This new feature will attempt to cover the basics of beer. The information may be self evident to many but, hopefully, may open the eyes a little bit of those who have been taking beer for granted (like me!).
Beer is usually made up of a few simple ingredients:
malt (barley that has been allowed to sprout, then heated)
water
hops (little cone on a climbing vine that adds bitterness to beer and acts as a preservative)
yeast
Sometimes, for different reasons, “adjunct” grains are added, such as: rice (to bring the cost down), and wheat (for flavour and for a nicer head.
In the past, an occasionally now, beer was often made of grains other than these, and were flavoured with things other than hops. This doesn't happen so much anymore, though belgian (and belgian-style) beers are often flavoured with coriander, orange, flowers, etc. The belgians are much more liberal in their use of such ingredients. The germans, on the other hand, tend to use only malt, water, hops, and yeast, unless it's a hefeweizen or weissbier (in that case-and only in that case-wheat is permitted). Anyway, more on regional differences in a future blog post, I'm sure...
No comments:
Post a Comment