WHAT: From barley to beer

2009/10/10

ANUSHA K

ANUSHA K. finds out what goes into a perfect brew.

MANY of us sip a pint of cold beer without really knowing anything about the brewing process.

Apart from the machinery and tedious steps, a brewery tour can be interesting and knowledgeable.

So, what goes on in the fine art of brewing? It is generally divided into two parts: the brewing process and sensory test (tasting).

But before that, you should know the ingredients involved.

The main ingredients are water, malt, hops and yeast. All go through a variety of processes before they are mixed together to make beer.

The crucial part is the brewing, which is the process of special yeasts converting the cereal sugars into alcohol. The compositions are milling the malt, where this involves opening the malt kernel, crushing the content and leaving the husk intact.

Then, it’s mashing in with water and heating. This involves moistening the malt, converting starch into fermentable sugar and protein into soluble nitrogenous compounds.

Wort filtration is the next step where clear wort without solid substances and extract in the spent grains is obtained.

Wort is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer or whisky. It contains the sugars that will be fermented by the brewing yeast to produce alcohol.

Soon after, the boiling of wort takes place where it dissolves the bitter substances from the hops and involves evaporation of water, destruction of enzymes, sterilisation of wort and coagulation of protein.

Learn the right way to pour a Guinness Draft.

Next, it is transferred to the cold wort where oxygen and yeast are added.

It then goes through the fermentation process from young beer to the storage tank (where deposits are disposed of), to unfiltered beer, and lastly bright beer (to the beer filter tank).

Last but not least, stout or beer is blended and left to mature for a period before bottling.

The purpose of this process would be fermentation of remaining extracts, saturation of beer with carbon dioxide, and clarification of beer (settling of yeast/protein as maturing of beer improves the taste). A daily tasting process is also conducted to ensure the highest quality before it is distributed. Stringent measures and care are taken at each step of the brewing process at Guinness Anchor Bhd (GAB) in Sungei Way Brewery. It’s critical to produce the right colour and taste. More than 70 styles of beers are available and each style derives from its ingredients and subtle differences in the brewing process.

GAB’s range of brands include Guinness Stout, Tiger Beer, Anchor Smooth, Strong Brew, Heineken, Anchor Ice, Anglia Shandy and non-alcoholic brand such as Malta. These products are brewed locally (with Guinness international quality standard) for the local market, as well as export.

It is only through these stringent measures taken by GAB that has led it to win the Guinness League of Excellence for the best Guinness brewed outside of Dublin and the Tiger Quality Awards.

Grains Grains such as barley, corn, rice, wheat and oats contain natural sugars required for fermentation. Malt is barley that has been germinated and dried, and contains carbohydrate, proteins, enzymes, colour and vitamins. It also provides beer with flavour, colour, body and texture.

Roasted barley In the case of stout, the barley used to produce these beers is roasted to a dark, rich brown colour. Barley is subjected to the malting process which consists of steeping, germination and drying.

Yeast Yeast is a single cell fungus which helps breaks down sugar to release energy and produces carbon dioxide, alcohol and water.

In 1883, Carlsberg’s Emil Christian Hansen developed a method for propagating pure yeast which revolutionised the brewing industry.

The yeast was named Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis. Today, almost all lagers in the world are based on this Carlsberg yeast.

As many as 30,000 million cells may be presented in a glassful of fermenting stout. The yeast is removed from the stout and beer before bottling.

Hops Hops are small, green, cone-shaped flowers from the top hop plan, a vine-related to the nettle plant. Over 50 varieties of hops are grown throughout the world, mostly in Europe, Australia and North America.

Hops provide beer with a spicy, bitter flavour and contribute natural substances that prevent bacteria from spoiling the beer.

Water Water constitutes as much as 95 per cent of the ingredients used in the brewing process.

The mineral content in water — in particular, the levels of salts such as calcium, sulfate, and chloride dissolved in the water — influences the quality and flavour of the beer.

Only chlorine-free water is used in the brewing process.

Modern brewers add minerals and other natural elements to water to eliminate them by boiling or filtration so that the water used in the brewing process always produces beer with the same flavours.