Thursday, June 14, 2012

Where beer comes from


(On Facebook chat, today)

Courtney:
ask me any question
and maybe i'll know the answer
 
Heather:
how is beer made
be specific
(I was born to be an evil professor)
 
Courtney:
so first
you have barley (or sometimes wheat or corn or something like that)
and the barley is dry
so you gotta trick it into thinking it's time to grow
so you put it in warm water (i dont know the specific temperature)
and you basically steep it like tea
and that's called "mashing in"
then you strain the liquid from the solid
and the solid goes to farmers and shit
and the liquid is called wort
so you take the wort and you bring it to a boil
and then that's when you start adding hops & other spices
if you add hops at the beginning, it'll affect the taste
if you add it at the end, it'll affect aroma
and anywhere in the middle affects both
usually beer gets at least 3 additions of hops
then you cool it down and put in the yeast
and there's ale yeast which makes ales and lager yeast which makes lagers
and you let the beer ferment for 2-3 weeks for ales and 4-6 weeks for lagers
and fermenting is when the yeast eats the sugars in the beer (which is from the wort) and digests it into alcohol and CO2
and then you're like
SHIT
NOW I HAVE BEER
and that's how you make beer
 
Heather:
That was a very thorough answer
sadly it is wrong
beer is made by beer faeries
who live in the magical land of alcohol
-----
And that's where beer comes from.
 
I use this conversation (don't hate on me if it's not completely accurate, I haven't reviewed my notes from my Certified Beer Server course in a couple of days) as a segue (not to be confused with a Segway, which I have never ridden before, sadly) into an idea I've been toying with for awhile now, which is, namely, to put an end to this blog and launch a new one.  This blog has been good to me, but I have not always been good to it, so I think as I enter year two of post-grad life, it might be time to transition to a more food & beverage focused blog (and city and humor-focused, obviously, because I'm hilarious) that I will ideally more consistently update.

The only thing holding me back?  I have no idea what to call this thing.  Oh, and my standard phobia of anything which causes change in any way.  Typical.

But if and when this happens, I will certainly post a note on this blog, so all of you people (aka, my Facebook friends) will know what the dealio is.  I know that's really important to all of you.

Love, the greatest beer expert you know.