Beer

Beer, alcoholic beverage produced by extracting raw

materials with water, boiling (usually with hops),
and fermenting. In some countries, beer is defined by law—as
in Germany, where the standard ingredients, besides water,
are malt (kiln-dried germinated barley), hops, and yeast.

History Of Brewing
Before 6000 BCE, beer was made from barley
in Sumer and Babylonia. Reliefs on Egyptian tombs dating
from 2400 BCE show that barley or partly germinated barley
was crushed, mixed with water, and dried into cakes. When
broken up and mixed with water, the cakes gave an extract
that was fermented by microorganisms accumulated on the
surfaces of fermenting vessels.

The basic techniques of brewing came to Europe from

the Middle East. The Roman historians Pliny (in the 1st
century BCE) and Tacitus (in the 1st century CE) reported
that Saxons, Celts, and Nordic and Germanic tribes drank ale.
In fact, many of the English terms used in brewing (malt,
mash, wort, ale) are Anglo-Saxon in origin. During the Middle
Ages the monastic orders preserved brewing as a craft. Hops
were in use in Germany in the 11th century, and in the 15th
century they were introduced into Britain from Holland. In
1420 beer was made in Germany by a bottom-
fermentation process, so called because the yeast tended to
sink to the bottom of the brewing vessel; before that, the type
of yeast used tended to rise to the top of the fermenting
product and was allowed to overflow or was manually
skimmed. Brewing was a winter occupation, and ice was used
to keep beer cool during the summer months. Such beer
came to be called lager (from German lagern, “to store”). The
term lager is still used to denote beer produced from bottom-
fermenting yeast, and the term ale is now used for top-
fermented British types of beer.

The Industrial Revolution brought the mechanization of

brewing. Better control over the process, with the use of
the thermometer and saccharometer, was developed in Britain
and transferred to the Continent, where the development of
ice-making and refrigeration equipment in the late 19th
century enabled lager beers to be brewed in summer. In the
1860s the French chemist Louis Pasteur, through his
investigations of fermentation, established many of the
microbiological practices still used in brewing. The Danish
botanist Emile Hansen devised methods for growing yeasts
in cultures free of other yeasts and bacteria. This pure-
culture technology was taken up quickly by Continental lager
brewers but not until the 20th century by the ale brewers of
Britain. Meanwhile, German-style lagers bottom-fermented by
pure yeast cultures became dominant in the Americas.
Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition
with your subscription.Subscribe today
Brewing in the 21st century is a large-scale industry. Modern
breweries use stainless-steel equipment and computer-
controlled automated operations, and they package beer in
metal casks, glass bottles, aluminum cans,
and plastic containers. Beers are now exported worldwide and
are produced under license in foreign countries.

Top 20 beer-producing countries.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Types Of Beer
Belgium: beerLearn about Belgium's rich culture of drinking
and brewing beer.© CCTV America (A Britannica Publishing
Partner)See all videos for this article
In Europe the properties of the water used for brewing, the
types of malt, the brewing practices, and the yeast strains
have contributed to traditional distinctions between beers.
Early British beers were made from successive extracts of a
single batch of brown malt in a top-fermentation process. The
first and strongest extract gave the best-quality beer,
called strong beer, and a third extract yielded the poorest-
quality beer, called small beer. In the 18th century, London
brewers departed from this practice and produced porter.
Made from a mixture of malt extracts, porter was a strong,
dark-coloured, highly hopped beer consumed by the market
porters in London. Brewers in Burton upon Trent, using the
famous hard waters of that region and pale malts roasted in
coke-fired kilns, created pale ales, also called best bitter. Pale
ale is less strong, less bitter, paler in colour, and clearer than
porter. Mild ales—weaker, darker, and sweeter than bitter—
are a common variation; more colour is obtained by special
malts, roasted barley, or caramels, less hops are used, and
cane sugar is added to impart sweetness and aid
maturation. Stouts are stronger versions of mild ale; some,
such as milk stouts, contain lactose (milk sugar) as a
sweetener. Beers with alcohol content well in excess of 5
percent are produced in the United Kingdom (barley
wines), Belgium, and the Netherlands (for example, Trappist
beers).

