- Beer is a fermented drink made from the artful choosing and manipulating of four main ingredients – malted grain (usually barley), water, yeast and hops.
- If barley isn’t available, brewers can substitute corn, wheat, oats, rye or rice.
- Grain is needed to brew beer. Beer is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages known. Anthropologists credit man’s craving for a good brew with the transition of the nomadic Neolithic people to hunter/gatherer/farmers who grew brew crops.
- The Latin name for the Hop plant is “Humulus Lupulus,” which translates to “Wolf Plant.” Fitting, because it grows wild in the countryside, just as wolves do. It is a first cousin to Cannabis, and beer drinkers in the 19th century whose brew of choice was the heavily-hopped India Pale Ale, felt both its alcoholic and narcotic effects.
- During World War II, the clever British Royal Navy equipped a ship with a small brewery that made a mild ale using desalinated water and malt extract. British sailors fought to be assigned to the ship, which they dubbed “Davy Jones’ Brewery.”
- Roasted malt and unmalted roasted barley taste and smell remarkably like coffee. Some instant coffees contain sizeable servings of roasted malt, a habit that stemmed from World War II when real coffee beans were nearly impossible to get.
- Today, malt is cured by coke (a high carbon residue coal product) or coal. But early on, it was dried over a difficult- to-control wood fire. The malt was often charred, taking on a smokey flavor. Today, some German beers are still made with smoked malt.
- Brewers prefer to refer to the water they use in the brewing process as “liquor.”
- The Beer of the Month Club is the most innovative ways to sample a variety of microbrewed beer from around the U.S.
Club Image
