A beer is any of a variety of alcoholic beverages produced by the fermentation of starchy material derived from grains or other plant sources. The production of beer and some other alcoholic beverages is often called brewing.
Ingredients
Typically, beers are made from water, malted barley, hops, fermented by yeast. The addition of other flavorings or sources of sugar is not uncommon.
Because beer is composed mainly of water, the source of the water and its characteristics have an important effect on the character of the beer. Many beer styles were influenced or even determined by the characteristics of the water in the region.
Among malts, barley malt is the most often and widely used owing to its high enzyme content but other malted and unmalted grains are widely used, including wheat, rice, maize, oats, and rye.
Hops are a relatively recent addition to beer, having been introduced only a few hundred years ago. They contribute a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt and have a mild antibiotic effect that favors the activity of brewer's yeast over less desirable organisms. Yeast, in a process called fermentation, metabolize the sugars extracted from the grains, producing many compounds including alcohol and carbon dioxide. Dozens of strains of natural or cultured yeasts are used by brewers, roughly sorted into three kinds: ale or top-fermenting, lager or bottom fermenting, and wild yeasts.
A pint (or half litre) of beer typically contains about two unitss of alcohol, although alcohol content can vary significantly with style and brewer.
History
Almost any sugar or starch-containing food can naturally undergo fermentation, and so it is likely that beer-like beverages were independently invented in cultures throughout the world. In the West, the oldest evidence of beer is on a 6000-year old Sumerian tablet which shows people drinking a beverage through reed straws from a communal bowl. Beer is also mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and a 3900-year old Sumerian poem honoring the brewing goddess Ninkasi contains the oldest surviving beer recipe, describing the production of beer from barley via bread.
Beer became vital to all the grain-growing civilizations of classical antiquity, especially in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi required that tavern-keepers who diluted or overcharged for beer should be put to death.
Beer was important to early Romans, but during Republican times wine displaced beer as the preferred alcoholic beverage, and beer became considered a beverage fit only for barbarians. Tacitus wrote disparagingly of the beer brewed by the Germanic peoples of his day.
The Kalevala, collected in written form in the 19th century but based on oral traditions many centuries old, contains more lines about the origin of brewing than are devoted to the origin of man.
Most beers until relatively recent times were what we would now call ales. Lagers were discovered by accident in the sixteenth century when beer was stored in cool caverns underground for long periods; it has since largely outpaced ale in volume. (See below for the distinction.) Hops, used for bittering and preservation, is a medieval addition. Hops was cultivated in France as early as the 800s. The oldest surviving written record of the use of hops in beer is in 1067 by Abbess Hildegarde of St. Ruprechtsberg: "If one intends to make beer from oats, it is prepared with hops." In 15th century England, an unhopped beer would have been known as an ale, while the use of hops would make it a beer. Hopped beer was imported to England (from the Netherlands) as early as 1400 in Winchester and hops were being planted on the island by 1428. The Brewers Company of London went so far as to state "no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or liquore wherof ale shall be made--but only liquor, malt, and yeast." However, by the 16th century, "ale" had come to refer to any strong beer, and all ale and beer were hopped.
There are many different types of beers. A comprehensive description of beer styles can be found at the website of the Beer Judge Certification Program.
Types of beer
Lager
Lagers are probably the most common type of beer consumed. They are aged beers of German origin, taking their name from the German lagern ("to store"). Bottom-fermented, they are stored at a low temperature for weeks or months, clearing, acquiring mellowness, and becoming charged with carbon dioxide. Although many styles of lager exist, most of the lager produced is light in colour, high in carbonation with a mild hop flavour and an alcohol content of 3-6% by volume. Styles of lager include:
Ale
Top-fermented beers, particularly popular in Great Britain and Ireland, include mild, bitter, pale ale, porter, and stout. Top-fermented beers tend to be more flavorsome, including a variety of grain flavors and fermentation flavors; they are also uncarbonated and ideally served at a higher temperature than lager. Stylistic differences among top-fermented beers are decidedly more varied than those found among bottom-fermented beers and many beer styles are difficult to categorize. California Common beer, for example, is produced using a lager yeast at ale temperatures. Wheat beers are often produced using an ale yeast and then lagered, sometimes with a lager yeast). Lambics employ wild yeasts, naturally-occurring in the Payottenland region of Belgium. Other examples of ale include stock ale and old ale. Real ale is a term for beers produced using traditional methods, and without pasteurization.
Other
North American beers are listed below.
