Lifting the lid! Well, first of all let’s get down to the nitty gritty. What’s in a name? Beer or Ale? This is where it can get a bit muddy and hopefully that’s just the meaning of the words and not the liquid itself. I’ll probably be shot down in flames but I’ve always thought that “Ale” is what we brew in this country and “Beer” is a catchall term that encompasses all styles and types of brewed liquid, including “Ale”. Let’s delve into this ancient soup a little further.
What did the Germans ever do for us? There’s a lot of things of course, including fast cars and expensive domestic appliances but in the context of this article, they gave us “Reinheitsgebot” or The German Beer Purity Law. This law set out the only ingredients that were allowed in the manufacture of beer, namely water, barley and hops. Strangely, there’s no mention of yeast, it being an integral part and all that. That was included later in history but I’m being cheeky and adding it in here. So here we have it. The holy four. Let’s zoom in a bit and take a closer look, starting with the biggy.
Water. Without it we couldn’t live and without it we couldn’t make beer. Some would say they couldn’t live without beer and that’s fine by me. It is of course the largest part of what goes into making your pint. Way back when, any old water would do but your discerning peasant soon came to realise that beer produced in certain places made beer that was better than other places. This of course led to major brewing cities being created such as Burton-on-Trent. What made the difference? It’s all down to chemicals. Burton water is high in sulphates, magnesium and other stuff that makes beer crisper, drier and clearer. Unfortunately, Burton beer also became famous for what is known as the Burton Snatch, where their beers had a certain whiff of rotten eggs! Here at Bowman Ales we partially “Burtonize” our brewing water or liquor so we get all the benefits and none of the pong!
Barley. Like a lot of things that happen by chance, the use of cereals to make beer possibly happened way back in the very murky depths of history when some lucky but untidy troglodyte left his beaker of porridge around for a few days and then noticed it was bubbling. Leaving nothing to waste, he stopped doing the washing up and after inventing the yardarm and making sure the sun was well below it, drank this slop, only to find that it had a rather interesting and pleasing effect on his primitive head. Beer was born! Since then of course, the cereals he had back then to make his bevvy, have been bred (no pun intended) and improved, so we now have specific types of Barley for both the Maltster and the Brewer to work their magic. What’s a Maltster I hear you ask?
Later on in our soggy journey, we will look a little deeper into yeast but here we should just be aware that it needs sugar to work its tipsy magic and that’s where the Maltster comes in. He takes the grain and lets it grow a bit and then dries it before passing it on to the Brewer. What’s happened here is a wonder of nature.
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To be continued…