What is beer?: Ingredients

Ah, beer. One of the oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverages in the world. It comes in many strength, colors and with multiple different styles and taste. What an awesome invention by the humankind! As most of us know the beer is made from malt, hops, and yeast. And it can also use spices, sugars or syrups, fruits, it can be oak aged…basically, everything can be used in beer making. In the near future, we’re going to publish a post about brewing itself as a homebrew view. But first, let’s talk about the basic ingredients of beer.

First of: malts:

Malts affect beer color, body, flavor and aroma and provide sugars for the yeast to eat. By far the most used grain in beer is barley. But many other grains are used as well, such as oat, wheat, and rye. The grain just by itself can’t be used in beer making. It must be malted. The malting process involves soaking the barley, allowing it to germinate, and then stopping germination with heat. And before brewing that malted grains must be crushed. There are hundreds of types of different malts and they all affected the beer differently. Some of the most used malts (or malted barley, wheat etc.) are Pilsner, Pale, Crystal/Caramel and Chocolate
Pilsner and Pale malts very light colored malts and usually are making the bulk of the malt bill. They have a slight grainy flavor and they provide most of the sugar for the yeast to eat.
Crystal (also called Caramel) malts come with a varied range of color. Lightest crystal malts give a golden color to beer and mild toffee/caramel flavor while darkest crystal malts give burnt sugar, sweetness and dried fruit character while providing darker color to the beer. Crystal malts also affect the body and head (foam) of the beer.
Chocolate malts impact coffee, chocolate and roasted flavors in the beer and dark color. These malts are found in porters and stout and pretty much all the dark beers.

Pale and other light colored malts (crushed) ready for brewing.

HOPS: Like malts, there are plenty of different hop varieties out there. Today hops are found in pretty much every beer, but that was not the case in historical beer. However, hops are not considered to be an essential ingredient in beer but they add several things in beer. From hops, you can get flavor and aroma which can vary from light “noble hop” aroma found in lagers and wheat beers to tropical fruit and citrusy madness found in IPAs and APAs. Hops also add bitterness and act as a preservative, extending the life of the beer. Hops are usually added during the boil. Earlier they are added to boil, more bitterness they add while late additions impact more flavor and aroma. Hops can also be used as a “dry hop” method, which means they are added to the finished beer before it is bottled or kegged. Dry hops can also be added during fermentation. Dry hopping doesn’t impact bitterness, but the only aroma and very little to the mouthfeel (the hop oils can give you…well hop oily feel). Hops can be used as a whole cone or as pellets, the latter is way more practical. The pellets look like that in the picture.

YEAST: Yeast is responsible for creating alcohol as it ferments the sugars from malts. It comes as a liquid and dry forms.

Beers are usually divided into Ales and Lagers. And that is determined by the yeast. Ale yeast is fermented warmer than lager yeasts (15-25 degrees) and they often impact fruity, spicy or earthy flavors in the beer. Ale yeast is also called top-fermenting yeast and that means exactly as it sounds like: They ferment the beers from the top and when the fermentation is done they drop to the bottom of the fermentation vessel.
Lager yeast is fermented cooler (7-13 Celsius) and they are also called bottom-fermenting yeats. They impact cleaner and “crisper” character to the beer. Lager yeast also takes more time for the beer to be drinkable.
The third type of yeast is so-called wild yeats used form classic Belgian style beers such as Lambics. Wild yeats usually are different species of Brettanomyces. For decades the flavors from these yeasts were mostly considered to be off-flavors and in winemaking they still are. Nowadays many craft breweries intentionally ferment their beer with wild yeats either by co-pitching it with the traditional yeast, using it as secondary or doing a 100% Brettanomyces beer. The wild yeats impacts “funky” flavors, often described as smokey, leathery, barnyard or even horse ass sweat. Some Brettanomyces can also make citrus and tropical fruit flavors.
The yeast is the single most important thing in beer. Yeast makes beer the beer. Bad yeast or uncontrolled fermentation leads to a bad and undrinkable beer and for many styles like Wheat beers and Saisons yeast is the most important thing in terms of flavors and overall characters.

All three common ingredients: malt, hops (at the silver backs) and yeast (liquid. Tube in the middle)

So now we know what and why malts, hops, and yeast are used. And its time to start brewing…But let’s talk about that more in our next post.

-Jari from Pint Please