Beer Basics & Tasting Beer

Tasting Beer - Beer's Basic Structure

A "beer gut" is something that happens to our bodies when we drink beer and don't do enough (ahem, any) crunches. But beer has its own body, ironically gut-free, and understanding its basic structure might just help you get more out of your next bottle. When you pour a beer, you get a visual of its basic bifurcated blueprint, which is some color[link to Color in Beer] of liquid beneath some quantity of whitish foam. Starting with this structure alone, you can get a slight sense of what to expect from the beer. You may have heard reference to a beer's "head" before—that's the foamy white stuff that may or may not stick around at the top of your pint. The reason some beers foam (and the reason most beer foams more than other carbonated beverages) is because certain proteins from the malted grains bond with compounds from the hops known as isohumulones. With something like champagne, the goal might be a finer "pearl" (smaller bubbles resulting from fermentation), but with beer, it's a matter of not only creating foam, but getting the head to stick around (called "head retention"). CO2 clearly helps create the foam, but the way the beer is made will determine if and how the foam sticks around (Guinness uses a mixture of CO2 and nitrogen for its famously rich head because nitrogen doesn't dissolve in water as easily, meaning it's available to foam more). The shape of the glass can also encourage foam to stick around: a taller, narrower Pilsner glass will keep the foam better than a short, wide glass. A dry glass works better than a wet, and beer glasses might even have fine etchings inside, encouraging the creation of bubbles. Of course, the head is only one aspect of a beer's structure, and not necessarily a "goal" for all brewers. But knowing what influences a strong head—those aforementioned malt-derived proteins, high alpha-acid hops yielding isohumulones, generally moderate alcohol levels—will give you a preview of what you're about to taste. And of course it's also good to know whether you like the textural experience of a foam-capped beer. As for "lacing," a term that refers to the pattern of foam left behind as we drink, it's not really important, or indicative of the quality of the beer. Just think of it like a footprint of deliciousness.

Tasting Beer - The Role Of Alcohol by Volume (ABV)

Alcohol content in beer matters for a few reasons. For one, you probably want to know how much power each bottle packs before you go for that third beer. But alcohol level can also tell you what to expect from the flavor of a beer, and has an impact on the overall body and mouthfeel. Alcohol is the result of fermentation—a byproduct of yeast metabolizing some tasty grain-derived, fermentable sugars into alcohol and CO2. The final alcohol level in a given beer depends on the yeast used, the amount of sugar digested, and the fermentation method. The way a brewer measures that final alcohol level—what is called "Alcohol by Volume," or ABV—is with something called a hydrometer. The hydrometer is floated first in the wort and then in the finished fermented beer to test for change in density (due to loss of sugar). Just in case you hear the terms tossed around, and you don't want to feel intimidated, the density of the wort is called the Original Gravity (OG) or Specific Gravity (SG) and the density of the fermented beer is called the Final Gravity (FG). The difference between them is multiplied by 131 to convert the change in gravity to a percent-by-volume. And that's what really matters. Not that alcohol content is really the "point" of beer, historically. Remember, those first early beers consumed by ancient Egyptians after a hot day of pyramid building were probably fairly low alcohol (and fairly high nutrition). Cut to today and you've got breweries pushing the double digits in alcohol content. That's important because alcohol influences flavor, or how flavor is perceived; just think of the "hot" flavor of a really high proof grain alcohol and you'll get a sense for the extremes of alcohol's influence on flavor. But unlike, say, barrel proof whiskey, you won't really be able to taste the alcohol if the beer is balanced. Of course, this being the era of craft beer boundary-pushing, there are some beers climbing into the upper limits of ABV. (If the average beer has 4 to 5% ABV, then something like, say, BrewDog's Tactical Nuclear Penguin—made by subjecting an already 16-month aged 10% Imperial stout to -2F temperatures and fishing out non-alcoholic ice—is about seven times more alcoholic than normal, and so should be sipped, not swigged.) Thankfully, the majority of beer, even craft beer, clocks in at much lower ABVs. Session beers, for instance, are so-called because of their low alcohol content, around 4.5%. Pale ales generally have moderate alcohol content, while IPAs and Imperial styles are higher. But this is the tip of the tip of the iceberg (icebeerg?). Your best bet is to start with the label. Of course, ABV isn't actually required by law to be on a beer label (it varies state to state), so be aware. And sip slowly.

