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Beer in a Glass
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. Historically,
beer was known to the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians, and dates back at least as
far as 4,000 BC. Because the ingredients used to make beer differ
from place to place, beer characteristics (type, taste, and colour) vary widely.
Ingredients
Typically, beers are made from water, malted
barley, hops, fermented by yeast. The addition of other flavourings 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 favours 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. The scientific name for brewer's yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an important model organism in molecular and cell biology.
One pint (568 ml) of beer typically contains about two units of alcohol, although alcohol content can vary significantly with style and brewer.
History
Beer in a Brussels bar
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 Mesopotamia, 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.
In Slavic languages, beer is called "pivo", from the verb "piti"
- to drink. So, "pivo" could be translated to English as "the
drink".
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 for long periods; they have since largely outpaced ales
in volume. (See below for the distinction.) The use of Hops for bittering
and preservation is a medieval addition. Hops were 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 Hildegard of
Bingen: "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 (water), malt, and yeast." However, by the 16th century, "ale" had
come to refer to any strong beer, and all ale and beer were hopped.
Types of beer
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 .
Lagers are probably the most common type of beer consumed. They are of Central European / German origin, taking their name from the German lagern ("to store"). Bottom-fermented, they were
traditionally stored at a low temperature for weeks or months, clearing, acquiring mellowness, and becoming charged with carbon dioxide. These days, with improved fermentation control, most lager
breweries use only short periods of cold storage (1 - 3 weeks).
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:
Top-fermented beers, particularly popular in Britain and Ireland, include mild, bitter, pale ale, porter, and stout.
Top-fermented beers tend to be more flavoursome, including a variety of grain flavours and fermentation flavours; they have also
lower carbonation and are fermented 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 and bacteria, 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
It is a common misconception that Australians drink Foster's
Lager. This is untrue - it is a joke among Australians that Fosters was so bad that they decided to export that one and keep
the rest. Australians are divided over their beer by their state; Queenslanders love their XXXX; South Australians drink Coopers; in New South Wales they drink Tooheys; Victorians prefer a VB; Western
Australians drink Swan
beer; and Tasmanians are further divided; those in the north drink Boags, and those in the south drink Cascade. Although it is generally
quite difficult to tell an Australian that there is any other beer than his home state's beer, other popular brews are Hahn and Crown. Particularly in the trendier
areas of the major cities, specialty brews, including a wide variety of ales, some by new
divisions of the major brewers and some by new microbreweries, are
beginning to become popular, as are some foreign beers.
Having said that, you can pretty much get most of these beers anywhere except the grubbiest most down-market pubs and clubs,
which exclusively serve VB, the various varieties of Tooheys, and in NSW Resches.
Like other nationalities, Belgians 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, Kwak, Leffe and Hoegaarden 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 .
Each variety of Belgian beer is served in a specific glass. The shape and size of the glass varies, and functions to enhance
the flavor of the particular beer.
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 are traditionally mitigated by serving the beer
through a hand pump fitted with a sparkler, a device that mixes air with the beer, oxidising it slightly and softening the flavour. Nowadays, only real
ale tends to be served via a hand pump, not a typical way for mass-produced beers to be 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. With the growing of hops being characteristic of southern counties in particular Kent,
traditional southern beers, such as London Pride, south of a line that can been drawn from the Bristol channel to the Wash (on the east coast of England) typically
contain more hops than those found north of this line such as Boddingtons.
Bulgaria, while being quite a small country in Eastern Europe, has quite a number of beer brands. The most popular breweries (both producing namesake
lagers) are Zagorka (produced mainly in
Stara Zagora) and Kamenitza. Other remarkable brands are Stolichno (bock beer produced by Zagorka), Shumensko (both lager and red ale, produced in
the city of Shumen), Burgasko (produced in the city of Burgas), MM (produced in the city of Varna), Pirinsko
(brewed in the city of Blagoevgrad), and Plevensko (produced in the city of Pleven). Most of the Bulgarian breweries are currently owned by foreign breweries, such as
Heineken.
Canada has a long history of beer production as the cold winter climate provided ideal conditions for brewing before
artificial refrigeration was invented. It is well known for its two large commercial breweries, Molson and Labatt, and also for its large number of smaller companies. In
addition, the popular SCTV characters, Bob & Doug McKenzie, are famous Canadian characters who are as associated for their love of
beer as Cheech and Chong are for marijuana. I Am Canadian is a beer commercial that became
a source of national pride.
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
consume the highest per capita amount of beer.
The local brand is called Stella, not to be confused with the
Belgian Stella Artois. It is primarily sold to foreign, non-Muslim, tourists.
Both of these countries 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 beerhunter 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.
Although the French market is dominated by industrial breweries, the Nord/Pas-de-Calais possesses strong brewing traditions
and breweries (Pelforth, for example), which it shares with its Belgian neighbor across the border. Alsace, also has a strong
tradition of brewing beer with bottom fermenting yeasts in the German style. Nowadays, there are more and more micro breweries
that are producing "fashion beer", especially in the regions with a strong identity (Brewerie Lancelot in Bretagne, beer Pietra
in Corsica,...)
With an extremely strong beer-oriented culture, the German market is a bit sheltered from the rest of the world beer market by
the German brewers adherance to the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot (purity commandment) dating from 1516, according to which the only allowed ingredients of beer are "Wasser (water), Hopfen (hops) und (Gersten-)Malz (barley-malt)". Through this agreement (which was law up to 1988),
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. There are a variety of different styles of German beer, such as Helles (lager from Bavaria),
Weizen (fermented wheat beer), Kölsch (top-fermented beer from the Cologne region), Alt (a dark
beer drunk around Düsseldorf and Dortmund), Pilsner, Export
(a milder version of Pilsner) and Bockbier (a dark strong beer).