Bottom-fermented lagers have their origins in continental

Europe. Brewers in Plzeň (now in the Czech Republic) used
local soft waters to produce the famous Pilsner beer, which
became the standard for highly hopped, pale-coloured,
dry lagers. Dortmunder is a pale lager of Germany,
and Munich has become associated with dark, strong, slightly
sweet beers with less hop character. The dark colour comes
from highly roasted malt, and other characteristic flavours
arise during the decoction mashing process. Bock is an even
stronger, heavier Munich-type beer that is brewed in winter
for consumption in the spring. Märzbier (“March beer”) is a
lighter brew produced in the spring. While all German lagers
are made with malted barley, a special brew called weiss beer
(Weissbier; “white beer”) is made from malted wheat. In other
countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United
States, other cereals are used in lighter-coloured lager beers.

Lambic and gueuze beers are produced mainly in Belgium.

The wort is made from malted barley, unmalted wheat, and
aged hops. The fermentation process is allowed to proceed
from the microflora present in the raw materials (a
“spontaneous” fermentation).
Different bacteria (especially lactic acid bacteria) and yeasts
ferment the wort, which is high in lactic acid content. Lambic
beer is the cask product sold locally. Gueuze is bottled and
refermented lambic beer. Filtered gueuze, the most popular
product, is a bottled blend of lambic and gueuze. A cask
product made in a similar manner is thought to have been
consumed by miners in the United States during the California
Gold Rush.

The strength of beer may be measured by the percentage by

volume of ethyl alcohol. Strong beers are in excess of 4
percent, the so-called barley wines 8 to 10 percent. Diet beers
or light beers are fully fermented, low-carbohydrate beers in
which enzymes are used to convert normally unfermentable
(and high-calorie) carbohydrates to fermentable form. In low-
alcohol beers (0.5 to 2.0 percent alcohol) and “alcohol-free”
beers (less than 0.1 percent alcohol), alcohol is removed after
fermentation by low-temperature vacuum evaporation or by
membrane filtration. Other low-alcohol products may be
produced from worts of low fermentability, using yeasts that
cannot ferment maltose, or by mixing yeast separated from a
normal fermentation with weak wort at a low temperature for a
short time.
The 20th century saw the erosion of traditional distinctions
based on place of manufacture, raw materials, and brewing
methods. This has caused a reaction among a small body of
consumers. In Britain it has encouraged support for smaller,
traditional ale breweries. In the United States a growing
number of “microbreweries” brew beers with more flavour and
colour.

The Brewing Process

Beer production involves malting, milling, mashing, extract
separation, hop addition and boiling, removal of hops and
precipitates, cooling and aeration, fermentation, separation of
yeast from young beer, aging, maturing, and packaging. The
object of the entire process is to convert grain starches to
sugar, extract the sugar with water, and then ferment it with
yeast to produce the alcoholic, lightly carbonated beverage.
 The process of beer production.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Malting
Malting modifies barley to green malt, which can then be
preserved by drying. The process involves steeping and
aerating the barley, allowing it to germinate, and drying and
curing the malt.

In order to be fermented by yeast, the food reserve of

barley, starch, must be converted by enzymes into simple
sugars. Two enzymes, α- and β-amylases, carry out the
conversion. The latter is present in barley, but the former is
made only during germination of the grain. Specially bred
strains of barley (generally low in nitrogen content) are used
for malting. Other important characteristics are yield, even
germination, ability to produce enzymes, and a highly
extractable malt.

