The Technograph

If you’re like me, you consider beer to be a pretty good friend of yours. You and beer have shared some great nights together. You’ve had the occasional (yet friendly) argument, but there is still no better wingman besides beer. Do you know beer as well as you know your other friends? Have you been too selfish to find out about its past, too busy to know the roots of your great friend? Well here is your chance to quickly redeem some friendship points.

There are a lot of things that circulate—mainly through commercials—about how beer is brewed and what goes into beer. But what does any of that mean? We’ll start with the basics.

The process of making beer is call “brewing” which takes place in a “brewery.” But you knew that already, right? Next is the brewing process. It starts by combining hot water and malted barley—“mashing”—in which the malt sugar is released. Then, malt sugar is boiled with hops for seasoning. It is then cooled and yeast is added to enhance fermentation. The sugar releases carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol.

Finally, once the main fermentation is complete, sugar is added to provide carbonation and the process is finished. The beer is put into cans, bottles and kegs for your enjoyment.

This sounds like a pretty simple process, doesn’t it? Before you run to the kitchen and start warming up some water, understand that the production of beer is still a form of science, and an exact science at that.

Many people do enjoy brewing their own beer at home, but anyone who has attempted it can tell you that beer doesn’t taste all that great the first couple of times. It takes patience to find the right combination to create a great homemade beer.

One thing that I have always heard through beer commercials (or through Superbad) is hops. I always thought, “What the heck are they talking about?” Hops are what flavor the beer. They grow on hop vines and have been used in beer since 822 A.D. They add a bitterness that balances out the sweetness provided by the malt. If this balance isn’t correctly found, you’ll be putting on your bitter beer face.

Hops also play other roles, such as “head retention,” which is the length of time the carbonation will last.

With all your newfound knowledge, don’t you feel like your relationship with beer has been taken to the next level? Next time, before you start drinking, give a thought to

the people who have made that chilled beverage in front of you a thought and remember that just because “I heard they recently added more hops” doesn’t mean the beer is any better than it was before, and that might just be why Fogell got popped.

By Jefferson Badger

Tagged with: beer, learn, alcohol