In some societies this is the most popular alcoholic beverage.

Socially, there are various social traditions and activities are also associated with beer drinking, such as playing cards, darts, bags, or other pub games; attending beer festivals, or visiting a series of different pubs in one evening; joining an organization such as CAMRA; or rating beer.

There are also various drinking games involving beer, for example beer pong, flip cup and quarters.

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The moderate consumption of alcohol, including beer, is associated with a decreased risk of cardiac disease, stroke and cognitive decline. However, the side effects of alcohol abuse in the long term include the risk of developing alcoholism, alcoholic liver disease, and some forms of cancer.

Brewer’s yeast is known to be rich in nutrients like magnesium, selenium, potassium, phosphorus, biotin, and B vitamins.  Beer is therefore sometimes referred to as “liquid bread” but some sources maintain that filtered beer loses much of its nutrition.

A 2005 Japanese study found that low alcohol beer may possess strong anti-cancer properties. Another study also found that nonalcoholic beer mirrors the cardiovascular benefits associated with moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages.  However, much research suggests that the primary health benefit from alcoholic beverages comes from the alcohol they contain.

Many blames beer consumption for the cause of a beer belly. But it is the overeating and the lack of exercise and low muscle tone that cause the beer belly.

Several diet books quote beer as having the same glycemic index as maltose – a very high (and therefore undesirable) 110; however, as maltose undergoes metabolism by yeast during fermentation, beer also actually consists mostly of water, hop oils and only trace amounts of sugars, apart from maltose.

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To give a relatively inexpensive beverage a sense of elegance, you can serve your beer in a clear glass vessel. The tall tapering pilsner and the graceful stemmed goblet are popular glasses used for entertaining.

Make sure that the glass vessel you are using to serve is free of any trace of grease marks, water marks and lint from a towel if you want to get the best sparkle in your beer. A clean beer glass is essential if you want to get a proper foam and flavor. A glass that is properly washed and cleaned will not cause the bubbles to cling to the side of the glass and the foam will adhere to the inside of the glass in a nice ring design.

To get your glassware squeaky clean, hand wash your glassware and use a soap-free and odorless cleaning agent. Baking soda is an excellent choice. Always rinse your glassware thoroughly in clean, cool running water and allow them to drain freely and air dry. If you are using a dishwasher, use liquid detergent and a glass sparkling agent.

Another tip from the experts – dip the clean glasses into cold rinse water right before filling and serving.

For large informal parties, picnics or barbecues – paper or plastic cups are often used. However, for a better enjoyment of fine beer you can use large glasses made of hard, clear plastic so that you can enjoy the visual enjoyment of the color and foam. If you prefer to use paper, buy coated cups to avoid imparting any “papery” taste.

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Generally, if you like to savor the full range of flavors of your beer then drink it at a warmer temperature, however, for a more refreshing feel it is normally drunk chilled.

Pale lager is normally served chilled while a low or medium strength pale ale is served cool. Strong barley wine or imperial stout is served at room temperature.

There are five-level of serving temperature proposed by Beer writer Michael Jackson

• Well chilled (7 °C/45 °F) for “light” beers (pale lagers)
• Chilled (8 °C/47 °F) for Berliner Weisse and other wheat beers
• Lightly chilled (9 °C/48 °F) for all dark lagers, altbier and German wheat beers
• Cellar temperature (13 °C/55 °F) for regular British ale, stout and most Belgian specialities
• Room temperature (15.5 °C/60 °F) for strong dark ales (especially trappist beer) and barley wine

With the common availability of refrigeration it is became a common social trend to drink beer chilled. However, when beer is chilled below 60 °F (15.5°C ) you will find that its taste will be reduced, thus if you want to savor more of the flavor of the beer than just basic refreshment then you should server your beer unchilled or at cool or room temperature.

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Beers that come in bottles are either served by emptying the content into the glass or by pouring it slowing so that any yeast sediment is left at the bottom of the bottle.

Generally beers stored in bottles are normally bottle conditioned beers. Bottle conditioned beers are beer that do not have all the yeast filtered or that have fresh yeast being reseeded after the filtering process. This is to allow for additional fermentation to take place in the bottle to add more carbonation. This process is known as priming and does not necessarily add more alcohol to the beverage.

Some drinkers would prefer to pour out the yeast into the glass when they drink, which is customary with wheat beer. Hefeweizen is typically served with 90% of the content poured out and the remainder is then swirled to suspend the sediment before being poured into the glass.

Beers served in cans were first considered as a technological breakthrough for maintaining the quality of the beer. It protects the beer from light and the seal is less prone to leaking over time than bottles. However, it is now commonly associated with less expensive, mass-produced beers, even though the quality of storage in cans is much like bottles.

Note:- Hefeweizen beer is wheat beer in its traditional, unfiltered form and this kind of beer is has low hop bitterness and high in carbonation – important in balancing the beer’s relatively malty sweetness.

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Generally, in modern day draught beer is referred to as beer that are filtered and served from a pressurized container such as a keg or a widget can. However, some traditionalists have objected to the modern use of this term for canned beer.

Traditionally this is referred to as beer that is served from a large container which can be either a keg or a cask.

