beer - just the facts
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Everybody knows beer. It's a drink. One gets it at every party. And it's quite cheap (depending on the quality).Beer also produces hangovers
What is beer?
Beer is defined as drink brewed of only three ingredients: water, hops and malts.1
Beer contains (in general) about 5% of alcohol , which makes it the ideal drink for getting slightly drunk
And for all those folks who care for their nutrition:
Beer is excellent. It contains everything bread contains, which makes it as valuable as milk2. And it's completly vegetarian.3
different kinds of beer4
Lager beer is the most popular. It's just a beer which is preserved (thats what Lager means). This means the yeast has been removed. more about LagerMärzen means March. In former time when there was no way for cooling they found out that beer brewed in springtime contained more alcohol and tasted better.In Wheat beer there is still the yeast. It's got a slightly sweet taste. And it's malt is made of wheat, guess where the name comes
all to know aboutStrong beer has a lot of alcohol in it. About 8-12%.
To be honest there is no real alcohol free beer. Depending on the law a beer can be called alcohol free if it contains less than ~1% of it5. Technical it's regular brewed beer where the alcohol is chemicaly removed.
Brewing (very simplified)
It's only three steps. Though these and the difference of the raw material make the difference between beers.6
Producing malt
To get malt seeds of any kind of grain (wheat, barley,...) can be used. It's put in water to spread and then crushed. After a while it is dried by hot air.getting wort
To get the wort water, malt and hops are mixed and boiled. Afterwards the wort is filtrated. The remainigs are called treber (which is burnt or used as animal food).Fermenting
Some yeast is added to the wort. In a first step it is fermented with air to produce more yeast. In the second step it is put in a closed tank (and cooled). There it is fermented for about 2 weeks. Then the beer is filtrated and bottled.A brief history of beer
~2000bc
The first beer-like drinks are brewed by Egyptans and Babylonians. This beer didn't contain hops and wasn't fermented long thus it had a sweetish taste and contained ~2-3% alcohol.~1000ad
In medeaval times monks were the only having the knowledge to brew beer in europe. They also introduced hops that time.18th century
In Bavaria the first law on earth is made regulating that beer must only consist of water, hops and malt.19th century
Cooling devices were developed to brew "Märzen" all year long.
It was also discovered how to preserve beer to get "Lager" (in former times beer had to be consumed in some weeks after brewing, otherwise it was spoiled). This also allowed to ship beer all over the world.
nowadays
Using modern technologies it's possible to produce lots of beer of constant quality.
Alcohol-free beer was developed.
Interesting sites about beer
Beer lawsGerman beers1There are some beerlike drinks which are produced in a similar way, but they don't count as beer
2though I wouldn't give it to kids for this reason 3unless you count yeast as animal.4I'm only informed about the "german" classification". So it might be different with your country. Hope to fix this soon. 5That concentration of alcohol is harmless. Even some fruit juices contain that much!6If you think about brewing yourself you need to know that in breweries they know the exact conditions they need to brew (eg. What temperature for what step) and only use first choice of ingredients. And some other things are important too. Some unwanted bacteria can ruin a complete batch!
