The Beer Primer

In order to raise the educational content of the Tiki Bar Blog, I decided to find out what I could learn about beer on Wikipedia and report it here. Prepare to be blown away by the depth of knowledge you can gain by almost twenty minutes of research on the internet.

There are two main types of beer: ales and lagers. Ales and lagers are both brewed using malted barley and yeast. Malted barley is barley that has been soaked in water until it germinates. Once the barley has germinated, the process is stopped by drying the grain with hot air. Ales and lagers differ in the types of yeast used for the brewing process, however. Ales are brewed with top-fermenting yeast. This type of yeast causes foam to form at the top of the liquid during fermentation. This foam causes the beer to ferment quickly and gives the ale a sweet, fruity, full-bodied taste. Lagers are brewed using bottom-fermenting yeast. These yeasts ferment at the bottom of the liquid releasing more sugars than the top-fermenting yeasts and produce a crisper taste.

Ales usually contain hops which impart a bitter, herbal flavor to balance the sweetness of the malt. Hops are actually the flower cones of the hop plant. Interestingly enough, hops belong to the same family as Cannabis. Make of that what you will. Anyway, ales are fermented at higher temperatures than lagers and may be served soon after the brewing process is finished.

Lagers may also contain hops or other grains. Unlike ales, lagers are aged, or lagered (hence, the name), for weeks to months before being served. When lagers were first produced in the middle ages, traditional ale brewers and even the Catholic church opposed this new brewing method.

There are many varieties of ales. Some of the more common varieties are amber ale, American pale ale, brown ale, India pale ale, pale ale, porter, and stout. An excellent amber ale, as reported here frequently, is New Belgium Fat Tire. Brown ales achieve their coloration because of the use of brown malt and often have caramel and chocolate flavors. Newcastle Brown Ale is a good choice. India Pale Ales originated in Britain. In order to survive the lengthy ship voyage to India, the ales were given a high hop content to aid in preservation.

In 19th century London, porters were a popular mixture of brown ale, pale ale and well matured ale (in other words, old beer - those sly British brewers.)  Today, porters are a mixture of brown and pale ales. Stouts were originally just porters with the highest alcohol content. Today, stouts are brewed with roasted barley while porters are not. Guiness is a well known stout.

There are also many varieties of lagers including bocks, double bocks (Doppelbock in the original German), dunkels, Oud Bruin (Old Brown), and pilsners. 

Bocks are strong lagers first brewed in Germany in the 14th century for special occasions and holidays. Monks brewed bocks for their nutritional content to be consumed during the fast at Lent. Double bocks have even higher alcohol content than bocks and were called "liquid bread" by the monks. Some of my favorite beers are double bocks including Spaten Optimator, Paulaner Salvator and Ayinger Celebrator. The -ator ending on the names of most double bocks is an homage to traditional Belgian brewers.

Pilsners are a pale lager developed in the 19th century in Pilsen, Bohemia. Pilsners were the first "golden" beer in the world and have a distinct hop flavor and aroma (skunkiness.) Some examples of pilsners are Pilsner Urquell, Beck's, Heineken, Amstel and Stella Artois. Carol and the Tiki Gal are not fans of pilsners.

I hope you learned something from my difficult and strenuous journey through the overlfowing halls of knowledge that is Wikipedia. I know I did... I learned that I'm thirsty. Doppelbocks all around.