The Naked Pint Read online

  The term microbrew is used today to describe a high-quality beer that comes from a brewery that produces fewer than 15,000 barrels per year. The term craft beer refers to beer from breweries that may have grown too large to be considered micro but that are still producing artisanal, specialty beers.

  you have any idea what beer is? Only a chosen few are in the know. Join us, won’t you?

  Beer in its most basic form is a carbonated alcoholic beverage made from fermented grains. It is primarily made up of four key ingredients: malt, hops, water, and yeast. Feel smarter already? You should. You now know more than most people do about beer. (We told you the learning curve was quick.) Now let’s take a closer look. What exactly are these ingredients?

  Malt

  What do Whoppers, Long John Silver’s, Ovaltine, and beer all have in common? Well, those chocolate-covered candies, the vinegar you sprinkle on your fish and chips, and that powder you stir into your milk are made with malt, which just happens to be the basis for all the color, alcohol content, viscosity, carbonation, and subsequent mouthfeel of beer. Malts are cereal grains that have gone through what those in the know call the malting process or, more simply, malting. Sound complicated? Well, it actually kind of is.

  Have you ever tried to grow an herb garden that started from seeds? The first thing you’re supposed to do is put the seeds between a wet warm paper towel to let them sprout or germinate. Malting starts out with this same germination process. The cereal grains are soaked in water and allowed to just begin to sprout. For your garden, once the seeds sprouted, you’d plant them and watch them grow until you were ready to harvest your herbs. During the malting process, however, the growing process is immediately halted as soon as the cereal grain sprouts by a quick drying. This process allows the starch that exists in the seed to be usable as a fermentable sugar. During the brewing process, yeast consumes that sugar, and the byproducts of that process are carbon dioxide (CO2), or carbonation (beer bubbles), and alcohol (loud mouth soup).

  Once the grain is dried, it is roasted or baked or smoked or kilned to every degree of lightness or darkness under the sun, from the palest of pale to the deepest black malt. The color to which the malt has been roasted (and the combination of the colors of malt) is solely responsible for the color of that beer. (We’re going to be emphasizing this point a lot.) The amount of malt used, in conjunction with the amount of yeast used, is solely responsible for the alcohol content and carbonation of that beer.

  Hops

  We like to use the analogy that malts are the male part of beer. You have to encourage them to grow; you have to cajole, manipulate, and control them to make them useful. Hops are the female part of beer. They come in many varieties and can easily dominate, can be quite flowery, can be high maintenance, and are often bitter. (Just kidding... kind of.)

  Hops are actually the female flowering cones of the vining hop plant: scientific name Humulus lupulus. Hops look like delicate, tiny green pinecones and are in the family of Cannabaceae, which also includes the genus Cannabis. That’s right, people, another reason to love beer is that hops are a cousin of cannabis, aka Mary Jane, weed, marijuana, grass, la molta, or, as our mothers call it, “the pot.”

  Water

  If you don’t know what water is, then we’re not sure that we can help you. But what you might not know is that water type and quality are very important in the brewing of beer. The use of soft or hard water affects the flavor of beer in the same way that it affects any beverage, such as coffee or tea.

  Yeast

  All right, let’s just get all the jokes out now. Just get ’em out! It’s a completely normal reaction. Believe us when we tell you that Yeasty Girls was on our short list of titles for this book just because it made us laugh. We know: Yeast is funny. Ready to move on?

  Yeast is a living organism, which forms colonies of single, simple cells. Officially, scientists call this organism a fungus, but in the days of yore, before brewers fully understood the brewing process, yeast was simply called “God is good.” Yeasts are hungry little buggers who are responsible for “eating” fermentable sugars, producing CO2 (beer bubbles) and alcohol (the hooch).

  You’re probably already familiar with yeast. Maybe you have a packet of it in your cabinet right now. It’s that stuff that you sprinkle in your bread machine when it beeps, right? Well, yes and no. The yeast you’re probably used to is bread yeast, which has been specifically cultured to make bread and not beer. Beer yeast (scientific name Saccharomyces cerevisiae ) is specifically cultured for the fermentation of beer. Some bread recipes do call for brewer’s yeast, but if you try to use bread yeast for beer, you will be disappointed with the results. And the brewer’s yeast that you can find at a health food store is inactive and is meant to be consumed for its high protein and vitamin B content. If you used either of these in beer making, fermentation would not take place, and there would be no alcohol. And that would be sad.

  The Birds and the Bees of Beer: Fermentation

  Ah, fermentation—it’s where the magic happens. Now that you know all of the basic ingredients in beer, you’re ready to learn about the birds and bees of beer. We’ve mentioned fermentation several times already when talking about the brewing process. We’re pretty sure that you understand that fermentation is when something becomes alcoholic, but if someone asked you to define fermentation, you might find yourself going numb, with crickets chirping and your pounding heart the only sounds you hear.

  So, quickly, what is fermentation? In beer, it’s when yeast consumes the sugar provided by the malt and creates the byproducts alcohol (liquid courage) and CO2 (the bubbles, which produce the carbonation in beer). Thus, the fermentation process is what makes beer, well, beer.

