Beer brewing process

Introduction
Germany - the country of poets and thinkers, but of beer drinkers as well. That is no exaggeration! Nine out of ten people drink beer, some of them consume it regularly others only occasionally. The consumption of beer is much more important than that of milk or juice. And it is not the worst either since medical studies have shown that beer is very nutritious and healthy as well. People drinking beer usually say "Prost" to each other which in English is "cheers". "Prost" is of Latin origin and has the meaning "it might be useful".

Beer brewing in Germany
The Germans are only allowed to use four ingredients when brewing beer and not more. Besides hop and malt there are only water and yeast. Malt is good for the content of beer, enriching its taste. It's nothing else but transformed grain. In most of the cases barley is used but with some kinds of beer wheat is used, too. The grain contains starch which first has to be transformed into sugar. The sugar is then fermented giving rise to alcohol and carbon dioxide gas in the beer.

How is it done? First you moisten the grain and let it sprout. This procedure is called malting and starts the transformation of starch into sugar. The received malt is then dried or lets better say parched. At this stage brewers already decide whether the beer is going to be a dark one or a light one. Malt for light beers is dried at 80 degrees centigrade. If temperature is raised up to 105 degrees centigrade, the malt will darken and the beer will finally be dark as well.

This malt then is kibbled, put into a big pot together with water - the second ingredient - and is heated. The mix of kibbled malt and water is called "Maische" (mash). More and more starch is transformed into sugar in the hot machine.

If the mash is ready, it is filtered to retain the rest of the grain and is now called wort.

Now the third ingredient, the hop, is added. Hop is a climber plant but only its blossoms are used for beer brewing. The hop gives the beer its aroma, its elegance, its fresh bitter taste. Besides it is responsible for extending the shelf-life of beer.

The wort is boiled again together with the hop, is filtered again and cooled down. Now the forth ingredient is added, the yeast which leads to fermentation of the wort. Part of the sugar is now turned into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas which is responsible for the nice frothing of the beer.

Finally the yeast is removed from the beer unless it is intended to be a yeast beer. However, the beer is still fermenting for a little while after that.

And then ... you can drink it!!!

Is it as simple as this? Yes, it is. However, some would say it is complicated if you think of the fact that nearly 4000 different kinds of beer are brewed in this way. Many kinds of beer are similar in taste and even experts sometimes have difficulties in telling the kinds apart. But there are clear differences in taste which even an unexperienced beer drinker can perceive.

So, cheers to beer and its nowadays very popular mixes with different flavours like lemon, orange or lime. ;-)

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From Recipes Wiki, a Wikia wiki.