A beer is any variety of alcoholic beverages produced
by the fermentation of starchy material derived from grains or other plant sources. The production of beer and some other
alcoholic beverages is often called brewing. Historically, beer was known to the
Sumerians, Egyptians, and
Mesopotamians, and dates back at least as far as 4,000 BC. Because the ingredients used to make beer differ from place to
place, beer characteristics (type, taste, and colour) vary widely.
Ingredients
Typically, beers are made from water, malted
barley, hops, and fermented by yeast. The addition of other flavourings or sources of
sugar is not uncommon.
Because beer is composed mainly of water, the source of the water and its
characteristics have an important effect on the character of the beer. Many beer styles were influenced or even determined by the
characteristics of the water in the region.
Among malts, barley malt is the most often and widely used owing to its high
enzyme content (which facilitates the breakdown of the starch into sugars) but other
malted and unmalted grains are widely used, including wheat, rice, maize, oats, and rye.
Hops are a comparatively recent addition to beer (see History below). They contribute a bitterness that balances the
sweetness of the malt and have a mild antibiotic effect that favours the
activity of brewer's yeast over less desirable organisms. Enzymes in yeast, in a process called fermentation, metabolize the
sugars extracted from the grains, producing many compounds including alcohol and
carbon dioxide. Dozens of strains of natural or cultured yeasts are
used by brewers, roughly sorted into three kinds: ale or top-fermenting, lager or bottom fermenting, and wild yeasts. Top-fermenting means that the yeast ferments
in the top of the fermenting vessel. Conversely, bottom-fermenting means that the yeast ferments in the bottom of the
fermenting vessel. The scientific name for ale yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an important model organism in molecular and cell biology; Saccharomyces carlsbergensis is the scientific name for lager
yeast.
During the process of filtration (also called fining or clearing), some brewers add agents to beer that are not required to be
published as ingredients. Since these finings may include animal extracts, vegans and
others concerned with the use or consumption of animal products may wish to contact the brewer for specific details of the
filtration process. Isinglass finings are a common animal-derived clarifying
agent, extracted from fish. Alternatively, Irish moss is a commonly used
plant-based clarifying agent.
One pint of beer typically contains about two to three units of alcohol, although alcohol content can vary significantly with style and brewer.
History
Almost any sugar or starch-containing food can naturally undergo fermentation, and so it is likely that beer-like beverages
were independently invented in cultures throughout the world. In Mesopotamia, the oldest evidence of beer is on a 6000-year old
Sumerian tablet which shows people drinking a beverage through reed straws from a
communal bowl. Beer is also mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
and a 3900-year old Sumerian poem honoring the brewing goddess Ninkasi contains the
oldest surviving beer recipe, describing the production of beer from barley via
bread. Beer became vital to all the grain-growing civilizations of classical antiquity,
especially in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Beer was important to early Romans, but during Republican times wine displaced beer as the preferred alcoholic
beverage, and beer became considered a beverage fit only for barbarians. Tacitus wrote disparagingly of the beer brewed by the
Germanic peoples of his day.
Most beers until relatively recent times were what we would now call ales. Lagers were discovered by accident in the sixteenth century when beer was stored in cool caverns for long periods; they have since largely outpaced ales
in volume. (See below for the distinction.) The use of hops for bittering
and preservation is a medieval addition. Hops were cultivated in France as early as the
800s. The oldest surviving written record of the use of hops in beer is in 1067 by Abbess Hildegard of
Bingen: "If one intends to make beer from oats, it is prepared with hops." In 15th century England, an unhopped beer would have been known as an
ale, while the use of hops would make it a beer. Hopped beer was imported to England (from
the Netherlands) as early as 1400 in
Winchester and hops were being planted on the island by 1428. The Brewers Company of London went so far as to
state "no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or liquore wherof ale shall be made — but only liquor
(water), malt, and yeast." However, by the 16th century, "ale" had come to
refer to any strong beer, and all ale and beer were hopped.
Methods of brewing changed very little from that time. In 1953, New
Zealander Morton W Coutts developed the technique of continuous
fermentation which was the first major change to brewing since the 16th century. Morton patented his process which revolutionized
the industry by reducing a four-month long brewing process to less than 24 hours [1] (http://www.roadshow.org/html/resources/scientists/coutts/article.html). His process is still
used by many of the world’s major breweries today, including Guinness.
In 1516, the duchy of Bavaria adopted the
Reinheitsgebot, perhaps the oldest food regulation still being
used. The Reinheitsgebot ordered that the ingredients of beer be restricted to water, barley, and hops. The law soon
spread throughout Germany, and has since been updated to reflect modern trends in beer brewing. To this day, the
Reinheitsgebot is (controversially) considered a mark of purity in beers.
