What's in your beer

What's in Your Beer

Before we continue on to the process and science of brewing, let's slow it down (you're smothering me), and talk about the individual components of beer whose outcome is definitely greater than the sum of their parts.  So break it down with me and get funky with it.

You and me learning about beer

Water

Since water comprises about 90% of a beer's content, it can have a substantial impact on how the end product tastes.  For most brewers, the general rule is if your tap water is drinkable and has no distinct off flavors, it's probably good enough to brew with.  However, many home brewers feel very strongly that they would never use tap water in the brewing process due to chlorine and all the other crap it contains.  I live in an area that has pretty good water, so I don't really care.  However, I know people in the same area who would never use the same water even after boiling it in the brewing process, so it really just varies from brewer to brewer.  With that said, even if you live in a place like Florida that has pretty awful drinking water, you can always treat the water you use with a number of additives such as pH stabilizers.

Even though good tap water will result in great beers, for some styles, it's crucial to replicate the water of the beer's geographical origin or else it won't quite taste right.  For example, it's extremely difficult to create the taste of a Czech pilsener without using water with very similar characteristics.  If you want the peaty flavor of a traditional Scotch Ale, you're going to need to get a hold of their distinct smoky water (some breweries get around this by adding smoked or peated malts, but it's not how Scottish breweries do it). 

Grain

Coupled with water, the grains in our beer are going to provide the necessary sugars for our yeast to eat in the fermentation process (more about this soon).  We also use different types of grains to affect the color, flavor, mouthfeel, clarity, and head retention of our beer.  Grains are used in the mashing and sparging processes of brewing (see next post) and are generally separated into two categories: Base grains and specialty grains.

As you can imagine, base grains are going to make up the majority of our grain bill.  Base grains will impart the majority of our beer's fermentable sugars.   Common base grains include 2-row barley, 6-row barley, wheat, and rye.  It's important to note that depending on how the grains are processed (kilned) these categories can manifest itself in numerous different types of base grains such as Maris Otter, Munich, Pale Malt, German Malted Wheat etc.

On the other hand, we use specialty grains in smaller amounts for certain desired effects.  Although they do not provide nearly as much of the fermentable sugars, specialty grains can have an enormous effect on the end product.  If we want to add more mouthfeel and head retention to a beer, we can add some Carapils.  If we want to add a raisin or plum taste to the beer, we can add some Special B grains.  For a a darker head and color of the beer, we can throw in some roasted barley.  The list goes on and on, and each style will have different desired characteristics you will need to impart by using specialty grains.

Generally speaking, base grains will comprise about 2/3 of your beer's grain bill, while specialty grains will make up the rest.  With that said, different from base grains, it's actually not necessary to use specialty grains.  For example, a traditional Polish style called a Gratzer uses only a smoked wheat base with no specialty grains.

Yeast

Yeast is by far the most important component of beer and the brewing process.  Classified as unicellular fungus, yeast will affect your beer in several ways:

Ale or Lager

There are only two types of beer in this world: ales and lagers, and it's entirely up to the yeast you use that will determine which category your beer falls under.  Ale yeast will hang out on the top of the beer during fermentation and will work in higher temperatures than lager yeast.  Conversely, lager yeast chill out, quite literally, at the bottom of your fermentor and work best in cooler temperatures (just above freezing).

Alcohol Content

In addition to the amount of fermentable sugars your grains produce, the quantity and type of yeast will also affect the alcohol content of your beer through the fermentation process.  In fermentation, millions of yeast cells turn simple carbohydrates (maltose) into CO2 (carbonation), alcohol, and sometimes desired or not so desired flavors  such as diacetyls (buttery), esters (fruity), or acetaldehydes (sour apple). Since strains of yeast are highly specialized, not every one can handle higher desired alcohol contents.  It's extremely important to choose the correct amount and type of yeast you will need to achieve your target abv %.

Microscope view of the fermentation process: 10,000x zoom

Clarity

An important trait of yeast is it's flocculation rating.  Yeast with high flocculation will gather together more, thus leaving your beer more clear.  A low flocculation yeast will cause your beer to be cloudy, which although frequently undesired, is a must for some styles (e.g. hefeweizen).

Flavor

In addition to all of the above, the type of yeast you use and the conditions in which it works will create different flavors in your beer.  Depending on the style, these flavors will either be welcomed or they will serve as an indication that something went wrong in the brewing process.  The most common mistakes resulting in off-flavors are brewing outside of the strain's ideal temperature range and contamination within your fermentation receptacle.  We'll get into this later on, but proper sterilization of anything coming into contact with your yeast is an integral consideration in brewing.

Hops

As we discussed in a previous post, hops have not always been a component of beer, but Today it pretty much is.  Hops are actually flowers that contain oily resins, that when boiled, impart bitter, tangy flavors and flowery aromas to beer.  In addition to flavor and aroma, hops also contain antibacterial properties that along with the alcohol content, aid in preserving beer.  Although there are numerous varieties of hops, we classify them into two categories in the brewing process:  Bittering/Flavoring and Aroma.

