Chapter BEER TAP Knowledge 101
Timeline
Remember OLD, OLD- like 10,000 years ago- before the invention of writing.
• Sumerians and Mesopotamians made beer by baking bread, seasoning with dates, soaking in
water and fermenting. Recipes have been found on clay tablets and even resurrected by 20
Century “extreme brewers”.
• JUMP AHEAD TO 600 CE (Common Era) In Belgium , St Arnold of Metz warns everyone to drink
beer and not the water, thus saving them from the plague. As a big thanks, he is rewarded the
‘patron saint of beer and brewers.
• FORWARD TO the : 1400’S Columbus discovers Indians making beer.
• 1612 AMERICA’S FIRST COMMERICAL BREWERY in New Amsterdam better known today as
• Manhattan Island or New York City.
• 1842 first golden lager is created in Pilsen, ( think Pilsner ) Bohemia (now Czech Republic) It is
said that 90% of all the beer drunk in the WORLD is on account of the “Pilsner” , the ancestor of
beer.
• TRIVIAL – LOUIS PASTEUR discovered pasteurization for beer long before he solved the milk
problem.
• 1919-1933- NO FUN ALLOWED! It s Prohibition. A lot of breweries go out.
• 1933 – INTRO to the CAN.
• 1942- US government says no more canned beer. It was war time and metals were rationed.
But, the overseas GI’s continued to receive , “ very camouflage cans” of beer.
• 1965- Fritz Maytag , you know – Maytag washers- yup, that’s him. He buys the old Anchor
Brewing Company in San Francisco and saves a classic American beer.
• 1966- Budweiser tops the sales chart with 10M – barrels a year.
• 1976- First post prohibition MICROBREWERY opens , yeah , where else California. First one
since prohibition. That’s a long time coming.
• 1980-A craft brewing movement moment- newly founded Sierra Nevada Brewing of CA- releases
its first Pale Ale, setting the gold standard for the growing number of craft brewers.
• 2005 – More than 1500 breweries in America and growing.
So– anyway the beer saga continues- but now I go back thousands of years, when someone left bread-
based porridge out in the rain , it fermented and voila! , we had a process to make beer. Today, the
process is replicated- but we just go about in a more sophisticated and scientific way.
REMEMBER THE GANG OF FOUR- you know the 4 ingredients that make up beer.
1. GRAIN- the grain found in almost all beers- is barley. I know- wheat, rice, rye, corn beer, but
even these beers generally have barley and use the grains for flavoring.
Just like planting, if you ever have started seeds! Soaking, wetting and drying (the drying is the
malting). The grain soaking happens until we see germinates – the start of a little sprout. The
way to stop the germination is to begin to dry out the grain (malting). During this process
(malting) enzymes (sciences’ helpers) convert the carbo’s to sugars.
Malt color and flavor is partly determined by how long it’s roasted and at what temperature,
really it’s what the “maltster” wants! Generally, the more roasted the malt the darker the
beer.
Makes sense right? Wrong- in actuality, pale malt still reigns in virtually all barley based beers
today. It’s the base grain. It’s when we add ‘specialty’ (darker) malts to the brew we get color
and flavors unique to a particular beer style.
And this has much to do about sugar content. You need sugar to fuel fermentation. Pale malts
have higher sugar content than dark malts. Pale malts – including the very pale variety Pilsner
malt serve as base malts.
2. WATER- If you don’t know what water is , then I am not sure I can help you. But what you might
not know is that water type and quality are very important in the brewing of beer. Since beer is
95% water , it’s a pretty important part of the recipe. The use of soft and hard water affects the
flavor of beer in the same way that it affects any beverage, such as coffee and tea. Water is
usually filtered. Water can be doctored up by the brewer so the mineral content is what they
want. Generally , the subtler flavor of lager benefits from soft water (think Pilsner- it benefits
from the Pilsen soft water) and harder water make stouts and ales.
3. Hops- from the female vine of the cannabis family. No, hops are not marijuana- just from the
same family . This flower- the hop – contributes oil, bitter acids and resins to counterbalance the
