So what about water?

Though less acknowledged today, since brewers can effectively alter it to suit their needs (more on that later), water is, in fact, primarily responsible for the development of the pantheon of classic beers. “It is really interesting to look at the variety of styles that popped up in different parts of the world and became popular and good because of the water they had available to them,” notes Harpoon Brewing’s vice president chief brewing officer, Al Marzi. “The ingredients were all the same, except for the water, and you’ve got completely different beers being made.”

The basic recipe has always been water, malt, hops and yeast. So, why did the darker beers develop in Munich and Dublin, the hoppy pale ales in Burton, England, the pilsners in Plzen? As Olympia Brewing Co. founder Leopold Schmidt, so astutely proclaimed at the turn of the 19th century, it’s the water.

The True Connection Between Hard Rock and Beer

Water is the medium in which all the magic in the brewing process happens. And as innocuous as it seems—it’s clear and, for the most part, tasteless—it’s not all the same. You may have actually noticed when traveling that the water in, say, Portland, OR, may smell (or even taste) a little different from the H2O that comes out of your own tap at home. You may even have to use more soap or shampoo to get a good lather depending on what the water is like. This is what’s referred to as water hardness. And this, specifically, is what’s responsible for the development of different beer styles.

The chemistry of turning malted grains, yeast, hops and water into a delicious, refreshing alcoholic beverage, is relatively straight forward: grains are transformed into starches that, with the help of water and heat, the yeast can consume and turn into alcohol. But a little something called “water hardness” complicates things. “Hardness is mainly due either to lots of calcium and magnesium in the water, so-called ‘permanent’ hardness, as it’s relatively difficult to get rid of,” explains Professor Alex Maltman of the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth University in Wales, “or bicarbonate in the water, ‘temporary’ hardness, which can be precipitated out by boiling.

“There’s a whole range of taste effects [in brewing] that arise from the presence of these substances, such as calcium promoting the bittering contribution of hops, and magnesium enhancing beer flavor, like salt in food. But the main effect—certainly of bicarbonate—is to affect the pH, or acidity, of the liquid during brewing.”

Yeast, who, let’s face it, do all the heavy lifting in the brewing process, are particular about the environment they work in. So, if the pH is comfortable for them, they can do their job well. Now, before this chemistry was known to brewers, they simply had to adjust their ingredients to suit the water. Bicarbonate-rich water—such as that in Munich and Dublin—creates a high pH (too alkaline for the yeast to do their thing properly). But roast some of the grains nice and dark, and it lowers the pH in the mash; the yeast are happy and they make a tasty dark brew, such as a German dunkel or Irish stout.

We can thank the varied geology of this great blue marble we inhabit for the variety of beers we drink today, because the different dissolved minerals in water—depending on the source—have had a profound effect on the development of brewing beer. “Burton-on–Trent in England has very mineral-rich water, including calcium and magnesium,” says Professor Maltman, “so it produces a strong tasting beer. It is also rich in sulfate, which adds a characteristic flavor and improves stability. This why the style known as English pale ale originated there, and the stability enabled it to travel far in those colonial days, even as far as India, if brewed strongly—hence India pale ale.” A relative lack of dissolved minerals, or “soft” water, such as that in Plzen in the Czech Republic, was key in the development of pilsner.

So, yeah, it’s the water. But, really, it’s what’s in the water. That is to say, those dissolved minerals—calcium, magnesium, sulfates and bicarbonates—are really what affect the pH, taste and stability. Which begs the question, how did they get there and why do some places have more or less? The answer lies in the earth itself. “The chemistry of water is greatly influenced by the geology of the aquifer in which it has resided,” explains Professor Maltman. “As one example, the bedrock below Burton, England, consists of sedimentary strata formed around 250 million years ago—a time when what is now England was closer to the equator and in desert conditions. Saline lakes evaporated to leave the sediments—what is now bedrock—rich in minerals such as gypsum, also known as calcium sulfate, and Epsom salts, also known as magnesium sulfate. Just as they were originally dissolved in the ancient lakes, these minerals now readily dissolve into the local groundwater, which is why Burton brewing water is like it is.”

So one may safely draw the conclusion that since the geology of North America is equally varied, the water is too. True enough, and though it hasn’t exactly given rise to specific beer styles, the water available to brewers here has had a profound effect on them—from San Diego’s challengingly hard water to the surprisingly perfect-for-brewing Brooklyn water. The difference today is that with the advanced understanding of what’s in our H2O—most municipal water suppliers can provide brewers with an analysis of the water makeup—we no longer have to brew beers that suit the particular local hardness. Or as Al Marzi at Harpoon so cleverly puts it, “The brewer’s art can be expanded to create any type of water he’d like to have for a particular style.”

Nearly a quarter of an hour later, with our heroine despairing of ever receiving a drink, the waitress appears bearing…a plate of calamari. As her customer fixes the plate with a look of wild incomprehension, the fleetingly flustered server asks, “Isn’t this what you ordered?”

Such is the lot of Irish drinks producers whose products are not named Guinness or Jameson or Bushmills. Request their brands, even in a place that proudly carries them, and you are instead served squid.

Sadly, this state of affairs largely persists even in Eire itself. From Dublin to Galway, Cork to Donegal, those looking to slake their thirst with a pint of the black stuff had best get plenty used to Guinness, since finding even the Heineken-owned Murphy’s or Scottish & Newcastle’s Beamish can oft times be a challenge, and locating a tap pouring the Carlow Brewing Co.’s O’Hara is nearly impossible.

It’s better with whiskeys, since Ireland’s only independent Irish-owned distiller, Cooley, has a bit more of a presence in the country’s vast landscape of pubs. Still, spotting a bottle of the Tyrconnell Single Malt Irish Whiskey amid the sea of Paddy, Power, Jameson and Bushmills can be a truly daunting task at times.

Of course, the plus side of all of this means that the more hunting you need to do, the more pubs you need to visit. And in Ireland, regardless of where you may be or what you might drink, pub hopping is rarely, if ever, a particular hardship.