Make Beer - Quit Paying Taxes (Well, almost...) by Chris Devaney   PAGE 4 of 4  <BACK

Hops

While malt equates to the body of the beer, hops are the spirit, the essence of the brew.  Hops play a dual role in brewing beer or ale.  They provide the characteristic bitterness of the brew comfortably offsetting the sweet malty flavor of the brew.  They also provide the unmistakable aroma in a quality beer. 

Hops are the cone-like flowers from Humulus lupulus, a vigorous perennial vine grown in many places across the globe.  There are many varieties of hops, some subtly different, some major excursions from blandness.  From the brewer’s standpoint they are classified by their concentration of alpha-acids and oil content.  A high alpha hop is used more for imparting bitterness to the beer whereas the lower alpha-acid containing hop typically contains a higher concentration of aromatic oils.  The lower alpha-acid variety of hops are added in the later stages of the wort preparation to produce the characteristic beer aroma.  It is not uncommon to find recipes using both types of hops in the same brew. 

Oddly enough, historically, hop additions to beer and ale came about not for flavor or aroma’s sake, but for its preservative properties. 

The aromatic hop oils are not very water soluble; the alpha-acids are not extremely soluble either but more so than the oils.  Isomerization occurs at elevated temperatures in the wort and this helps to increase the solubility of these components.  Because of the low solubility in water, most recipes call for boiling the wort when adding hops directly.  The aromatic hop oils unfortunately are quite volatile so they have a tendency to boil off.  Therefore, hops for aroma are added at the late stages of the wort boil to minimize the oil loss. 

Yeast

Malt is the body, hops are the essence, and yeast makes it all possible.  Beer making has been an essential part of cultures even back to the Egyptian pharaohs.  Yet is was only in the 19th century when Louis Pasteur (Uncle Louie in beer making circles) discovered it was not magic, not God’s will, nor “spontaneous generation” of microscopic beer animals that produced beer.  It was actually microscopic, naturally occurring airborne plant organisms, yeasts, that were responsible for the metabolic reactions for transforming sugars of varying complexity into carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol. 

Prior to Uncle Louie’s input, beer making, as essential as it was to civilization (see the sidebar Ale and Freedom), was often a hit or miss proposition.  Early Brazilian Indian beer makers would use their own form of “Uncle Looey” to make their “all-natural” beer. This 17th century engraving shows what looks remarkably like the loveable Twombly twins I once knew, chewing on some substance and then hurling or otherwise ungracefully depositing the chewed ‘whatever’ in the form of a ‘looie’ back into the churning vat of wort.  Whoa! That’s all-natural brewing to the extreme!

I’m reminded of Crazy Francis, an old heartthrob of mine from yesteryear.  One in a million as I recall, she had such a virgin-clean palette.  Crazy Francis refused to drink anything but Molson Ale and my goodness could she consume Molson Ale.  Even though I was somewhat afraid of her, if I were to brew an all-organic beer today, without hesitation, if I could find her, I would let her inoculate my wort. 

Yeast for brewing comes in two distinct styles; top fermenting (ales) and bottom fermenting (beers) although it is not uncommon for both activities take place from the same strain.  It is the yeast that determines whether you brew beer or ale. Bottom fermenters generally do well in colder fermentation environments whereas top fermenters would slow down and quench the process below 65F. 

The yeast actually imparts a subtle flavor to the brew.  Often you will hear of a fruity, citrus, or even doughy character ascribed to a brew.  These subtle refinements are brought on by the strain of yeast used. It’s a porous boundary between civilization and the wild so sometimes wild yeasts produce distinctive flavors for better or worse as well.

It is worth experimenting as you get more experience in home brewing with various strains of yeast.  But do stay away from bread yeast and unless you run into Crazy Francis, refrain from using spit!

Water

A whole volume could be written about water and beer but unless you are using advanced brewing techniques like mashing your own malt, water is water, and at least with malt extract brews, does not make an overwhelming contribution to flavor.  It can be troublesome if the water is exceptionally hard or highly laced with minerals, for here it will affect the head retention properties of the brew.  It could impart an off taste to the finished brew if the mineral content is too high.  A rule of thumb for extract beers is: “If the water tastes good, so will the beer.”

Recipes

There’s been a resurgence of small microbreweries around the world offering a tremendous selection of brews available.  Some good, some bad.  Some brews are worth emulating, others  .  .  .  well, I might stay away from just based on the name.

On the internet you can find hundreds of beer recipes to try.  See the references at the end for some.  Some recipes try to emulate commercial products, for instance there are a couple that claim to be a fair representation of  “Pete’s Wicked Ale”; one involves mashing your own malt the other uses extract and dry malt that has already gone through the mashing process for you.  Pick out one and try it.

Experiment, take good notes, and may your yeast always flocculate well. 

Four Weeks Later

In the end, I ran out of patience after 34 long, thirsty days. With only occasional tapping off some beer from the carboy dispensers (for quality control purposes I might add), the time for consummation had come.  And the anguish was well worth it. 

Both the kit beer (Cooper’s Lager) and the medium bodied “grocery store malt” beer were a delight. 

The lager mellowed substantially over the cool 21-day storage.  It clarified nicely, and produced an aromatic lager style beer with a robust head and a strong bitterness; perhaps a tad too sharp but very refreshing.  It was crisp, light, and turned out to be a great companion to a pizza.

The “grocery malt” beer was darker than expected and pleasantly sweeter.  It was heavy-bodied, more so than the lager but smooth, with a nice malty flavor.  It produced a frothy light head and was superb alongside a steak dinner. 

I will definitely brew from both of these recipes again.   

The kit shown in the picture is one I bought for my next brewing experiment.  With a name like Headcracker Ale, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Then it came in the mail. “Oh Lordy,” said I,  “it looks awful strong.” so I prayed for some heavenly guidance to brew this one.  After opening the box and upon deeper reflection on the nature of this brew I added to my prayer.  .  .  “Perhaps Lord, you’ll give me the sense not to even try this!” 

The Very End

Everything is in moderation.  You can only cheat the government so much.  If you sell home brew or produce over 200 gallons a year, you may be visited by Elliot Ness or one of his revenuer grandkids, those barrel-chested fools with heads that look like inverted pails wearing hideous suits bought from a poorly lit garage sale in Chicago.

 Elliot will arrive even sooner and a great deal madder if you decide to distill your beer. 

And lastly, should you garner the strength of conviction to attack something like Headcracker Ale, have fun but please, be responsible.

References and Additional Sources

Brewing Non-alcohol Beer http://byo.com/feature/66.html

Hundreds of homebrew recipes: http://hbd.org/brewery/cm3/CatsMeow3.html

How To Brew, John Palmer free e-book: http://www.howtobrew.com/

Hop Vines: http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/hops--32.html

Hop Gardening: http://www.freshops.com/gardening.html

Small Scale and Organic Hops Production: http://www.crannogales.com/HopsManual.pdf

Beer and Wine Making Supplies:
http://www.beer-wine.com/category_page.asp?categoryID=155&sectionID=1

http://makebeer.net/

Headcracker Ale kit: http://www.beer-wine.com

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