Beer

History of Beer

The brewing of beer is old. Really old. Not to get too Time Team here, but there are traces of brewing going back over 6000 years to the Sumerians. The chances are that brewing was carried out back in the Neolithic age, when man first started to harvest grain. Cooking and fermenting the grain produced a tasty nutritious drink which stored well. In a world full of bland, basic food it is easy to see why beer became ubiquitous in most grain growing lands.

Brewing techniques developed over the generations, with many of the major improvements and developments happening within monasteries. Beer often had flavourings such as herbs, spices, fruits and honey. However by 1000AD monks began to add hops and this has remained the key flavouring up to the present day. 400 years later Bavarian monks perfected “bottom fermentation” which created the first lagers.

Brewing changed little for centuries until industrialisation began to bring fundamental changes. Cold brewing, initially using ice but soon replaced by the earliest industrial refrigeration techniques, began to refine lagers and pilsners, specifically in Germany and present day Czech Republic. In England the use of coke to malt the grain allowed the production of long lasting, lighter ales (originally meant for export to the Empire) hence the development of Indian Pale Ales.

Breweries were small local affairs until the advent of the railway allowed them to send products across the country. This created centres for brewing such as Burton on Trent, where the water was perfect for the production of good beers. Scientifically improvements also came thick and fast, most notably the introduction of pasteurisation which increased the consistency and shelf life of beer.

So what’s in Beer?

Although beer has thousands of different variations the vast majority are based on four simple ingredients:

Barley

Barley is to beer what grapes are to wine; the heart and soul of the drink. The starch stored in the grain is transformed into sugars by the brewing process allowing fermentation. There are particular varieties of barley that are most suitable for brewing and specifically the malting process that gives beer its wide range of varieties. Barley grows particularly well in cooler climates, one of the reasons why beer is very much a north European drink.

Hops

From the same family as cannabis, hops are a climbing plant that can grow to 6 metres and more. The resins and oils within hops are the chief flavouring for beer, giving the distinctive bitter taste, despite there being around 100 times more barley within the beer than hops. Mostly harvested in the UK around Kent and Sussex in the late summer, hops need to be dried before use. Often they are now formed into pellets and vacuum packed to retain the freshness.

Water

This is the most basic ingredient, but so important to the taste of the finished product. Up to 6 pints of water are required for every pint of beer made so access to a reasonable supply is essential. Often breweries have private wells or aquifers to ensure they get enough of the right quality of water. The salts and minerals within the water give distinctive flavours and qualities. The gypsum in the water around Burton gave preserving qualities that allowed the beer to travel the Empire. It is now possible to treat water to give the properties the brewer desires, a process known as Burtonisation.

Yeast

Yeast is what causes the magic to happen. A fungus that grows on the sugars from the barley, it produces alcohol and carbon dioxide to create fermentation. Different yeast strains produce different subtle flavours so brewers are very protective of their personal strains.

The Brewing Process

From such humble origins, how do we get the multitude of varieties and flavours of beer? The basic process is not complicated, but it’s in the detail that the skill emerges.

Malting

The barley is left in water and allowed to germinate. This is stopped by heating which also adds the extra flavours and colours of many beers. It is from the malt that the sugars integral to the process are derived.

Milling

All grist to the mill! The malt is milled to produce a fine combination husk and flour called grist.

Mashing

The sugars (glucose and maltose) are released from the grist by leaving it in hot water for around sixty minutes. The clear solution (called the wort) is run off and the grist is left behind to be sold on as animal feed.

Boiling

The wort is added to a copper brewing vessel with hops and boiled for up to 90 minutes allowing the hops flavour to infuse. The now bitter wort is then cooled and stirred to ensure plenty of oxygen is in the solution for the yeast.

Fermentation

The yeast is added in a fermentation vessel and begins to feed off the sugars within the wort. Alcohol and carbon dioxide are produced. Eventually the yeast will have used most of the sugars and fermentation is now complete.

Conditioning

This differs depending on the type of beer and packaging.

Cask Conditioning: for cask ale the beer is added to the cask with a little more yeast and sugar which will create a little carbon dioxide to add life. Finings are added (isinglass, obtained from fish swim bladders) which attract the remaining yeast and allow it to settle at the bottom of the cask, accelerating the clearing process.

Filtration and Pasteurisation: for bottled, cans and kegs the beer is filtered and pasteurised in the brewery allowing them to stay fresh for longer.

A Beer for every occasion

From lagers to stouts, pale ales to pilsners there are a multitude of different beer types all originating from the same basic ingredients and processes.

Lagers

The most popular beer style in the world, lager ranges from pale Czech pilsner to the deep golden German “doppelbock.” The cold fermentation process allows many of the subtle flavours from the hops and barley to come through. Lagers differ across the globe. Those from the USA tend to be less bitter and delicately flavoured, while the UK variant is more full flavoured. Continental lagers are much more robust.

Ales

The high fermentation temperature gives ales a fruitier and more full flavoured taste than lagers. They range from light brown to straw coloured ales, right through to the jet black of stouts.

Wheat Beers

A relatively new phenomena in the UK, wheat beers have been popular across Europe for generations. German “Weiss” beer or Dutch “Wit” beer use wheat as well as barley and add flavourings as diverse as coriander, orange peel, cloves and bananas. They are naturally cloudy and have a very strong yeasty aroma.

Fruit Beers

Use of fruit as a flavouring has been popular in Belgium for generations. The fruit is steeped in the beer to give aroma, flavour and colour. Commonly cherries and raspberries are used but there are as many varieties as there are fruits.