Bittering/Flavoring Hops

As you can probably deduce by their name, bittering hops provide the bitter flavor most strongly manifested in pales and IPAs.  There are two components of hops that we want to extract in the beer's boil:  Alpha and Beta Acids.  Since alpha acids are integral to the beer's flavor, we'll start with them under bittering.

 Alpha Acids (AA)- In addition to their antibiotic properties, AAs also produce that bitter taste we're all  familiar with.  Bittering hops will generally have a higher amount of AAs than flavoring hops, and thus not every variety is appropriate to use as a bittering hop.  Not only do different hops have different AAs, a crop of one variety from one year could have substantially different AAs than the previous or next year.  Although a Chinook hop, for example, will always fall in a certain AA range, a 2010 Chinook could have a 12% AA but a 2012 could be 14%.  This difference in AA content will have a definite impact on your end product's IBU (see below), so always be aware of the specific AA content of your hops.

 Depending on the desired effect, bittering hops are usually boiled between 60-120 minutes (Dogfish Head's 120 minute IPA refers to how long the hops are boiled: Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA) along with your wort.  The effect the boiling of the hops has on your beer is measured in International Bittering Units or IBUs.  Generally, the more you use and the longer your boil them, the higher your IBUs will be.  It's important to note that a high IBU will not always come through as a more bitter tasting beer.  Very malty, sweet beers such as imperial stouts or porters tend to finish with high IBUs, and not taste nearly as bitter as a similar IBU in lighter grain bills such as those used in a pales or  IPAs.  In big, malty beers, extra hop bitterness is needed to counteract and balance the sweetness of the malts.  Without a generous heaping of hops, your stout or porter could come out tasting far too sweet.

 Real Life Example from North Coast Brewing:

North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Russian Stout- 75 IBUs

North Coast Acme IPA- 55 IBUs

Aroma Hops

Different from bittering hops, aroma hops can have very little AAs.  Since we use aroma hops at the end of the boil or even after fermentation, their AA content really doesn't matter a whole lot.  However, beta acids play a much more important role in your beer's aroma.

Beta Acids (BA)- Unlike AAs, BAs provide very little flavor to the beer.  Instead, BAs impart that nice flowery or citrusy aroma characteristic of many styles of beers. Although you might not want to use a low AA hop for your bittering, you can really use any hop for your aroma.  Just as each bittering hop has a different AA content, each aroma hop will have a different scent characteristic.  Common aroma types include earthy, piney, citrusy, fruity, floral, etc.

Every brewer has their hop favorites, but with little exception (how much IBUs a certain style should have), there is no right or wrong combination of hop usage.  An IPA, for example, can be a combination of just about any hop out there, and a brewer could use as many varieties as they want in a single beer in order to achieve their desired IBU and aroma profile.

Dry Hopping (not to be confused with dry humping)

If you're a fan of IPAs or pales, you've probably heard the term dry hopped quite a bit, but maybe you've never known exactly what it means.  Dry hopping is the process of infusing hop aroma into your beer after the boiling process.  Since we're incredibly smart now, we know that the only way to pick up hop bitterness (IBUs) is to extract our alpha acids (AAs) through the boiling process.  Therefore, by adding hops after the boil, we won't change the IBUs of our beer, but we will enhance our hop aroma.  As we previously discussed, you can use just about any variety for dry hopping as long as you feel it will impart your desired aroma profile.  You can dry hop by either using hop pellets (compressed hop flowers in the shape of dry hamster turds) or whole hop flowers.  Just like always, two brewers will have completely different opinions on which hop form is better, but more often than not, whole hops are preferred when dry hopping.

Dry hopping in the fermentor using whole hops

 Other (Anything you can think of)

 After utilizing the main ingredients, you can experiment with just about anything your massive mind can imagine.  Some of the more widely used adjuncts include chocolate, orange peel, coriander, grains of paradise, chili peppers, candy sugar, fruit of all kind, honey, maple syrup, ginger, nutmeg, coffee, pumpkin, wood chips/sprigs, and cinnamon to name just a fraction of what brewers have done and will do in the future.  A brewer can use adjuncts and other flavorings at any stage of the brewing process from the mash to the bottling, but adding fruit, for example, to the boil opposed to the secondary fermentor will have slightly different effects on the end product. 

With numerous varieties of yeast, grains, hops, and adjuncts at a brewer's disposal, the combinations of ingredients and their corresponding recipes are infinite.  So next time you go to your local bottle shop and see a hundred different types of IPAs on the shelves (and you will), take solace in knowing all 100 will be completely different from one another.  As you progress in your beer education, you will be able to appreciate a certain brewery's use of so and so hops balanced with such and such grain with that certain adjunct.  With that said, grab a beer (or a hundred), and join me for some more  funky learning very soon.

As always in parting, we wish you love, peace, and soul!