Etymology
Of the two terms, ale is the elder in English. It comes directly from the proto-Indo European root *alu-, through Germanic *aluth-[2] (http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE14.html). Beer, on the other hand, is considered to
come from the Latin bibere (to drink)[3] (http://www.bartleby.com/61/69/B0156900.html). Old English sources distinguish between "ale"
and "beer" but do not define what was meant by "beer" during that period, although there is some speculation that it refers to
what would now be called cider (alcoholic form). The Old English form of "beer"
disappeared shortly after the Norman Conquest, and the word re-entered English centuries later, in exclusive reference to hopped
malt beverages.
In Slavic languages, beer is called "pivo", from the verb "piti"
— to drink. So, "pivo" could be translated to English as "the
drink".
Mythology
The Finnish epic Kalevala (collected in written form in the 19th century but based on oral traditions many centuries old) devotes more lines to
the origin of beer and brewing than it does to the origin of mankind.
Types of beer
There are many different types of beers. A comprehensive description of beer styles can be found at the website of the
Beer Judge
Certification Program (http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.html).
Lagers are probably the most common type of beer consumed. They are of Central European origin, taking their name from the
German lagern ("to store"). Bottom-fermented, they were traditionally stored at a low temperature for weeks or months,
clearing, acquiring mellowness, and becoming charged with carbon
dioxide. Modern methodological methods of producing lager were pioneered by Gabriel Sedlmayr II (who perfected dark brown
lagers at the Spaten brewery in Bavaria)
and Anton Dreher (who began
brewing a lager, probably of amber-red color, in Vienna in 1840-1841). The first golden
lager was produced in the Bohemian town of Pilsen in 1842; Pilsener is now dominant style of beer. These days,
with improved fermentation control, most lager breweries use only short periods of cold storage (1–3 weeks).
Although many styles of lager exist, most of the lager produced is light in colour, high in carbonation with a mild hop
flavour and an alcohol content of 3–6% by volume. Styles of lager include:
Top-fermented beers, particularly popular in the British Isles and
Belgium, include mild, bitter, pale ale, porter, and stout.
Top-fermented beers tend to be more flavoursome, including a variety of grain flavours and fermentation flavours; they have also
lower carbonation and are fermented and ideally served at a higher
temperature than lager. Stylistic differences among top-fermented beers are decidedly more varied than those found among
bottom-fermented beers and many beer styles are difficult to categorize. California Common beer, for example, is produced using a lager yeast at ale temperatures. Wheat beers are often produced using an ale yeast and then lagered, sometimes with a
lager yeast. Lambics employ wild yeasts and bacteria, naturally-occurring in the
Payottenland region of Belgium.
Other examples of ale include stock ale,
old ale, and Belgian-style ale. Real ale is a term for beers
produced using traditional methods, and without pasteurization.
Other
See Beer and nationality for a list of beers by the
nations within which they originate, and the beer drinking and brewing practices within those countries.
Related drinks
Beers, and similar beverages made from raw materials other than barley, include:
- hundreds of local African drinks made from millet, sorghum, and other available starch crops
- Finnish sahti
- Russian/Ukrainian kvass
- Chinese samshu
- Korean suk,
- Japanese sake, all brewed from rice
- pulque, an indigenous Mexican beer made
from the fermented sap of the agave plant
- chicha, a Andean beverage made from
germinated maize.
- rye beer
- Sikkim,India, Chhaang,semi
fermented millet seeds packed in a bamboo pipe, hot
water poured & sipped by a bamboo pipe
Commercial brands of beer
External links
- The Oxford Bottled Beer
Database (http://www.bottledbeer.co.uk/) — Where the public is encouraged
to review different beers.
- www.bjcp.org Beer Judge Certification
Program (http://www.bjcp.org) — has certified over 2000 brewers and
beer-lovers, primarily in the US
- Beer
Recipes (http://www.myownbeer.com/recipes/) — Recipes for home
brewing.
- ratebeer.com (http://www.nambla.org) — Extensive evaluations of various beers.
- beeradvocate.com (http://www.beeradvocate.com) — Offers beer enthusiasts a forum and resource to
appreciate and support the craft beer scene.
- [4] (http://www.budvar.cz) — The Budweiser brewery in the Czech Republic.
- Pilsner
Urquell (http://www.pilsnerurquell.com) — The World's First Golden
Beer
- carlsberg.com (http://www.carlsberg.com) — Danish brewery.
- World Brewing
Academy (http://www.worldbrewingacademy.com) — professional education in
brewing technology, web based training
- How to Brew (http://www.howtobrew.com) — free online book by John Palmer with detailed instructions
on homebrewing
- American Breweriana
Association (http://www.americanbreweriana.org) — organization dedicated
to the collection of all things related to beer and breweries
- Interbrew (http://www.interbrew.com) — Belgian brewery holding
- Prague TV's Beer Counter for the
Czech Republic (http://prague.tv/toys/beer/) — shows the number of litres
consumed by Czech nationals so far this year
- CAMRA (http://www.camra.org.uk) — The Campaign for Real Ale
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