Tasting Beer In Depth: Flavors, Aromatics & Mouthfeel

Drinking beer might seem like an easy thing. So easy, in fact, that people even began doing it upside down, designing hats around it, and combining it with ping pong sports. But things have changed. The craft beer renaissance has brought attention to a new spectrum of meticulously crafted beers—and renewed attention to classic beer styles that, at least for a while, took a backseat to the output of commercial beer giants. By now most of us know drinking beer isn't a simple thing, nor should it be. Casual, maybe. Fun, absolutely. But simple, never. The taste of a beer is really made up of several components, the most important of which are aromatics, flavor, and mouthfeel. (Sure, there's some overlap there, but bear with us.) The best way to taste a beer is to allow each of these elements to influence your experience. Flavors and aromatics—in beer as in everything we eat or drink—are hopelessly, delightfully intertwined. What we smell from a glass of beer is going to influence how we taste the beer. And depending on the style of beer at play, flavors and aromatics can range all across the map—florals, pepper, citrus, bread, raisin, chocolate, pine, grass, toffee, banana, earth, nuts, biscuit, coffee, cloves, tropical fruit, etc. The list goes on, as far as your ability to conjure up adjectives. But understanding other elements—especially mouthfeel—can open up your experience of "taste" to a whole new level. So what is mouthfeel, besides a word that someone clearly (and cleverly) made up by smashing two other words together? It's kind of exactly what it sounds like: the feeling of the beer in your mouth, which involves elements like texture, pH level, carbonation, ABV and serving temperature. Like most things in beer, mouthfeel will vary heavily depending on beer style. A stout is going to taste thicker than a crisp lager, but two IPAs will likely have fairly similar mouthfeels (even if things like flavor and aromatics are different, resulting from different use of hops). So now that you know what to look for, how should you actually taste a beer? The rules are very similar for beer as wine: look, smell, and only then, taste. Perceive the beer's color and apparent structure, and then agitate the beer to release aromatics. When it's finally time to taste, take a sip or two to prime your palate, and then (finally!) it's time to take your tasting sip. Don't chug, or even swallow just yet! Get a sense for the beer's mouthfeel and, if you're really into digging into flavor appreciation here, exhale a bit while you taste and try to perceive those aromatics as you exhale (called retro-olfaction). Remember, the point isn't scientific precision. The point is enjoyment, enhanced with a bit of knowledge.

The Role Of Hops In Beer

Hops may be one of four essential ingredients in beer (alongside barley, yeast, and of course water). But from the current spectrum of craft beer offerings—and the heavy emphasis on hoppy IPAs—it might seem like hops is the marquee ingredient behind all worthy and delicious beer. That isn't the case. Hops are magical, absolutely, and hoppy styles are recently trending, but hops are part of a spectrum; an ingredient—a really interesting one—in the magical recipe for beer. So what are hops? As far as beer is concerned, what we call "hops" are actually just the cone-shaped flowers of the female hops plant, aka Humulus lupulus. A cousin of cannabis—with none of the THC, alas—hops contain acids and oils that impart bitterness, flavor, and stability to the finished beer. Generally, hops are added to the boil stage of brewing, as it takes a pretty long time (around an hour) to unleash the "alpha" acids that bitter and balance the sweetness of the malt (this is why hops weren't incorporated into beer production until around the turn of the 1st Century A.D.- ancient man probably wouldn't have had time or inclination to chill out around a fire as his hops boiled). Hops are most often associated with bitterness, but that isn't the only reason to use them. Depending on what you're going for, you might add more hops later in the boil (since aromatic oils are destroyed in a long boiling process). But a beer could also be dry hopped (added to the fermenter) or even fresh hopped (when just-picked hops aren't dried but instead brought to the brewery like so much fresh cut grass). Again, depending on the style you're going for, and where you're brewing, the choice and timing of hops will vary. If you're looking for a great basic example of how hops can vary in flavor and regional characteristics, try a West Coast IPA alongside an East Coast IPA. You'll notice similarities—an unapologetic, but pleasant bitterness, e.g.—among a world of differences. Bear in mind, these are so-called "hop-forward" beers, with a pronounced bitterness which you may or may not like. But fear not, because in many cases—and many beer styles—hops don't have a starring role but a supporting role, and are often even shunted into the background for structural support as a brewer looks to emphasize other flavors (say, the roasty character of a grain in a darker ale). Beyond knowing your basic beer styles, a good way to know how hops have been used in a particular beer is checking the IBU level. An increasing number of beers will display the IBU, or "International Bittering Units," which measures the iso-alpha acids in a beer (and thus, the bitterness). But whether you notice them or not, if you're drinking beer, you're reaping the benefits of the hops plant.