Steeping
Malting begins by immersing barley, harvested at less than 12
percent moisture, in water at 12 to 15 °C (55 to 60 °F) for 40
to 50 hours. During this steeping period, the barley may be
drained and given air rests, or the steep may be forcibly
aerated. As the grain imbibes water, its volume increases by
about 25 percent, and its moisture content reaches about 45
percent. A white root sheath, called a chit, breaks through the
husk, and the chitted barley is then removed from the steep
for germination.

Germination
Activated by water and oxygen, the root embryo of the
barleycorn secretes a plant hormone called gibberellic acid,
which initiates the synthesis of α-amylase. The α- and β-
amylases then convert the starch molecules of the corn into
sugars that the embryo can use as food. Other enzymes, such
as the proteases and β-glucanases, attack the cell walls
around the starch grains, converting insoluble proteins and
complex sugars (called glucans) into soluble amino acids and
glucose. These enzymatic reactions are called modification.
The more germination proceeds, the greater the modification.
Overmodification leads to malting loss, in which rootlet growth
and plant respiration reduce the weight of the grain.

In traditional malting, the steeped barley was placed in heaps

called couches and, after 24 hours, spread on a floor to permit
germination. Because respiration of the grain causes oxygen
to be taken up and carbon dioxide and heat to be produced,
control of aeration, ventilation, and temperature was achieved
by manually turning the grain. Large-scale floor maltings with
mechanical turners were introduced, later replaced by
pneumatic maltings, in which germination occurred in boxes
with the bed automatically turned, aerated, and ventilated with
forced air. In some malting operations, gibberellic acid is
sprayed onto the barley to speed germination, and bromates
are used to suppress rootlet growth and malting loss.
Although less-modified malts are traditionally used in lagers
and well-modified malts in ales, it is now usual to produce
well-modified malts regardless of whether lager or ale is to be
made.

Kilning
Green malt is dried to remove most of the moisture, leaving 5
percent in lager and 2 percent in traditional ale malts. This
process arrests enzyme activity but leaves 40 to 60 percent in
an active state. Curing at higher temperatures promotes a
reaction between amino acids and sugars to form
melanoidins, which give both colour and flavour to malt.

In the first stage of kilning, a high flow of dry air at 50 °C (120

°F) for lager malt and 65 °C (150 °F) for ale malt is maintained
through a bed of green malt. This lowers the moisture content
from 45 to 25 percent. A second stage of drying removes
more firmly bound water, the temperature rising to 70–75 °C
(160–170 °F) and the moisture content falling to 12 percent. In
the final curing stage, the temperature is raised to 75–90 °C
(170–195 °F) for lager and 90–105 °C (195–220 °F) for ale.
The finished malt is then cooled and screened to remove
rootlets.
Special malts are made by wetting and heating green malt in
closed drums at high temperatures. Made in this way are
crystal (caramel), chocolate (black), and amber malts; used in
small and varying proportions (2 to 3 percent of brewing malt),
they introduce considerable variations in colour and flavour to
finished beers. Chocolate malt and roasted ungerminated
barley are used at a high proportion (25 percent) to make
stouts and porters. The use of unmalted cereals has also
become common, because they are less expensive sources
of starch and can be used to dilute malt colour and flavour,
thereby yielding fresher, lighter beers.

Modernization

Modern maltings can produce malt in four to five days, and

technological improvements give precise control
over temperature, humidity, and use of heat. Tower maltings
have been developed with an uppermost floor for steeping
and lower floors for germination and kilning, producing a
compact, semicontinuous operation that is also fully
automated.

Mashing
After kilning, the malt is mixed with water at 62 to 72 °C (144
to 162 °F), and the enzymatic conversion of starch into
fermentable sugar is completed. The aqueous extract (wort) is
then separated from the residual “spent” grain.

Milling
For efficient extraction with water, malt must be milled. Early
milling processes used stones driven manually or by water or
animal power, but modern brewing uses mechanically driven
roller mills. The design of the mill and the gap between the
rolls are important in obtaining the correct reduction in size of
the malt. The object is to retain the husk relatively intact while
breaking up the brittle, modified starch into particles.

