The label on the front |.
of the bottle didn’t mat-
ter much, as long aS go hows beer made, anyway?
the price Was right and ll beer is brewed using the
e basic processes and
the contents cold. a feecis ands Borde
same four basic ingredients: barley,
Today, h owever / 5 rew water, hops and yeast. Barley is
teeped i ter then drained,
p ubs are everywhere, pied srt aut alawecan

and customers often germinate. It is dried and

roasted in a kiln before

can’t g et a bottle of being milled to remove
Blue or Bud, but have chaff. The roasted

barley is mashed,

to settle for some Kind then boiled with

hops to prod
of cloudy, lemon-scent> mixture known as

the wort. Yeast is

ed beer with d name added to the wort
like Hefeweisen. Then oe eee

f egins. The
again, Some People mixture is put into

vats and allowed to

actually like beer that mature for a period
fights back while "sting from a few days

to a few months
|

they're drinking it, Dut (depending on the type of
} beer being brewed). Finally, the
don ‘t kn OW what to a Sk beer is filtered to remove excess

fo re If yo u Ve ever yeast, and bottled for shipment.

Occasionally, various different

encountered a situation ingredients such as fruit, honey or

spices are added during brewing to

wher € y Ou wish y Ou produce alternate flavours. Wheat
knew more about beer and corn are popular additions as
/

they provide supplemental sugar,

particular ly when trying and therefore more alcohol during

. fermentation, but the brewing
to IMpf ess someone process remains relatively

. ; 4 unchanged.
special, then you Need This sounds complicated!
some beer basics.

page 18 the Other Press

 

 

May 1999

There was a time, not -=-----------=+=

too long ago, when aj
beer was just a beer. | ear é) 5 ! CS

ot
al
i
1
1
I

Wm. Don CiarK Isn't beer easy enough to brew

at home?

T: home brewer rarely has the
time or money to undergo all
the stages the big breweries

go through. Most home brewing kits

come with a wort mixture already
made, so all the hobbyist has to do

is add yeast and store it properly for
a few weeks.

=< But if all beer is

mm brewed the same
way, why are
there so many
different kinds
of beer?

ctually,
there
are

only two different
basic styles of
beer—ales and
lagers. As both types
contain the same

ingredients and can taste and
look very similar, the true
difference between the two lies in
the amount of time and degree of
temperature used in the brewing
process.

Ales are brewed at higher temper-
atures and usually, but not always,
with yeast that ferments at the top
of the mixture. Ales are also stored
for a shorter period at warmer tem-
peratures, meaning that yeast is left
in the beer and continues to fer-
ment during the storage process.
This is known as secondary fermen-