While the beer market is more centralized in northern Germany (with the biggest brands Krombacher, Warsteiner and Bitburger each selling about 400 million
liters), the south has lots of very small, local breweries which add up to a total of 1350 breweries in Germany producing over
5000 brands of beer. One of these breweries, the Benedictine abbey Weihenstephan (established in
725) is reputedly the oldest brewery in the world.
The alcohol content usually is between 4.7% and 5.4% for most traditional brews. Bockbier or Doppelbock (double Bockbier)
however can have an alcohol content of up to 12%. Bockbier season is during June and July and a lot of local Bockbier festivals
are typically held in the south of Germany.
The Munich Oktoberfest is well
known for the millions of litres that are served every year (almost 6).
In various parts of north-eastern India, rice beer is quite popular. Several festivals
feature this nutritious, quite intoxicating, drink as part of the celebrations. The rice is fermented in vats that are sometimes
buried underground.
It is quite popular, and not only with humankind. Elephants are known to
attack villages, with the primary agenda of raiding these vats and having a good time generally.
Ireland is best known for stout, of which Guinness is the largest selling and most widely distributed brand. Guinness also make the most widely distributed
Irish lager - Harp. It is recommended that Guinness be served after being poured, waiting for three minutes and then topped-up.
Along with Guinness there is also Murphy's, Caffrey's and Beamish.
Beer is the most favoured alcoholic drink in Japan. It was introduced in the early Meiji Era from Germany. Major makers are Asahi, Kirin, and Sapporo while small local breweries supply distinct
tasting beers. Lager beers are most common but beers made with lower grain contents called "Happoushu" (sparkling alcoholic
drink) have captured a large part of the market as tax is lower on these products. Drinking beer with salted boiled beans,
edamame, is known as a favourite summer pastime for adults.
The indigenous people of New Zealand (Maori) did not brew beer. The major ingredients
of beer were not found or introduced to New Zealand until the arrival of Europeans in the mid 1800's. The late European history is characterised by the dominance of about three large breweries. The dominance of
these breweries was helped by the buying of some of the small local breweries. From the mid 1980's small boutique or microbreweries started to emerge. Consequently, the range of beer styles increased. Some
pubs operate their own small breweries, often housed within the pub itself. Wine and ready
mixed alcoholic drink consumption is increasing and is lessening the quantity of beer being sold.
Beer has always been extremely important for Poles. 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 pilsener, lager or porter. The most popular Polish brands are Żywiec, EB, Lech, Lezajsk, and Tyskie.
Romanian beer is known in Central and Eastern Europe for its taste and low 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.
see Beer in Serbia and Montenegro
Slovak Republic
Slovaks, like their neighbours, like to drink beer. They have a wide spectrum of brands on the market suitable for everybody's
taste. The most famous brands are ?ari?,
Smädný mních (which
translates to Thirsty Monk) , Radegast
and many more.
The USA has always been a beer-drinking nation. The diary of William Bradford records that the Mayflower
made landfall at Plymouth Rock under duress: "We could not now take much
time for further search...our victuals being much spent, especially our beer." [1]
The brewing traditions of England and the Netherlands (as brought to New York) ensured that the colonies
would be dominated by beer drinking and not the imbibing of wine. Up until the middle of the 19th century, ales dominated American brewing. This changed as the lager styles, brought by German immigrants, turned out to be more profitable for large-scale manufacturing and
shipping. Names such as Miller, Pabst, and Schlitz became known through the breweries they founded or acquired, and many others followed. Czech immigrants also made their contributions to US beer.
The lager brewed by these companies was not the extremely weak and mild lager now associated with modern US megabreweries.
This American pilsner was a significantly stronger beer, both in
flavour and alcohol, that was designed to meet the appetites of both Native Americans and central European immigrants.
All of this came to a halt when Prohibition was imposed. Only a few of the
largest breweries were able to stay in business -- by manufacturing near beer,
malt syrup, or other non-alcohol grain products. Production and shipping of alcohol was largely confined to illegal operations,
which could deliver potent liquors -- smuggled rum and domestic moonshine -- more efficiently and safely than bulkier products such as beer.
For more than fifty years after the end of Prohibition, the United
States beer market was heavily dominated by large commercial breweries, producing beers more noted for their uniformity than
for any particular flavour. Beers such as those made by Anheuser-Busch
and Coors followed a restricted pilsner style,
with large-scale industrial processes and the use of low-cost ingredients (such as rice and corn). The dominance of the so-called
"macrobrew" led to an international stereotype of "American beer" as poor in quality and flavour.
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 such as Anchor (San Francisco) and Samuel
Adams (Boston). In much of eastern Pennsylvania including Philadelphia, the word "lager" is synonymous with Yuengling Traditional
Lager, a flavorful beer from a regional brewery in Pottsville founded in 1829, making it the oldest continuously operating
brewery in America. While in volume, the macrobrews 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
Beers, and similar beverages made from raw materials other than barley, include:
Commercial brands of beer
Quotes
- "Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy." — Benjamin Franklin
- We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of
avarice." — Samuel Johnson in 1781 on the sale of Henry Thrale's Anchor Brewery
- "Give me a woman who truly loves beer, and I will conquer the world." — Kaiser Wilhelm II
- "Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man"
— A. E. Housman
- "Alcohol: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." — Homer Simpson
- "24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not." — Paul Newman
See also
External links
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