What Is Beer

If we're talking about a beverage with literal millennia of history, the answer's bound to get a little complicated. Fortunately for beer lovers and beer newbies everywhere, the basic formula for beer has remained the same for centuries: beer is the fermented, alcoholic product of the careful combination of water, malt, hops, and yeast. That's it. Okay, so hops weren't always included in the mix, but we'll get to that later. Where the modern beer industry is concerned, whatever six pack you pick up from your local refrigerated case, the malt-hops-yeast trifecta will be the secret of its glory. Of course, this being the modern beer industry, there's also a chance someone got a little inspired and brewed apricots into it, or maybe the beer was "hopped" for an extra-long period of time—resulting in a more assertively bitter flavor. But the basic backbone of your beer, from Coors to craft, remains deliciously the same. And that's because you don't mess with the simplicity of a good recipe. Looking a little more closely, we learn that beer, like leavened bread, is the product of starch-based yeast fermentation. Grains, most often super-starchy barley, are allowed to partially germinate and are then combined with water, creating a kind of cereal mash into which brewers unleash a small, single-celled army of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or brewer's yeast. Now, yeast love sugar just about as much as a kid in a candy store, except when yeast eat sugar, instead of having a tantrum and sticky fingers, they create magical byproducts: ethanol and CO2, which can show up in various levels in some of our favorite, and least favorite, beers. (Alcohol in a beer is often recorded on the label as "ABV," alcohol by volume.) Hops, the cone-shaped flower of a tall climbing plant related to Cannabis, are added in the brewing process both as a means of clarification and stabilization, and to impart their signature flavors—which range from bitter and astringent to floral, fruity, and citrusy. And while beers can look anything from ultra-light golden to almost impenetrably rich brown, because the base of the beer is a grain mash, final colors usually tend to land somewhere in the brownish spectrum. Again, variations (of the grains or hops or even the yeast strains used) abound, and just like wine, beer can sometimes assume some of the ambient terroir of its environment (indigenous yeast strains, water content, local fruit or hop flavors, etc.). But wherever water, malt, yeast, and hops come together in such a way that fermentation happens, the result—which you might enjoy out of a bottle or can or Solo cup, or maybe even an elegant Pilsner glass—is beer.

