Beer is not a complicated drink. It is made up of four simple ingredients: water, malted barley, hops and yeast. Understanding the relationship between these ingredients and their role in the brewing process is the easiest way to increase your appreciation of a good brew.

The first ingredient to consider is the malted barley. It’s the basis for much of the flavour, and the eventual source of the alcohol. Barley starts its journey on the farmer’s field, and many Canadian barley farmers sell their product exclusively to malthouses. The malthouse is run by a maltster: a trained professional, whose role in the process of making beer is every bit as vital as the brewmaster’s. The maltster decides how long to allow the barley to germinate and the temperature and length of its kilning. These variables produce a range of malts from very light (Pilsner malt) to very dark (Black Patent malt).

Depending on the desired strength, character, and colour of a beer, the brewmaster will build a “malt bill” - a combination of base and specialty malts which are then milled and placed in a mash tun. Here, the grain is soaked in hot water, called liquor in brewing, for an hour or more, activating enzymes that convert the starch into sugar. It is this sugar that will later be converted into alcohol with the introduction of the yeast.

Professional brewers use several steps during the mashing process (and every brewing tradition has its own mashing technique) varying water temperature to control the sugars extracted from the grain. Higher temperatures result in more non-fermentable sugars, and a sweeter final product, whereas lower temperatures result in more fermentable sugars, and a stronger, drier beer. Once the initial mashing is complete more hot liquor is sparged through the grain to remove the final sugars and starches. At this point, the brewer has a sweetish concoction known as “wort”. The wort is moved from the mash tun into the kettle, where it will boil. In the kettle the wort is combined with the next major ingredient in beer: hops.

Hops, Humulus lupulus, have taken on a role of immense importance in the last 500 years of brewing, as the bittering herb of choice.

Previously, brewers used a range of common herbs local to their region to balance the sweetness of the wort. With the rise in importance of hops, regional hop varieties have gained major influence over regional beer flavours. Today’s brewers have access to earthy English varieties, spicy and subtle continental Noble hops, and fruity North American hops. Hop vines - or bines, for individual tendrils - are in the Cannabaceae family, and these bines produce flowers. The flowers are harvested and dried, or sometimes pressed into pellet form for brewing.

When developing a beer recipe, the brewmaster will select a hop bill after deciding on the malts. The hop bill should balance out the wort, offering an appropriate counterpoint of bitterness to the sweetness offered by the malt. Hops are added to the kettle in varying stages, and depending on the length of the boil a brewer may do several hop additions to offer both hop bitterness and flavour to their beer. The longer a hop is boiled, the less of its floral character remains and the more bitterness imparted into the brew. A basic beer will have two hop additions: a bittering hop, which is boiled for sixty minutes, and a flavour hop, which is added in the last two to five minutes.

Once the boil is complete, the wort is chilled and moved from the kettle to the fermenter. This steel or copper vat is where the yeast is pitched, and over several weeks the microorganisms convert the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The yeast selection remains the final major ingredient of concern for beer tasting. A brewmaster will typically select a yeast to match the type of beer they’re making. In some cases, however, innovative or experimental brewmasters will choose incongruous pairings. Sometimes these experiments work, and other times they don’t.

Yeasts can be separated into two major families: lagers and ales. Lager yeasts are bottom fermenting, and tend to produce less flavours. They also prefer cooler temperatures, and spend much of their fermentation time between about 7 and 12 degrees Celsius. While lagers are thought of as light beers and ales as medium-bodied to dark, this is in fact a misconception. There are many fine dark lagers in the German tradition and numerous light-bodied ales, such as witbiers. An ale yeast is top fermenting - with a thick head forming on top of the wort while it ferments - and prefers warmer temperatures. Ale yeasts can impart significant flavours into the beer, and in some cases strong esters. British yeasts are clean and crisp, with little emphasis on esters. Belgian yeasts, on the other hand, are all over the map, as many have been cultivated from wild sources. These yeasts can range from horsey and tart (as in lambics) to spicy and fruity (as in saisons or abbey ales).

At last, we reach the water. Water is perhaps the least considered of the four ingredients.It shouldn’t be given short shrift, however, as it’s been enormously important in the development of regional beer styles. Pilsners developed in part because of the soft waters available in Pilzn, while the chalky hard waters of southern England led to the emergence of beers more suited to high mineral content, such as the British ales we still enjoy today. Today’s brewers, as with all ingredients, enjoy the luxury of adapting their water to the beer they’d like to brew, rather than the other way around. With widely available additions, minerals can be dropped from water, or water can be made slightly alkali. This is not something all brewers worry about, but any brewer who knows their water source intimately will always be able to tell you why their water makes a difference.

Malt, hops, yeast and water. Four simple ingredients that can be combined an a truly astounding number of ways. Knowing just a little bit about these four ingredients can deepen and broaden your appreciation of beer and allow you to break down the character of your beverage. Of course, to truly experience the changes that occur during the brewing process it’s useful to try brewing yourself. Thankfully, this is easy with specialty grains, whole hops and quality yeasts available at your local homebrew supply shop. And even if you’re not interested in brewing, it’s worth going in and talking to them, tasting the grains and smelling the hops. Homebrewers are usually generous people who almost always want others to taste their beer. And that’s never a bad thing.

Join us next week as we cover the concept of balance and the language of beer tasting.