Curious to know more about the contents of your pint? Beer expert and Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) educator Natalya Watson answers some commonly asked questions about one of Britain’s best-loved beverages.
Beer covers a number of really diverse categories and there are many different styles of beer, from clear, gold pilsners to opaque, black stouts. However, all beers share the following common features: they are fermented alcoholic beverages typically made using malt (malted grains), water and yeast, and flavoured with hops.
Hops, or more precisely hop cones, are responsible for bringing a bitter taste to beer. They also introduce a range of aromas, too. Hops are climbing plants that produce hop cones, which are harvested annually in autumn. There are hundreds of varieties of hop, each with their own characteristics in terms of aroma intensity and levels of bitterness. In order to extract their bitterness and aroma, hops are added to the brewing process during boiling and the timing of their addition determines what kind of contribution they make – hops added early bring more bitterness, while those added later enhance a beer’s aroma.
It’s worth mentioning that not all beers are highly bitter. Some types are more focused on hop aroma, while others have aromas from malt and yeast in the forefront.
The yeast that brewers use is a micro-organism that has the ability to create alcohol when it consumes sugar. This process, called alcoholic fermentation, also produces aromas and carbon dioxide (CO2) gas. This gas then dissolves into the liquid, giving beer its bubbles. These bubbles rise in the glass and contribute to the foam that forms on top of a beer as it’s poured. Carbonation also gives beer a tingly or prickly sensation on the palate, and can balance sweetness and body to make beers more balanced and drinkable.
Of beer’s four main ingredients – malt, water, yeast and hops – it’s the malt that gives beer most of its colour.
Malt, shorthand for malted grains, is simply any grain that has gone through the malting process. The malting process enables the malt to act as a source of sugar for the yeast. It also gives malt – and therefore beer – much of its colour and a range of aromas and flavours, too. Different colours and flavours can be created by varying the temperature used and the length of time the grains are heated during the final step of the malting process, called kilning.
Dark beers, like porters and stouts, get their brown or black colour from the use of specialty malts that are produced by increasing the temperature or length of time the malt spends in the kiln (compared to base malts) or by roasting malt at even higher temperatures. These malts also give the beer its aromas of coffee and chocolate.
When was beer first brewed and where?
The first archaeological evidence of beer dates to 7000 BCE in China, where rice was used. Mesopotamia and Egypt followed closely after using wheat or barley, the grains we typically associate with brewing today. The brewing process back then likely wouldn’t look very similar to the process today, however.
Interestingly, a text from early Mesopotamian cultures, called the Hymn to Ninkasi, suggests beer was brewed with cakes made of malted grains, which were then dissolved into jars of warm water allowing for the brewing process to begin.
What exactly is a craft beer?
Craft beer is a movement that was born in reaction to a lack of beer diversity in the North American market and was meant to drive a return to a more artisanal approach to making beer. Craft breweries used to be called microbreweries because early craft breweries were very small in comparison to large-scale commercial breweries. These days, there is a lot of debate as to what constitutes a ‘craft’ beer.
Join us on Monday, February 3, 6.30pm-8.30pm, at WSET School London for a beer-tasting masterclass that delves into the world’s most popular alcoholic beverage. Tickets are £50 per person and include a guided tasting of diverse beer styles, insights into brewing techniques and beer’s rich history, plus expert tips on food pairings. Find out more and book your tickets here.