The Gruppster's Brew

A Guide on Creating an Enjoyable Beer that Defines Your Style

Some people might say that alcoholism and science can never coexist. Homebrewing not only disproves this idea, but it shows how they may enhance one another to create a treasure unlike any other. Like any practice, brewing becomes easier and produces a better beer with each trial. Now if you read this guide and your first brew doesn’t reach the standards that you were expecting, you just need to remember the words of Billy Carter, our 39^th President’s brother. “There is no such thing as a bad beer. It’s that some taste better than others.”

Engineering Your Beer

Step one in tasting your delicious creation is determining what type of beer you would like. Your first decision is whether to brew an ale or a lager. Now there are many different variations of these two categories such as bocks, IPAs, stouts, and barley wines. There are much too many to define and describe without writing a novel for you. The idea is to pick a style you want to try out and research the specifics of your choice. Ales are a great place to begin, as they have been the drink getting out ancestors hammered(intoxicated) for centuries into the past. Lagers on the other hand are a much younger species of beers and thus we have less experience with them.

Once you have made your initial decision, the real fun of the creation process begins. Now we can decide upon the many looks and tastes that will come to formulate your wort and, in turn, your beer. Wort is what we like to call our liquid before the fermentation process, when all of the human effort has been completed.  I will go into more detail about how this gets turned to beer a later on.

Choosing your malts and hops will come to define the taste of your beer throughout the creation process. Certain malts will develop into sweeter flavors than others. The right choice is essential in attempting to develop a balanced brew. Like many other types of pairings, opposites attract. For this reason, you can choose an especially strong set of hops to add.  A hoppy beer is how you might describe a beer with earthy, herbal, spicy, or even citrus-like flavors and aromas. The hops are also what give the beer its bitter taste. This bitterness will eventually be measured in what has come to be known as International Bittering Units (IBUs). “An American Light Lager may have 5 to 8 IBUs, while an Imperial India Pale Ale (IPA) may have 100 or more IBUs” (Nachel 1). Along with bitterness, the color and gravity of the beer can make a huge impact on its overall enjoyment by a seasoned beer snob.

Color begins with the grains you choose to make the beer. “All beers have color, whether it’s light, dark, or somewhere in between… Light-colored grain results in a pale-colored beer; conversely, darker-roaster grains produce darker beers” (Nachel 1). Gravity on the other hand comes from the level of maltose dissolved in your wort.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-basic-styles-of-beer.html

Alter the Process, Define the Taste

So how do we begin the process of brewing our well thought creation? The process is much more detailed than any one person can describe. For this reason, I will include a link to a YouTube video created by WNCBikeRider that can describe the steps better than I can. The man may seem a bit dry in his tutorial, but the dryness only added to the humor in my opinion.

How to Brew Beer at Home: Start to Finish. Tips & Tricks. For the Beginner of Expert

WNCBikeRider

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oobHoJYRezw

John Palmer describes the process in 5 summarizing steps.

“1. Malted barley is soaked in how water to release the malt sugars.

2. The malt sugar solution is boiled with Hops for seasoning.

3. The solution is cooled and yeast is added to begin fermentation.

4. The yeast ferments the sugars, releasing the CO₂ and ethyl alcohol.

5. When the main fermentation is complete, the beer is bottled with a little bit of added sugar to provide the carbonation (Palmer).” This is where we realize that yeast infections aren’t always a bad thing.

So you begin with a large (preferably 5 or more gallons) pot of boiling water in which you place the grains, inside of a bag, into the water to diffuse like a tea bag. When the water is at a boil and the grains have seeped into the water, you should add the packets of malt that you have selected. After some time of the malt adding to your mixture, you need to add a few additions of hops at particular intervals. The choices you have made at the start come in to play here and will show their colors in the final product. The timing that you add the yeast can make an enormous difference to your beer. I also told a small white lie when I was telling you when to decide whether the brew should be an ale or lager. Which type of yeast you decide to use is what determines the result. A top-fermenting yeast will float on top of your beer during fermentation and will produce an ale.  On the other hand you may decide to create a lager. This is dome by using a bottom-fermenting yeast, in which “the yeasts sink to the bottom of the beer during fermentation” (Nachel 2). This is when you really get to decide which type of beer you will have, but of course you must order and have ready the yeasts beforehand. 

Unleashing Your Inner Beer Snob

Learning how to properly taste a beer and appreciating one for what it is will come soon. Unfortunately for my wonderful readers, these ideals will come with Part 2 of my discussion on the proper creation and enjoyment of a beer.

(Works Cited will be added within the finalization)