by Brian Vandenbroek

Created on: November 04, 2009

It's amazing to me that all the styles of beer in the world come from the same four basic ingredients. With very few exceptions, nearly every beer is made from water, barley, yeast, and hops. From the palest lagers to the darkest stouts, they all start from these four ingredients. Each ingredient plays its own part in the production of beer and contributes something unique to the final product.

1) WATER: Beer is commonly 90-95% water. As beer's chief ingredient water has a significant effect on the final product. Water coming from your municipal supply will be either hard or soft, slightly acid or slightly alkaline. Hard water contains a higher amount of minerals and sulfates that among other things, makes it hard to get a lather from soap, leaves a slightly dry taste in your mouth, and reacts chemically with beer's other essential ingredients. Soft water lacks these minerals and as such has its own effect on the brewing of beer. Due to soft water's lack of mineral content, it leads itself towards production of lagers that require a soft, rounded finish. Hard water on the other hand, accentuates a beer's hop profile, making it ideal for English bitter and pale ale. Chalkiness helps bring out the flavors of dark ales and lagers. And finally, water that is slightly acid aids in the conversion of malted barley into fermentable sugars.

2) BARLEY: Barley, or more specifically malted barley, is another of beers essential ingredients. Without malted barley, eyast would have no sugar to ferment and your beer would be without flavor or color. Perhaps most importantly, malted barley is a beer's chief source of fermentable sugars. In addition to fermentable sugar, barley provides protein that gives beer its mouthfeel and ability to hold a head. Malted barley also provides color and flavor compounds responsible for giving different ales and lagers their distinctive colors, aromas, and flavors. Any time you taste a beer and pick up flavors of fresh baked bread, caramel, roasted coffee or fresh fruit, that's the barley making its presence known.

3) YEAST: Yeast is the organism responsible for converting fermentable sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Yeast comes in two major strains: saccharomyces cerevisia and saccharomyces uvarum. S. cerevisia is responsible for fermenting ale and S. uvarum gives us lager. Typically, ale yeasts will do their best work at warmer temperatures (50-75F) while lager yeasts do their best work at cooler temperatures (32-40F). Ale and lager

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