The Role Of Malt In Beer

It's tempting to say every ingredient is the most important ingredient in beer. At least we know which relationship is probably the most important—the timeless, bubbly love story between malted grain and yeast. As we discussed, when we make beer, yeast feasts on sugar, metabolizing alcohol and CO2. And while that sugar can come from a variety of sources—including starches like corn, oats, rice, and sorghum*—the most commonly used starch in beer production is barley. *Corn and rice belong to the subcategory adjunct grains, which can be added to a grain bill to flesh it out and/or impart flavor—the most infamous example being that of Anheuser-Busch's use of rice in all things "Bud." But depending on your goals, even rice and corn might have an appropriate place in your grain bill (certain adjunct grains, like wheat and rye and even unmalted barley, are obviously highly important). A high starch grain, barley actually looks a lot like wheat (that other beer-friendly cereal grain). Recent archaeological evidence shows that barley was likely first cultivated in the agriculturally prolific area of the Middle East known as the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago (and from there to South Asia, and from there, the world). Barley is now widely cultivated around the world, though around 94% of production goes to beer. And that shouldn't surprise, since barley can grow in fairly rough conditions and yields a solid 65% starch content (the more starch there is, the more sugar there is, the more the yeast eats, the more we drink!). Before barley can be used, though, it has to be malted, or allowed to partially germinate, soaked, and dried, a process that prepares its starches for quicker conversion into sugar. Grains are kilned to stop the malting process, or dried and/or darkened using a heat source (old school heat source: fire). But any grain in beer can also be aggressively roasted, which will have a major impact on the resulting flavor of the beer (think of the difference between a pale ale and a stout). It's pretty straightforward: the longer a grain is roasted, the darker the resulting beer. Typically, only a certain proportion of the grain used will be roasted; the total "grain bill" for a beer will be made up of a high percentage of "base malt," which provides the majority of fermentable sugars, and a smaller percentage of other grains, which help build up the desired flavor profile. Depending on how hands-on they'd like to be, brewers have the choice of either using a raw grain (and malting it themselves), purchasing the grain malted, or using a malt extract, which is an extraction of the malted grain that can go directly into the boil. There's less opportunity for personal touch in that last option, but you'll still end up with a very respectable beer, so it's a great option for new brewers. Malts can also be divided as to how they're used, e.g. "base malts" and "specialty malts." For instance, Crystal malts are commonly used as a specialty malt to impart toffee or caramel-like sweetness (that may or may not linger on the finish, depending on a beer's style). Black malts are super-kilned barley malts that can be used to darken color or taste. Pilsner malt, on the other hand, is a super pale malt used in (or as) the base of a lager, with a good amount of flavor and some sweetness despite its pale color. The list, because beer is a delicious rainbow, goes on. Chances are, you open a bottle and take a sip, you'll know if the grain fits your bill.

A Brief History Of Beer

Like wine, beer has a long history, one that's longer than we'll ever be able to trace. Residue of the first known barley beer was found in a jar at the Godin Tepe excavation site in modern day Iran, presumably sitting there since someone took his or her last sip around 3400 B.C. But chances are, the first beer had been "cracked" millennia before that. So while an exact date or time for the first chug, or keg stand, or even hiccup, is not known, what is known is that beer, like bread, developed best in farm-based, agrarian societies where there was an enough grain and time for fermentation. One thing we definitely know is that ancient man loved beer as much as—if not more—than we do: the Babylonians had about 20 recipes for beer, Egyptian Pharaohs were buried with vats of the stuff, even the workers who built the pyramids were essentially paid in beer. One of the first written recipes for beer actually comes from a poem, a 3800 year-old ode to brewing that was etched into clay tablets. Found in ancient Sumer (modern day Iraq), the "Hymn to Ninkasi" celebrates the Sumerian goddess of beer and also conveniently outlines steps for brewing (lines like "The filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,/ You place appropriately on a large collector vat" could give Shakespeare a run for his money). However it began, beer rapidly took hold as one of civilization's favorite—and safest—ways to drink. Historically speaking, water wasn't always reliably potable for most cultures, and alcoholic drinks like beer (also sanitized by the application of heat) would have been safer. Of course, the appearance of beer was changing as brewing methods evolved. Babylonians drank their beer with a straw—it was thicker, full of grain. But by the 16th Century, Germany's "Reinheitsgebot" beer purity law had essentially removed everything but water, hops, and barley from acceptable brewing ingredients (yeast, a slight oversight, was added back to the list a few centuries later). Even hops weren't always as ubiquitous. Ancient Egyptians would have had a beer stabilized and flavored with things like wild herbs, dates, olive oil, and meadowsweet. And for centuries, beer cultivation in Europe relied on a mixture of herbs and spices called gruit. Only around the turn of the first millennium A.D. were hops regularly finding their way to beer, with Germany exporting hops for brewing around the 13th century. Over the centuries, beer's popularity has risen and fallen and risen again. In America, Prohibition introduced our palates to watered-down beer, a lighter flavor profile that lingers to this day, especially among mass-marketed beers. But craft beer has made serious gains in the market, yielding a historically unprecedented diversity of styles. Craft brewers are even reviving ancient recipes: in 1990, Anchor Steam's Fritz Maytag brewed a beer using the Ninkasi poem's recipe, and Dogfish Head's Ancient Ales line includes beers like the "Ta Henket," or Egyptian bread beer, which you can simply purchase and imbibe, no pyramid experience required.

