How a Beer Becomes a Law

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver." - Jack Handey

We all take for granted the delightful intoxicant that majestically pours from skinny amber bottles on a warm Saturday night. Or cool Tuesday afternoon. Either way. It has to get there somehow. In my previous post, I briefly explained the process for making the basic Mr. Beer Homebrew beer. Today I'll go into a bit more detail about what beer is and how it is made.

Beer is an alcoholic beverage.

The primary ingredient in beer is water. Water is very important. But I'm no hydrologist.

The ingredient responsible for the majority of beer's characteristics is grain. Beer is necessarily made from grain. If the bulk of the alcohol comes from fruit, you have wine. If it comes from agave, you have pulque. If it comes from honey, you have mead. If it comes from wood, you have a problem. Grains are basically dense packages of starch and nutrients. Barley is the most common grain used in Western beers, however there are many beers in the world made with corn, wheat, rice, millet, sorghum, and other grains. In order for there to be fermentable sugars in the grain, it must be "malted". Malting is a process of germinating the grain so that it begins to sprout. Enzymatic activity gives you the stuff that makes beer beer. The sprouts are removed and the grain is roasted to stop the activity. The extent to which it is roasted determines much of the beer's color, texture, and flavor. Dark malt = dark beer.

One of the distinguishing ingredients of beer is the charming cousin of cannabis, hops. There are countless varieties of hops, each of which provides a distinct aromatic characteristic to the beer. The bitterness of a beer and its floral/fruity hoppy characteristics depend upon when in the brewing process hops are added and how much are used. Big brewers use just a sprinkling of hops while many American microbrews like to saturate the beverage with hoppy goodness. In addition to providing a great deal of flavor, some compounds found in hops help preserve the beer. This was especially helpful for long boat journeys. (Think about Imperial India Pale Ales. They're very hoppy and strong giving them a long shelf life. Great for bringing His or Her Majesty's glory to the farthest reaches of the orient and new world.)

The final component of beer is yeast. The yeast is responsible for converting the sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide (bubbles). Different types ferment at different temperatures and produce different characteristics in beer. Lager yeast ferments at a cooler temperature, and at the bottom of the vessel while ale yeast ferments at about room temperature and floats atop the liquid. Lagers tend to have simple flavors while ales are usually more complex. I'll leave the explanation to scientists. But here's what sugar to alcohol fermentation looks like.
C₆H₁₂O₆ → 2C₂H₅OH + 2CO₂

One particularly happy form of beer is the cask ale - a naturally carbonated, unpasteurized, hand-extracted brew. Cask ale provides a special beer drinking experience. Because secondary fermentation takes place in the vessel from which the beer is served, either a firkin (small keg) or a cork-topped bottle, they have a very pure beer flavor and quite pleasant bubbles. Operating a firkin is a labor of love. In other words, it's a pain, but well worth the effort.


Steps to make beer:

• Malting - germination of grain to produce enzymes and sugar
• Milling - many brewers mill the roasted malt to increase surface area
• Mashing - soaking the grain in warm water to extract the sugar
• Lautering - heating the mash to end the enzymatic process and make the grain and sugary liquid (now called a wort) more easily separated; then removing the wort
  
• Brewing -reboiling the wort to ensure flavor and biological purity
• Fermentation - adding yeast to make the stuff that gets you sauced
• Conditioning - aging the beer to smooth out the flavor
• Filtering - to remove the yeast and other sediments
• Packaging - putting the beer in the vessel in which it will be sold/drunk

There are several different ways to go here. Many beers are unfiltered. This can give them a cloudy appearance but more complex flavors. Beers can be carbonated naturally or artificially. Artificial carbonation (think Coors) has the same character as pop. Natural can be more Champagney. Secondary fermentation is the process for naturally fermenting beer. It occurs in bottle-conditioned and cask ales. A small amount of sugar is added to the nearly finished beer and then it is sealed. The live yeast in the beer continue producing alcohol and carbon dioxide. Since the vessel is sealed, the carbon dioxide cannot escape and instead gets dissolved in the liquid to be released once ready to be consumed.

So that's where we are now with my beer. It spent two weeks in the primary fermenting/conditioning phase. It was vigorously bubbling for 2-3 days and lightly bubbling for another 1-2. After that it stayed flat.



As you can see below, the beer has a straw-yellow color and is very cloudy. The cloudiness is live yeast, protein, and other stuff. Golden lager indeed.



Next comes bottling. The shape of the keg essentially allows for the sediment to stay out of the bottles. A little bit of priming sugar is added to the bottles to promote secondary fermentation and carbonation.



The brown bottles are soft plastic that came with the kit. The nice thing about them is that you can squeeze them throughout the secondary fermentation to see how it's coming along. The firmer they are, the more carbonated the beer is. The Rogue flip-top ceramic bottles are super convenient because they can be used repeatedly. The beer will have to rest at room temperature for 1-2 weeks and then in the fridge for a bit before it's ready for consumption.

Prost!

*Update* I started the second batch of beer. It's a blonde ale. I cut back on the water a bit to make it stronger and boozier. I also ordered supplies for making two batches of all grain beer. I'll be making an English Bitter and an American Porter.