Mixing the mashThe milled malt, called grist, is mixed with wat
er, providing conditions in which starch, other molecules, and
enzymes are dissolved and rapid enzyme action takes place.
The solute-rich liquid produced in mashing is called the wort.
Traditionally, mashing may be one of two distinct types. The si
mplest process, infusion mashing, uses a well-modified malt, t
wo to three volumes of water per volume of grist, a single ves
sel (called a mash tun), and a single temperature in the range
of 62 to 67 °C (144 to 153 °F). With well-modified malt, breakd
own of proteins and glucans has already occurred at the malti
ng stage, and at 65 °C (149 °F) the starch readily gelatinizes a
nd the amylases become very active. Less-well-modified malt,
however, benefits from a period of mashing at lower temperat
ures to permit the breakdown of proteins and glucans. This re
quires some form of temperature programming, which is achie
ved by decoction mashing. After grist is mashed in at 35 to 40
°C (95 to 105 °F), a proportion is removed, boiled, and added
back. Mashing with two or three of these decoctions raises the
temperature in stages to 65 °C (149 °F). The decoction proces
s, traditional in lager brewing, uses four to six volumes of wate
r per volume of grist and requires a second vessel called the
mash cooker.

Other sources of starch that gelatinize at 55 to 65 °C (131 to

149 °F) can be mashed along with malt. Wheat flour and corn
(maize) flakes may be added directly to the mash, whereas
corn grits and rice grits must first be boiled in order to
gelatinize. Their use requires a third vessel, the cereal cooker.

Modern mashing systems use mixed grists and mash mixers,

which are efficiently stirred and temperature-programmed
mashing vessels. Enzymes of bacterial and fungal origin may
be added as aids. Ale and lager are mashed in the same
equipment, but they require different temperature programs
and grist composition. Modern breweries often practice high-
gravity brewing, in which highly concentrated worts are made,
fermented, and then diluted, allowing more beer to be brewed
on the same equipment.

Separating the wort

The mash tun used in infusion mashing is fitted with a false
base containing precisely machined slots through which the
husk, preserved during milling, cannot pass. The trapped husk
thus forms a filter bed that removes solids from the wort as it
is drained, leaving a residue of spent grains. Wort separation
takes 4 to 16 hours. For thorough extraction, the solids are
sprayed, or sparged, with water at 70 °C (160 °F).

The decoction brewer transfers the mash to a separation

vessel called the lauter tun, where a shallow filter bed is
formed, allowing a more rapid runoff time of about 2.5 hours.
Large modern breweries use either lauter tuns or special
mash filters to speed up the runoff and conduct 10 or 12
mashes a day. As much as 97 percent of the soluble material
is obtained, and 75 percent of this is fermentable. Wort is
approximately 10 percent sugar (mainly maltose and
maltotriose), and it contains amino acids, salts, vitamins,
carbohydrates, and small amounts of protein.
Boiling and fermenting

Boiling
After separation, the wort is transferred to a vessel called the
kettle or copper for boiling, which is necessary to arrest
enzyme activity and to obtain the bitterness value of added
hops.

Hops
Several varieties of the hop (Humulus lupulus) are selected
and bred for the bitter and aromatic qualities that they lend to
brewing. The female flowers, or cones, produce tiny glands
that contain the chemicals of value in brewing. Humulones are
the chemical constituents extracted during wort boiling. One
fraction of these, the α-acids, is isomerized by heat to form the
related iso-α-acids, which are responsible for the
characteristic bitter flavour of beer.

Traditionally, the dried hop cones are added whole to the

boiling wort, but powdered compressed hops are often used
because they are more efficiently extracted. In addition, the
hop components may be extracted by solvents such as
liquid carbon dioxide and added in this form to the wort or,
after isomerization, to the finished beer.