What Is Brewing

Put simply, "brewing" is the practice of regulating the interactions between water, starch, yeast, and hops so that the end result is what is called beer. Of course, the actual process of brewing is a lot more complicated (full of terrifying terms like lautering, wort, and isomerization). It's the job of the brewer to have as much control over as many elements as possible so that the end result is close to what he or she had in mind. In a sense, "brewing" is really about doing as much as possible to influence the results of a process that's entirely hands off: fermentation. We are able to brew beer (and drink beer, and spill beer) for one reason: single-celled organisms called yeast, most often the Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Saccharomyces pastorianius variety, like to metabolize starch-derived sugars into ethyl alcohol and CO2. When we brew a beer, we are preparing a certain amount and variety of grain to produce those sugars, and then adding yeast so they can feast and create alcohol. If you can wrap your head around that, you can grasp the concept of brewing. (Think of hops, that other essential brewing ingredient, like seasoning, stabilizing the brew and adding flavor.) To get a little deeper into brewing, here is a breakdown of the basic steps, with a few key terms: 1. A starch source, typically a grain (and typically barley) is malted, or allowed to partially germinate and then dried. This partial germination makes for easier conversion of the grain's starches into sugars. 2. In the mash stage, the malted grains are introduced to water and a certain amount of heat to enable the natural enzymes in the grain to convert its starches into fermentable sugars. 3. The mash is then lautered, basically filtered to remove the solids. 4. The remaining liquid is then boiled. Hops may be added both at the beginning of the boil and, depending on the kind of beer being made, toward the end. The result of the boil is called the wort. 5. The filtered wort is cooled to a specific temperature, at which point yeast is added so that the process of fermentation can begin. 6. Fermentation may be done in a variety of vessels, and may be followed by a period of conditioning (further aging away from dead yeast cells) or secondary fermentation (in bottles, e.g.). 7. However you store it, when you pour it, the result will be beer. But don't open a brewery just yet! This is a very rough outline—and there are myriad variables, from things you can control like the grains, hops, and yeast (or any spices, fruits, or additional ingredients) to things you have less control over (e.g. the ambient environment, even the mineral content of your water source). And then of course there's how you're going to ferment the beer (do you want an ale or a lager?) The mastery of these elements, and the willingness to wait a few weeks for yeast to do its work, is the proud, patient, magical craft we call brewing.

Ale vs. Lager (The Role Of Yeast In Beer)

