Beer Facts

Definition: Fermented alcoholic beverage brewed from malt and hops. A beer is any of a 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.

Origin: Dates back to pre 1588

Ingredients: Typically, beers are made from water, malted barley, hops, and yeast. The addition of other flavorings or sources of sugar is not uncommon. Hops are a relatively recent addition to beer, having been introduced only a few hundred years ago. They contribute a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt and have a mild antibiotic effect that favors the activity of brewer's yeast over less desirable organisms.

Styles: 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. Yeast metabolize the sugars extracted from the grains, producing many compounds including alcohol and carbon dioxide. 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 underground for long periods; it has since largely outpaced ale in volume.

Lager: Lagers are probably the most common type of beer consumed. They are aged beers of German origin, taking their name from the German lagern ("to store"). Bottom-fermented, they are stored at a low temperature for weeks or months, clearing, acquiring mellowness, and becoming charged with carbon dioxide. 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: Bock, Dortmund, Dry beer, Export, Märzen (only made for bavarian Oktoberfest), Munich, Pilsener, Schwarzbier.

Ale: Top-fermented beers, particularly popular in Great Britain and Ireland, include mild, bitter, pale ale, porter, and stout. Top-fermented beers tend to be more flavorsome, including a variety of grain flavors and fermentation flavors; they are also uncarbonated 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, naturally-occurring in the Payottenland region of Belgium. Other examples of ale include stock ale and old ale. Real ale is a term for beers produced using traditional methods, and without pasteurization.

Quotations:
"Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Give me a woman who truly loves beer, and I will conquer the world." -- Kaiser Wilhelm II

"Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man" -- A. E. Housman

"Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." -- Homer Simpson