Heating and cooling

The kettle boil lasts 60 to 90 minutes, sterilizing the wort,
evaporating undesirable aromas, and precipitating insoluble
proteins (known as hot break, or trub). Trub and spent hops
are then removed in a separator where the hop cones form
the filter bed. In modern practice a more rapid whirlpool
separator is also used. This device is a cylindrical vessel into
which wort is pumped at a tangent, the circulating whirlpool
movement causing solids to form a cone at the bottom.
Clarified wort is cooled, formerly in shallow troughs or by
trickling down an inclined cooled plate but now in a plate heat
exchanger. This last is an enclosed, hygienic vessel in which
hot wort runs along plates while cold water passes along the
other side in the opposite direction. Oxygen is added at this
stage, and the cooled wort passes to fermentation vessels.

Fermentation
In this most important stage of the brewing process, the
simple sugars in wort are converted to alcohol and carbon
dioxide, and green (young) beer is produced. Fermentation is
carried out by yeast, which is added, or pitched, to the wort at
0.3 kilogram per hectolitre (about 0.4 ounce per gallon),
yielding 10,000,000 cells per millilitre of wort.

Yeast
Yeasts are classified as fungi; those strains used for fermentat
ion are of the genus Saccharomyces (meaning “sugar fungus”
). In brewing it is traditional to refer to ale yeasts used predomi
nantly in top fermentation as top strains of S. cerevisiae and t
o lager yeasts as bottom strains of S. carlsbergensis. Modern
yeast systematics, however, classifies all brewing strains as S
. cerevisiae, and many ales are made by bottom fermentation
with what were originally top strains.
Many hundreds of simple organic compounds have been
characterized in beer and many more identified, and the
majority of these are produced by yeast. The bitter
substances of hops, ethyl alcohol, and carbon dioxide have
the greatest effects on the senses of taste and smell. Other
compounds giving a beer its character include: esters such as
isoamyl acetate (banana), ethyl hexanoate (apple), and ethyl
acetate (solvent); higher alcohols such as isoamyl alcohol and
2-phenyl ethanol; acids such as octanoic, acetic, isovaleric,
butyric malic, and citric; dialkyl sulfides such as dimethyl
sulfide; and diketones such as diacetyl. The ester ethyl
isovalerate and the aldehyde nonenal contribute to stale and
oxidized flavours. The mechanisms of metabolism leading to
the formation of these flavouring agents are neither well
understood nor easily changed. Until new processes (perhaps
genetic engineering) can produce changes in brewer’s yeast,
brewers will attach great value to known yeast strains and will
maintain selected strains for brewing particular beers.

Fermenting methods
Brewing is unique among the beverage fermentation
industries in that yeast from one fermentation is used to pitch
the next. This means that hygienic conditions and rigorous
quality control are necessary. A high proportion of live cells
and freedom from bacteria and other yeasts are important
quality considerations.

Traditional open-topped earthenware fermentation vessels

gave way to round wooden vessels and later square copper-
lined fermentors, and brewery fermentation systems evolved
around the mechanism used to separate yeast from freshly
fermented, or green, beer. Top fermentations, in which yeast
rises to the surface, require the most elaborate systems, but
most brewing operations now use more hygienically operated
closed vessels and bottom fermentation. These vessels,
erected outside the brewery, are several thousand hectolitres
in capacity (1 hectolitre = 26 U.S. gallons = 22 U.K. gallons)
and are made of stainless steel. Temperature control is
achieved by circulating cold liquid in jackets fitted to the wall
of the vessel. Large ale breweries also use this system,
removing ale yeast from the bottom of the vessel.