Beer and nationality
Belgium
like other nationalities - pride themselves on their rich beer culture. There are over 1500 kinds of Belgian beer (including label beer) among which Stella Artois, Alken Maes, Jupiler, Delirium Tremens (brand), Duvel and Kwak are some of the best known. It is often said (particularly by Belgians) that the Belgian beers are particularly excellent. Belgium is the only country that has Trappist beer. External link: Beers of Belgium.
Britain
One common stereotype of the British (and indeed most residents of the British Isles) concerns their love of "warm beer". In fact, their beer is usually served around 12 degrees celsius - not as cool as most cold drinks, but still cool enough to be refreshing. Modern-day pubs keep their beer constantly at this temperature, but originally beer would be served at the temperature of the cellar in which it was stored. Proponents of British beer say that it relies on subtler flavours than that of other nations, and these are brought out by serving it at a temperature that would make other beers seem harsh. Where harsher flavours do exist in beer (most notably in those brewed in Yorkshire), these were traditionally mitigated by serving the beer through a hand pump that mixes air with the beer, oxidising it slightly and softening the flavour. Nowadays, only real ale tends to be served this way, and is not typical of how mass-produced beers are served - it is common to find the latter sold in bottles or drawn from a carbon dioxide-driven tap. Real Ale is championed by the * Campaign for Real Ale.
Canada
has a long history of beer production and consumption as the cold climate provides ideal conditions for brewing. It is well known for its two large commercial breweries, Molson and Labatt, and also for its large number of smaller companies.
Czech Republic
The Pilsener style of beer originated in the town of Plzen in Bohemia, and the Czechs make many well known and well regarded beers of this style, including the original Budweiser. The Czechs have the highest per capita consumption of beer.
Estonia and Finland
are known for their traditional Sahti, which is a beer made from rye or oat malts that are filtered through straws and juniper twigs. According to Michael Jackson, it is by far the oldest continuous living tradition of beer making, representing nothing less than a direct link with Babylonian beer-making methods.
The Munich Oktoberfest is very beer - oriented.
Beer has always been extremely important for Poles, especially before they turned to vodka. One Polish ruler, encouraged by the Pope to take part in a crusade, refused because, as he wrote to the Pope, the holy land has no beer. Traditional Polish beer is usually a kind of Pilsener or a Porter. Traditional brands Zywiec full, Okocim and Elblaski Pils have been pushed out of the business by Tyskie, EB and Dojlidy. The latter was a development of the Elblaski Pils provided to Poles by Australian Tony Oates who is wanted in Australia for an alleged tax fraud of $100 000 000. Since the expansion of Heineken in Poland, Zywiec full lost its flavour and may go out business soon.
The Romanian beer is known in Central and Eastern Europe for its taste and little price. Ursus is the king of the romanian beer from 1879 (a brand of South African Breweries). Other traditional romanian beer brands are Timisoreana, Bucegi and Neumarkt.
Beers, and similar beverages made from raw materials other than barley, include:
France
Although French market is dominated by industrial breweries the Nord/Pas-de-Calais possesses a strong brewing traditions, which it shares with its Belgian neighbor across the border. Alsace, has also a strong tradition in brewing beer with bottom fermenting yeasts in German style. Germany
With a extremely strong beer-oriented culture, the German market is a bit sheltered from the rest of the world beer market by the Reinheitsgebot dating from 1516, according to which the only allowed ingredients of beer are "Wasser (water), Hopfen (hops), Malz (malt) und Hefe (yeast)". Through this law, beers from Germany tend to have a good reputation for their quality. The Germans are slightly behind the Czechs in their per capita consumption of beer.Ireland
is best known for stout, of which Guinness is the largest selling and most widely distributed brand. Poland
Romania
Serbia and Montenegro
see Beer in Serbia and MontenegroUnited States
After Prohibition and until the 1980s, the United States was known for its large commercial breweries. These breweries producing products more noted for their smooth light uniformity than for any particular flavor. However, since the resurgence of the commercial craft brewing industry in the 1980s, the United States now features many beers, offered by over 1500 brewpubs, microbreweries, and regional brewers. While in volume, the lightweight macrobrews from breweries such as Anheuser-Busch still dominate, smaller producers brew in a variety of styles influenced by local sources of hops and other ingredients as well as by various European traditions. The Association of Brewers has identified the following styles of North American origin:
The success of the commercial craft brewing industry has led the large breweries to invest in smaller breweries such as Widmer, and to develop more complex beers of their own.Related drinks
Brewing industry
Commercial brands of beer
Quotations
See also
External links