MAKING BEER pt2 - 101

Welcome back to brewing for beginners. This week we look at the little ladies who give beer it’s wonderful, sensual character. No, not those large German women in foofy blouses at huge beer halls named Brun-Hilda mit da big boob-ies. Ja? Nein.

HOPS. The hop is a cone-like flower, of the same family as cannabis, which grows on very tall vines - actually they are called bines, probably so they are not connected with wine making - and I referred to them as the ladies because it is the female flower that produces the bittering quality which beer requires. This theme continues after bottling with the male drinker developing a greater yearning for the female flower the more the amber flows.

The HOPS give beer several remarkable qualities. First is flavour. There are hundreds of varieties of hops, all of which will impart flavour to varying degrees. Second is bitterness. The hop resins are an oily substance stored in the cone and, put fairly simplistically, they are what gives our beer their distinctive bitterness. Again, some varieties are better, or bitter, than others. Others again, have a nice balance of both.
It is up to the brewer to ensure the right balance in order to create a specific beer style or a variation within. Some beers are heavier on the hop flavour side and others lean more to the bittering end. To complicate the situation even further, different HOPS can be added, at different times during the brewing, for varying durations thus creating eleventy-eight kabillion different combinations of beer tastes.

And you thought brewing beer was a ‘ just add water ‘ thing.

Now the next important hop-quality is the most valuable as far as the brewing industry is concerned. You see, before the discovery of hops for brewing, the beer needed to be drunk quickly - a tradition still continued in many drinking dens today - or the beer would spoil. The brewer, to avoid the spoiling, would need to up the alcohol levels to fight the good fight against harmful bacteria within the beer. He would do this by increasing the malt content. Then along comes HOPS with remarkable antiseptic and preserving abilities - as well as the bitterness and the flavour things we spoke of earlier. So the brewer now required less malt. And therefore, more profit. Or was able to create a less expensive product. Joy for the workers!

So there you have HOPS. Grown in only a few regions around the world due to their specific climate needs and one of the reasons that beer tastes as good as it does. Although hops have been around for centuries, it is not clear exactly when they were used in brewing. The Jewish slaves in ancient Babylon wrote of a “strong drink made from hops” which they believed aided against leprosy. And even today, beer won’t cause leprosy. Some droopage may occur, however, with prolonged use.

NEXT WEEK - YEAST

MAKING BEER - THE PROCESS pt 1 - 101

For those who enjoy drinking it, but are not really sure how it works, here is a brief walk through the beer brewing process. Beer consists of four main ingredients ; MALT, HOPS, YEAST & WATER. Let’s begin with MALT

MALT is the building block, the platform of the beer. It starts out (usually) as barley. The barley contains starch. The maltster will crack the grains and then pop them in hot water until they are fooled into thinking it is time to germinate. This is about the only occasion on which anyone involved in brewing will become involved in trickery. That and when the marketing department tells us Adelaide water makes drinkable beer. Cooper’s excluded. They make their own water.

The barley, as it germinates, produces enzymes which will, in time, assist in the production of two of beers greatest assets - CO 2 and ALCOHOL. Now that the barley has become malt it has turned it’s starch into fermentable sugars and contains that taste which we know to be beer. It just needs to be gently coaxed along the magical brewing process, be seasoned and flavoured with hops and transformed by mystical yeasts until it appears in bars and bottle shops. Simple. Well, it’s a little more technically complex, but we ARE beer drinkers, not wine folk.

In very simple terms, MALT is what gives beer it’s sweet side. It is generally the first visitor to our palate door as we take our initial gulp and can be brash and intrusive like a God Botherer on a quiet weekend morning or it can sneak in almost unnoticed - like a nosy neighbour. Beer styles differ and much of this difference is in the impact of the MALT on the beer’s overall flavour - or profile, as the marketing department likes to call it.

By the way, and in relation to MALT, don’t let wine-ees tell you that the grape is harder to produce and requiring of more skill to ferment. To put it simply, the GRAPE is more reliant on the soil while the GRAIN is more reliant on the brewer. In other words, the range of malts, their various treatments and uses alone is a delicate balancing act for the brewer, and as we will see, it gets even more chef - like when we begin to add the hops, treat the water and combine all the processes. So there, wine folk.

NEXT WEEK, HOPS

MORE BOTTLIN” - 101

Well, the TWO BREW is bottled and the race to empty the full ones so that we could fill the empty ones was a close thing - won narrowly by the Beer Blokes, tho’ we had to drink as we bottled just to get the last few.

Not too sure if we have tempted fate on a couple of fronts with this batch. Novice brewers who have followed this log will know that fermentation is complete - usually within 5 - 10 days - and can be determined by taking hydrometer readings (see separate entry) over several days. When identical readings are registered on consecutive days, the batch has completed fermenting and can be bottled.

We sorta waited till the readings were the same - just not over the full two days. Not worried, though, as the hydro reading showed that the brew had got up to about 5% Alc/Vol. which, when bottled with priming sugar will bring it up to 5.5%. We took a morning and an evening reading to convince ourselves that it was right to go. We were limited for bottlin’ opportunity and needed the spirits to shine on us. If the bottles begin poppin’ spontaneously we will know that we have upset the beer Gods.

As we were bottling, we noticed a marked increase in the amount of foam generated. Not too sure if this is peculiar to Pale Ales ( I suspect it is ) or wether we had a problem elsewhere. Anyway, the laundry now has a full stock of maturing beer - the stubby equivalent of 3 and ¾ slabs - and the waiting game continues. For less than $ 30 worth of raw materials. How good’s THAT !!