  THE BIGGEST BEER MYTH

  If you listen to nothing else we say, listen to this: The color of a beer has nothing whatsoever to do with the strength, alcohol content, bitterness, or heaviness of that beer. We’ll say it again. Just because a beer is dark in color does not mean that it is heavy or bitter.

  This misconception stems from the mass beer market, 90% of which are either Pilsner-style or American-style lager beers. Virtually every beer you’ve bought with a fake ID at the gas station (sorry, Dad), drank in the backseat of your high-school boyfriend’s car (sorry, Mom), or pulled from the ice tub during the Super Bowl BBQ falls into this category. They are all light in alcohol, flavor, and color and have virtually no aromatics. Because these are the beers most of us have been exposed to, we wrongly associate the light color with those other light attributes.

  Because these beers are not, in our opinion, necessarily good quality or good tasting (when compared to most craft and artisanal beer), many people (especially women) want these beers to be as light tasting as possible, so that they don’t experience so much flavor of a not-so-great beer. They don’t want a beer with an aftertaste. What they are really saying is that they don’t want a beer with a bad aftertaste. If something tastes great, wouldn’t you want that flavor to linger?

  Ordering a beer by its color is like judging a book by its cover. Stand up and fight beer prejudices. Instead, order a beer based on taste. You don’t even have to worry about using the correct beer jargon. Who cares about that? We would rather you order a beer using flavor descriptors, like nutty, crisp, lemony, bitter, toasty, sweet, chocolaty, creamy, effervescent, bright, spicy, or fruity. Believe us, you’ll get a beer that you might actually like versus a beer that you are trying to choke down. You won’t just want light, you’ll want flavor.

  Since we are really examining fermentation, let’s take a quick minute to explain carbonation. Of course, a carbonated beverage is one that has bubbles in it. Carbonation, technically, is CO2 dissolved in liquid. It’s what gives beer its bubbly effervescence and plays a big part in the balance of that beer (see Chapter 2). The head on a beer is just the CO2 being released from that beer. The carbonation bubbles become the vehicles in which the aromatics of the beer ride from the glass to your nose.

/>   Ale vs. Lager: Making a Case for Each

  All beers fall into one of two categories: ale or lager. We find that most people don’t know the difference between the two. They use the words interchangeably, guessing at the meaning, never realizing what they’re talking about. So we’re going to break it down for you here. (Please pass the information along to your friends.)

  What’s an Ale?

  An ale is a beer that uses yeast that has been cultured to ferment at the top of the fermentation vessel at high temperatures (60°F to 75°F), resulting in a quick fermentation period (seven to eight days or less). Ale yeasts are generally known to produce fairly big flavors (there are exceptions). You’ll often get a lot of aromatics from the whiff of an ale. Ales tend to have more residual sugar, meaning sugar that has not been consumed by the yeast during the fermentation process.

  What’s a Lager?

  The word lager comes from a German word meaning “to store.” A lager is a beer that uses yeast strains that are cultured to ferment at the bottom of the fermentation vessel at low temperatures (34°F to 50°F), resulting in a long fermentation time (weeks to months). Lager yeast produces fewer byproduct characters than does ale yeast, which tends to create a cleaner, crisper taste (there are exceptions).

  Please remember (yes, we know we’re being drill sergeants about this), the color of a beer tells you nothing about whether the beer is an ale or a lager. The type of beer has everything to do with the process by which it was fermented. That’s it. You can have a very light colored, light alcohol content, nuanced, bright, and crisp ale (for example, Kölsch); likewise, you can have a very dark, high alcohol content, viscous, sweet, and malty lager (like Eisbock). One of the worst things you can do at a craft beer bar is to go up to the bar and order “an ale” or “a lager.” These general terms won’t get you any closer to a specific beer or to what flavors you crave but will make the bartender sigh.

  Flavor Country: Ingredients Translated into Taste

  Malt in Translation

  There are several ways to see, taste, and feel malt in beer. First and foremost, malt is reflected in the color of the beer, but the malt can also give off different flavors. When you look at a very light-colored beer, you might determine that you’ll taste bready and biscuity qualities that exist in the very pale malts that were used during brewing. If you are looking at a very dark beer, you might expect chocolate, coffee, and roasty-toasty notes that are often present in very dark colored malts. (This does not mean you can judge a beer’s entire flavor profile by its color. The type of malt is a hint about the flavor notes you may taste but does not tell you about the yeast or hop aspect, so tasting is still important!)

  Many people will describe certain beers as malty. What does that mean? Usually they are not referring to the qualities that come from the roasted malt. They are talking about the residual sugars and additional alcohol content that can remain in a beer when an especially large amount of malt is used in the brew. This results in a prominent sweetness of flavor and a viscosity and heat in the mouthfeel.

  We’ve found that when people first start drinking beer, they are unexpectedly drawn to much darker, maltier styles than they could ever imagine themselves liking. They favor the sweet familiar flavors of chocolate, hazelnut, coffee, and toffee that these beers often impart on the palate, rather than the bitter styles that come from highly hopped beers, which are often an acquired taste. Which brings us to our next featured ingredient.