In modern days it is common to see bars around the world dispensing draught beer from a pressurized keg. This is a metal keg that is pressurized with carbon dioxide (CO2) gas which will drive the beer to the dispensing tap or faucet.

Some beers, notably stouts such as Guinness and “smooth” bitters such as Boddingtons, may be served with a nitrogen/carbon dioxide mixture. Nitrogen produces fine bubbles, resulting in a dense head and a creamy mouthfeel. Some types of beer can also be found in smaller, disposable kegs called beer balls.

In the 1980s, Guinness introduced the beer widget, a nitrogen-pressurized ball inside a can which creates a foamy head.

Cask-conditioned ales (or cask ales) are unfiltered and unpasteurized beers. These beers are termed “real ale” by the CAMRA organization.

Typically, when a cask arrives in a pub, it is placed horizontally on a frame called a “stillage” which is designed to hold it steady and at the right angle, and then allowed to cool to cellar temperature (typically between 12-14°C/53-57°F), before being tapped and vented. A tap is driven through a (usually rubber) bung at the bottom of one end, and a hard spile or other implement is used to open a hole in the side of the cask, which is now uppermost. The act of stillaging and then venting a beer in this manner typically disturbs all the sediment, so it must be left for a suitable period to “drop” (clear) again, as well as to be fully conditioned. This period can take anywhere from several hours to several days. At this point the beer is then ready to be sold, either being pulled through a beer line with a hand pump, or simply being “gravity-fed” directly into the glass.

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The alcohol in beer comes primarily from the metabolism of sugars that are produced during fermentation. The quantity of fermentable sugars in the wort and the variety of yeast used to ferment the wort are the primary factors that determine the amount of alcohol in the final beer.  Additional fermentable sugars are sometimes added to increase alcohol content, and enzymes are often added to the wort for certain styles of beer (primarily “light” beers) to convert more complex carbohydrates (starches) to fermentable sugars.  Alcohol is a by-product of yeast metabolism and is toxic to the yeast; typical brewing yeast cannot survive at alcohol concentrations above 12% by volume.  Low temperatures and too little fermentation time decreases the effectiveness of yeasts and consequently decreases the alcohol content.

Reference / Source of information: Wikipedia.org

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In terms of sales volume, most of today’s beer is based on the pale lager brewed in 1842 in the town of Pilsen in the present-day Czech Republic. The modern pale lager is light in color with a noticeable carbonation (fizzy bubbles) and a typical alcohol by volume content of around 5%. The Pilsner Urquell, Bitburger, and Heineken brands of beer are typical examples of pale lager, as are the American brands Budweiser, Coors, and Miller.

Dark beers are usually brewed from a pale malt or lager malt base with a small proportion of darker malt added to achieve the desired shade. Other colorants-such as caramel-are also widely used to darken beers. Very dark beers, such as stout, use dark or patent malts that have been roasted longer. Guinness and similar beers include roasted unmalted barley.

Reference / Source of information: Wikipedia.org

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Lager yeast is a cool bottom-fermenting yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus) and typically undergoes primary fermentation at 7-12°C (45-55°F) (the fermentation phase), and then is given a long secondary fermentation at 0-4°C (32-40°F) (the lagering phase).  During the secondary stage, the lager clears and mellows.  The cooler conditions also inhibit the natural production of esters and other by-products, resulting in a “cleaner”-tasting beer.

Modern methods of producing lager were pioneered by Gabriel Sedlmayr the Younger, who perfected dark brown lagers at the Spaten Brewery in Bavaria, and Anton Dreher, who began brewing a lager, probably of amber-red colour, in Vienna in 1840-1841.  With improved modern yeast strains, most lager breweries use only short periods of cold storage, typically 1-3 weeks.

Source of information: Wikipedia.org

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Ales are normally brewed with top-fermenting yeasts (most commonly Saccharomyces cerevisiae), though a number of British brewers, including Fullers and Weltons, use ale yeast strains that have less-pronounced top-fermentation characteristics.  The important distinction for ales is that they are fermented at higher temperatures and thus ferment more quickly than lagers.

Ale is typically fermented at temperatures between 15 and 24°C (60 and 75°F).  At these temperatures, yeast produces significant amounts of esters and other secondary flavor and aroma products, and the result is often a beer with slightly “fruity” compounds resembling apple, pear, pineapple, banana, plum, or prune, among others.  Typically, ales have a sweeter, fuller body than lagers.

Before the introduction of hops into England from the Netherlands in the 15th century, the name ale was exclusively applied to unhopped fermented beverages, the term beer being gradually introduced to describe a brew with an infusion of hops.  This distinction no longer applies.  The word ale may come from the Old English ealu, in turn from the Proto-Indo-European base *alut-, which holds connotations of “sorcery, magic, possession, intoxication”.

Real ale is the term coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in 1973 for “beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide”.  It is applied both to bottle conditioned and cask conditioned beers.

Lambic, a beer of Belgium, is naturally fermented using wild yeasts, rather than cultivated. Many of these are not strains of brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and may have significant differences in aroma and sourness.  Yeast varieties such as Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Brettanomyces lambicus are quite common in lambics. In addition, other organisms such as Lactobacillus bacteria produce acids which contribute to the sourness.

Look out for the next article on Lager.

Reference / Source of information: Wikipedia.org

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