrel-aged or kept for further maturation. Many breweries add carbon dioxide for carbonation during packaging. They do this either through a secondary fermentation or by adding gas.
And there you have it! How beer is made. Come on down to Ancient City and drink a cold one on draft – it’s fresh and absolutely delicious.
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