We know yeast plays an important role in bread and winemaking (not to mention the future of biofuels...). But how does it work in beer? No surprise, the role of yeast plays out much same everywhere it goes. Yeast eats. Well, put more specifically, yeast metabolizes—at least, that's what we care about. Not that we're not happy that yeast gets a full meal out of the sugars in our grape juice, but we're happier with what it produces—wine. The same is true for bread and beer. The yeast we put into the wort (the liquid made from boiling malted grain) likes to feast on those grain sugars, and we let it, because the byproduct of that primal gluttony is alcohol. Yes. Yeast turns our cereal into beer. But it's not just any kind of yeast. There are certain special kinds involved in brewing. And while you won't have to memorize Latin nomenclature or identify your favorite beer by the yeast that fermented it, it is actually useful to know about two kinds of yeast directly related to the two major fermentation methods involved in beer production. It all comes down to ale vs. lager. Chances are, you've been in a situation where a beer was interchangeably referred to as ale or lager, and hoped no one asked you the difference. (We've all been there.) The difference is this: how was the beer fermented? Ale is top-fermented, meaning the yeast is applied to the top of the wort, and at a higher temperature. Top-fermenting is the oldest method, and the yeast used for it is called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Top-fermenting tends to yield more flavor, as esters (a byproduct of both kinds of fermenting) are more pronounced in warm fermenting, as are phenols (which include things like tannin). Lager, on the other hand, is bottom-fermented, meaning the yeast works at the bottom of the wort, at a much lower temperature. And that's because the yeast involved in bottom-fermenting are a hybrid of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and a yeast called Saccharomyces eubayanus, a wild yeast from Patagonia that probably hitched a ride to Europe on a trade ship a few centuries ago. Unlike S. cerevisiae, S. eubayanus can thrive in much colder temperatures—and their baby yeast, S. pastorianus, inherited that ability (thanks mom!). Because the reaction takes longer, bottom-fermented lagers ferment at a low temperature for a longer time. The result is a "crisper" beer that has less of the pronounced flavors of an ale. A classic example would be a German pilsner. (Lagers are by far more popular worldwide, though ales are usually more complex.) You might think we've forgotten the third essential kind of fermentation—and the yeast we have to thank for it. We didn't. Wild fermentation is the third essential way a beer can be fermented, relying primarily on, you guessed it, wild microbes, especially Brettanomyces, a yeast known (and often sought after) for its ability to give beers a decidedly funky flavor profile. An increasing number of American craft brewers are playing with wild fermentation, although generally in as controlled a setting as that of traditionally fermented beers. If you know your ales from your lagers, wild fermented beers will not be hard to pinpoint.

Tasting Beer - The Role Of Color

You'd think it would be as simple as pointing to a pint of beer and saying "brownish." But the color of beer, just like the taste and body, has a slightly more complicated explanation. Because beer is made with grain-derived starches, beer colors usually land somewhere on the gold to red to brown spectrum (with variations of opacity and haziness depending on the style of the beer). We used to measure this spectrum in what were called "degrees Lovibond," based on a system developed by J. W. Lovibond in the late 19th century. As a means of quality control, Lovibond had created a series of colored glass plates against which samples of beer could be measured. While the system worked for a time, it was also subjective—dependent on the visual interpretations of the human eye (which, under the influence of another kind of beer goggles, has historically proven...faulted). In 1951, Lovibond's glass plates were replaced with the light spectrophotometer methods of the Standard Reference Model (Europe's version is called the European Brewing Convention, with a difference in scale). It basically measures the loss of intensity of a beam of blue light as it passes through a centimeter of beer. Of course, it's far less necessary for a beer drinker, even an avid beer drinker, to know the SRM of his or her favorite six pack. If you're interested in brewing, though, it may be useful to pick up a color guide like the hand-held Davison guide (the Beer Judge Certification Program has also developed its own internal guide). But if you're just looking to take a deeper visual reading of your beer, it's even simpler than that: when your beer arrives, drink it in with your eyes first. It may be served in a bottle or can, but the best way to get the fullest experience of your beer is with a glass: not only will the increased exposure to oxygen nudge some of the aromatics around, but you'll actually get to see the color of the beer (we like brown and green glass as much as the next guy, but it's not quite visually enticing). A beer's color can absolutely give you some hints about how it'll taste. Chances are a beer is dark because it contains some roasted malts, so you can expect chocolate, coffee, and/or darker notes. A medium-gold beer made with wheat or barley might have some bready flavors, while a reddish beer is likely also malt-driven, with some notes of rounding fruit or nuttiness. And a light-colored beer will generally have brighter characteristics—acidity, citrus, crispness, tropical fruit notes, pepperiness, etc. The rules aren't hard and fast, especially as craft beer keeps diversifying styles, so keep an open mind. And of course the best way to get to know how your palate interprets what your eye sees? Look, then taste.