beer

The idea of giving deep thought to which food to serve with a selected wine goes back centuries. It will surprise many that the same is true of pairing a good beer with a favorite dish.

There are more than one concept to take the measure of a beer. Hops influence the bitterness, malts determine the sweetness. Finally, the alcohol content provides one last dimension to the brew.

Hops could be classified as a useless plant if not for its role in brewing. Hops is a basic ingredient for beer.

Unlike wine, the majority of beers are not brewed to age. Beer typically spoils within a few months, a year at most, with rare exceptions. Even specialty brews aren't made to improve over the five, ten or even longer age of some fine wines. There are some specialty brews, though, that can age up to 30 years.

As with any home project, preparation is half the key to success in home brewing.

Sometimes a problem is cleverly turned into an advantage. The world is indeed fortunate that barley is good for little more than making beer. But for that, it is excellently suited.

Yeasts are living organisms, a uni-cellular fungus, and have a rare ability: to live with or without oxygen. In the presence of air, they multiply. In the absence of oxygen, they ferment sugars into alcohol. That's what makes beer brewing possible.

Wheat beer recipes are as old as Babylon, where wheat grain was often used to make a heady brew. The Middle Ages saw many new forms arise, where it was considered the brew of the nobility. Most beers of the period were dark and consuming this Weissbier -white beer- was therefore a mark of distinction.

Water might be the most varied chemical compound on the planet. Plain old H2O is the same anywhere, of course. But brewing with pure water is not only expensive, but leads to poor beer - flat, stale and downright incorrect.

Beer related objects have become collectibles.