The temperature of the wort at pitching is 15 to 18 °C (59 to

65 °F) for ale and 7 to 12 °C (45 to 54 °F) for lager. As
fermentation proceeds, the specific gravity falls as the sugars
are metabolized by the yeast. The extent of fermentation is
governed by the wort composition and by the amount of
fermentable sugar to remain in maturing beer. During
fermentation, yeast multiplies five- to eightfold and generates
heat. The temperature is allowed to rise until it reaches 20 to
23 °C (68 to 74 °F) for ale and 12 to 17 °C (54 to 63 °F) for
lager. At that point the fermentation is cooled to 15 °C (59 °F)
for ale and 4 °C (39 °F) for lager, considerably slowing yeast
action. Yeast is then removed and the green beer, still
containing about 500,000 yeast cells per millilitre, is
transferred to a conditioning or maturation vessel, where a
secondary fermentation may take place. In traditional brewing,
the primary stage of fermentation took seven days for ale and
three weeks or more for lager. These times have been
shortened to 2 to 4 days and 7 to 10 days by modern
practices using more-efficient fermentation vessels.

Maturation and packaging

A slow secondary fermentation of residual or added sugar
(called primings) or, in lager brewing, the addition of actively
fermenting wort (called krausen) generates carbon dioxide,
which is vented and purges the green beer of undesirable
volatile compounds. Continued yeast activity also removes
strong flavouring compounds such as diacetyl. Allowing
pressure to build up in the sealed vessel then increases the
level of carbonation, giving the beer its “condition.” In
traditional brewing, large volumes of ale were conditioned in
tanks for seven days at 15 °C (59 °F), whereas lagers were
matured at 0 °C (32 °F) for up to three months. These long
maturation periods were necessary because of
the precipitation of protein-tannin complexes, which at low
temperature form “chill hazes” that are slow in settling out.
Modern practice speeds up this process by adding excess
tannin, clarifying with protein or tannin adsorbents, or using
enzymes to degrade the proteins.

Traditional, or “real,” ales are packaged into casks. Sugar

primings, clarifying agents such as isinglass finings, and
whole hops are added, and the beer is transferred to the point
of sale, where it is carefully vented to the proper level of
conditioning before being sold. Some British, Australian, and
U.S. microbrewed ales are packaged in bottles together with
yeast to make “bottle-conditioned” beer.

Beer produced on a large scale in modern breweries is kept

free of oxygen (which ultimately spoils beer), filtered
through cellulose or diatomaceous earth to remove all yeast,
and packaged at 0 °C (32 °F) under pressure of carbon
dioxide. Beer produced by high-gravity brewing is diluted to
the desired alcohol concentration immediately prior to
packaging with oxygen-free, carbonated water. Most beers
packaged in bottles or metal cans are pasteurized in pack by
heating to 60 °C (140 °F) for 5 to 20 minutes. Beer is also
packaged into metal kegs of 50-litre (in the United States, 15-
gallon) capacity after pasteurization at 70 °C (160 °F) for 5 to
20 seconds. Modern packaging machinery is designed to
operate hygienically, exclude air, and run at rates of 2,000
cans or bottles per minute.

CERVEZA
SU HISTORIA

La cerveza ha sido un pilar de la humanidad durante miles de

años y su producción se vio enormemente impulsada por la
Revolución Agrícola.
Hace unos 5.000 años, los sumerios de la Mesopotamia
inferior registraron la receta de cerveza escrita más antigua
conocida, con detalles sobre cómo hacer pan al que llamaban
"bappir". El pan azucarado se empapó en agua y se fermentó
espontáneamente, antes de colarlo, para producir una
cerveza o Kas, como se le llamaba. Alrededor de este tiempo,
la cerveza era considerada más higiénica que el agua y la
mayoría la prefería como un alimento básico de la dieta
diaria.
De hecho, en el Antiguo Egipto, había más de 14 tipos
diferentes de cerveza documentados, muchos de ellos
designados con fines religiosos o ceremoniales. Con valles
fértiles para la producción de grano, Egipto se convirtió en la
primera gran economía basada en la cerveza y se cree que
los que construyeron las Pirámides recibieron en realidad un
pago (o alimentación) de hasta 4 litros de cerveza por día.