  True Hoppiness

  Unbeknownst to many, you cannot tell how bitter a beer is by looking at it, as hops are totally invisible in a finished beer (this is part of why you can’t determine a beer’s taste just by looking at it). After the hops’ qualities are extracted through boiling and steaming, the actual hop cones are strained out of the beer. You can detect hops, however, by tasting and smelling the beer. If a beer tastes in any way bitter, if a beer feels in any way dry, or if a beer causes you to feel astringency on your tongue, you are tasting the hops.

  Hops contain a chemical compound called tannin that contributes to the puckery or cottony mouthfeel that we describe as being dry. You’ve probably heard of tannins with regard to wine. In wine, tannins come from the skin of the grape. If someone says, “This wine is very tannic,” he’s saying that he is getting a very dry mouthfeel from the wine. As true dryness in a beverage technically means having a lack of sugar, beer is not actually dry (sugar exists in the malt), but the tannins in hops can contribute a balancing dry feeling that is essential to great beer.

  Hops also provide major aromatics in beer, and sometimes hops are added only to provide aromatics. These amazing aromas can range from pine tree, grass, citrus, herbs de Provence, and yes, its close relation—the pot. Hops also act as a preservative in beer, due to their antimicrobial properties, which help keep the beer stable (for more, see Chapter 6).

  Some brewers like to go further than that balance and create a bold, hop-driven beer, in which the bitterness is dominant. This can often taste like licking a wet pine tree (What, you’ve never licked a wet pine tree?), married with notes of citrus. New beer drinkers are often initially turned off by this bitter, aggressive flavor, but as their palates grow, they find they crave that bite of hops, just as one craves a sharp shot of espresso. In fact, some people have become so addicted to the hop experience that they have sparked a movement in the craft beer world to push hop bitterness to the extreme. These “hop-heads” are on a beer-quest to find the most intense hop experience out there.

  The Importance of Being Earnest: Why Water Matters in Beer

  Seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? If beer is liquid, then it has water in it. Water is water. Big deal, right? Well, friends, since beer is about 90% water, just as we are, its origin and makeup play a major role in a beer’s ultimate flavor and texture. Whether the water source for a beer is hard, containing a lot of minerals, or soft, containing fewer minerals, will greatly affect the character and the style of that beer. Minerals found in hard water, like calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper, and sulfates, can play an important role in the brewing process and can enhance dry and sharp flavors. Soft water, however, lacks the minerals and is, therefore, generally better for beers with lighter, more nuanced flavors.

  In the craft beer world, brewers are considered more honest if they use local water sources. Different regions have water with different mineral components. As a result, different regions are better suited to making certain types of beer. For example, Dublin has a type of hard water that is perfect for making the thick, chalky, dark stout for which the Irish are famous. Plzen (or Pilsen) in the Czech Republic has very soft water that produces a nuanced subtleness in a beer called Pilsner. Overall, there are over a dozen compounds found in water that are significant factors in what that final beer will taste like, so the source of water in each specific beer is of vital importance.

  When Yeast Is a Good Thing: Determining Yeast in Beer

  Have you ever looked at one of the crappy beers that you’ve had in the past and thought to yourself, “Well, at least it’s clear and shiny”? That’s because that beer has been filtered. In other words, the yeast has been physically or chemically taken out of that finished beer, leaving it sparkly and clear. This can be good for crisp, clean beer styles, because they benefit from a fine filtration process.

  Some beer styles, however, are not served by having the yeast removed. For example, Belgian and German specialty wheat beers use specific types of yeast that impart very complex flavors. If you held those beers up to the light, you might not even be able to see through them. They would appear cloudy or misty. This is actually a good thing in these beers. Not only is there a fuller, rounder mouthfeel but the unfiltered yeast provides many additional flavors and aromatics in the form of esters.

  Maybe the only ester you know is your Aunt Esther in Poughkeep sie, but we’re talking about the chemical compounds that yeast emits in beer. There are many different combinations of esters, but simply put, they are chemical com
pounds that our brains perceive as pleasant flavors and aromas. Brewers can choose these flavors and aromas based on the yeast strain they use. For instance, Hefeweizen yeast gives off banana and clove esters. Esters can be fruity like pears, strawberries, plums, and figs; they can be spicy like cloves, nutmeg, and pepper; they can be flowery like geranium and jasmine; and they can be herbaceous like sage and lavender. These are flavors you want hanging out in a wheat beer.

  You Put Coriander Where? Adjuncts and Flavorings

  Sometimes a brewer wants to get a little crazy and add something to the mix that is not a basic ingredient. These are called adjuncts and flavorings . This is a big trend in brewing in America today and makes beer one of the most diverse and interesting beverages on earth. Adjuncts are unmalted grains that are added as a supplement to malted barley. These may be used to provide more sugar or to add a specific mouthfeel or flavor. Flavorings are any herb, spice, flower, and so on that are added to lend a specific flavor to the brew. Here are some examples of ingredients that might be added by creative brewers:

  ADJUNCTS: Oats, rice, rye, corn, candi sugar (often used in Belgian beers), and wheat are all common adjuncts used to produce anything from a richer flavor to a specific mouthfeel or head retention.