SIN DOLOR, NO HAY GRANOS

En 1620, la producción de cerveza llegó al continente
americano, trayendo técnicas, recetas e ingredientes de una
escena europea floreciente. Las cervecerías fueron una
adición temprana y fructífera a las nuevas ciudades
coloniales, y la mayoría ofrecía estilos de cerveza similares a
los de Inglaterra. Muchos tipos de cerveza elaborados con
granos del Nuevo Mundo (malta de cebada, trigo, calabaza,
maíz, etc.) y, cuando era necesario, se complementaba la
malta con otros azúcares, como la melaza.
Los verdaderos avances en la producción de cerveza fueron
las consecuencias de la Revolución Industrial en Inglaterra
(1760) con una porter oscura alimentando un Londres en
pleno auge. Elaborada a partir de malta marrón, con grandes
lúpulos y madurada durante meses, la cerveza porter duraba
mucho y se podía distribuir fácilmente en masa. Fue entonces
cuando un innovador irlandés, Arthur Guinness, se arriesgó a
adoptar este nuevo estilo en su cervecería de Dublín, St.
James´s Gate.
Los avances tecnológicos de la era, como la invención
patentada del tostador de tambor en 1817 (que permitió
nuevas texturas y sabores al tostar maltas) y la introducción
de la refrigeración (que eliminó la dependencia del hielo),
permitieron la construcción y prosperidad de cervecerías
mucho más grandes.
Las cervecerías se convirtieron en grandes imperios de
comercio en los Estados Unidos y Europa a lo largo de la
década de 1900. Gran Bretaña se centró en las cervezas ale,
mientras que Europa central, América del Norte y los países
escandinavos, en la exportación de lager.
Hoy en día, la industria cervecera está floreciendo más que
nunca; En los últimos 30 años, en particular, ha habido un
marcado aumento en la producción de cerveza y la
experimentación de productos. La demanda global ha
resultado en el establecimiento de un número significativo de
nuevas cervecerías, especialmente en Europa y América del
Norte, que combinan nuevos ingredientes y técnicas con
inspiraciones de estilos más antiguos para crear nuevas
variedades de esta bebida.
¿CÓMO ESTA HECHA?

La cerveza se crea a partir de cuatro componentes centrales:

cebada malteada (u otros granos), lúpulo, agua y levadura. El
proceso de producción puede variar entre marcas o estilos,
pero estos cuatro componentes son consistentes, como lo es
la intención: extraer los azúcares de los granos (típicamente,
cebada) para que la levadura los pueda convertir en alcohol.
MALTANDO
El proceso comienza con la recolección de los granos
elegidos (la cebada, el trigo o el centeno son los más
comunes), antes de calentarlos y secarlos para imitar la
germinación y aislar las enzimas necesarias para la
elaboración de la cerveza.
MOLIENDA
En preparación para el macerado, los granos malteados se
trituran para extraer sus azúcares fermentables, formando
una molienda gruesa llamada grist o molienda. Los
cerveceros deben apuntar a lograr un buen equilibrio en esto;
una molienda demasiado fina hará que las cáscaras de malta
se espesen y se agrupen, lo que hace que un subproducto
con almidón sea difícil de procesar. Por el contrario, la
molienda que es demasiado gruesa reduce el área de
superficie expuesta a las enzimas de grano.
MACERACIÓN
Para activar las enzimas de los granos que causan que se
descompongan y liberen sus azúcares, los granos se
sumergen en agua caliente, durante aproximadamente una
hora, para realizar una práctica conocida como maceración.
Una vez que se ha drenado el exceso de agua, se les deja en
un líquido dulce y azucarado denominado mosto.
HERVIDO
A medida que el mosto se hierve (durante aproximadamente
una hora), se agregan especias y lúpulos, según sea
necesario, para desarrollar el perfil de sabor deseado de la
cerveza. Los lúpulos actúan como conservantes naturales,
añadiendo sabor y equilibrando con notas amargas el mosto
azucarado .
FERMENTACIÓN
Después de una hora de ebullición, el mosto se enfría, se
cuela y se filtra, antes de ser trasladado a un recipiente de
fermentación, donde se agrega la levadura. La cerveza se
deja a temperatura ambiente o más fría (según el tipo de
cerveza) y la fermentación comienza cuando la levadura
empieza a consumir los azúcares para producir alcohol y
CO2.
MADURACIÓN Y EMBOTELLADO
Después de la fermentación, la joven cerveza "verde" debe
madurarse para permitir un desarrollo completo de sabores y
un acabado suave. Después de alcanzar su potencial
máximo, la cerveza se filtra, se carbonata y se transfiere a un
tanque donde se somete a un proceso de almacenamiento
que dura de 3 a 4 semanas. A medida que la cerveza plana
se embotella, puede ser carbonatada artificialmente o
carbonatada por el CO2 producido por la levadura de forma
natural ("acondicionamiento de botellas").
¿QUÉ SON LOS HOPS O LÚPULOS?
En la larga y sabrosa historia de la elaboración de la cerveza,
los lúpulos son una adición relativamente nueva: llegan tarde
al juego y solo se usan de manera prominente durante los
últimos 500 años aproximadamente. Antes de su
introducción, los cerveceros emplearon una gran variedad de
frutas y especias para equilibrar sus cervezas azucaradas,
pero nada se ha acercado al valor y la versatilidad de los
lúpulos; entonces, ¿qué son ellos?
Los lúpulos son una planta parecida a una vid (uvas) nativa
de muchas regiones del mundo; Las plantas femeninas
producen pequeños conos de lúpulo, que contienen lupulina,
una sustancia química que tiene ácidos que equilibran el
sabor de la cerveza, con notas amargas y actúan como un
conservante natural.
Durante la ocupación inglesa de la India, los cerveceros
ingleses sobrecargaron sus cervezas con lúpulos para
preservarlos mejor durante los largos viajes en barco. El
acabado de lúpulo se hizo popular entre los colonos y nació
un nuevo estilo: el IPA (India Pale Ale). El ambiente y el clima
en el que se cultivan los lúpulos tiene una influencia
considerable en el sabor final de cualquier cerveza elaborada
con ellos, por lo tanto, muchos estilos fueron elaborados por
la geografía en lugar del diseño.

TIPOS DE CERVEZA

Lager - incluyendo Pilsner, esta es la cerveza más popular del

mundo. Originarias de Alemania, las lager se almacenan
generalmente a temperaturas muy frías durante períodos más
prolongados, lo que les confiere un acabado suave y
crujiente. Si bien el color y la sensación en la boca pueden
variar enormemente, la gran mayoría son de color amarillo
pálido / dorado con una alta carbonatación y una intensidad
de lúpulo media.
Ale – enaltecida por las cervecerías inglesas durante muchas
décadas, estas son generalmente más robustas y complejas.
Ofrecen sabores afrutados, nueces y notas malteadas.
Elaboradas con levadura de fermentación superior, a
temperatura de bodega, las cervezas suelen ser de color
marrón o rojizo y tienen un cuerpo completo y son más
sazonadas que las lager.
Stout o Porter - famosas en Dublín, las stouts son de color
oscuro, típicamente ricas y cremosas en textura. La
fermentación superior y el uso de cebada tostada sin maltear,
entrega notas de cereales y café y prestan un carácter más
oscuro.
Las porter son ligeramente diferentes, con características
más frutales; También se usa la fermentación superior, pero
esta cerveza normalmente tendrá un cuerpo más ligero y un
acabado más seco que fuerte.
Lambic - este tipo de cerveza utiliza levadura que se
encuentra naturalmente en el aire y generalmente toma
mucho más tiempo en producirse. Puede ser bastante
amarga en sabor. La consistencia es muy difícil de lograr por
la combinación de lugares comunes y grandes cantidades de
lúpulo que se usan a menudo, debido a sus propiedades
protectoras.