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.”

A millennia ago, the magic maiden Kalevatar, along with her brewing gal-pal Osmotar, of the Finnish-Hungarian national epic, the Kalevala, spend a whole poetic chapter seeking the power needed to kick-start their brew, to get it “…foaming, higher, higher, higher.” They try all the common household products of the day: pine cones, the spit of bears in battle, and more. Having tried everything, a dollop of honey does the job, rendered potent by yeast unwittingly gathered by a honeybee making her rounds.

Ancient people also knew that the waxy sheen on the surface of grapes was brewers yeast and often added grapes or raisins to their brews to initiate fermentation. Yeast, as a vital substance, was well known even as far back as ancient Sumeria, that first great beer brewing civilization that blossomed in Mesopotamia some 5,000 years ago. The nature of yeast, however remained a mystery until researchers in Europe identified it as a single-celled fungus. around 1834.

One species, Saccharomyses cerevesiae, is used by brewers, bakers, vintners and distillers, although the specific strains are different. With the regular surplus of yeast that is an inescapable feature of a brewery, it’s no wonder that a bakery was often located right next door.

Yeast metabolizes sugar and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide gas, which gives beer its foamy prickle. If these were the only two chemicals yeast excreted, beer would be a pretty simple affair. Fortunately for our palates, yeast is kind of a messy eater, and gives off a wide range of flavor chemicals that add spicy, fruity or other appealing aromas to beer.

Think of yeast as little bags of goo. Inside are various structures that synthesize proteins, generate energy and much more. Each cellular process can take a number of steps, which means that there are chemicals floating around in there that are produced by one action and needed for the next. The membrane of the cell is a little leaky—necessary to gain access to ingredients needed for yeasty living—but some of these intermediate products ooze out and remain in the beer. Chief among them are compounds such as esters, phenols and ketones, potent aroma compounds that contribute much of beer’s charming complexity.

All of this chemistry happens faster at higher temperatures, and this creates the great division of beer into ale and lager. Yes, the yeast is slightly different in regard to its tolerance of cool temperatures, but the key difference is that at the cool temperatures of lager fermentation, things happen slowly and the yeast has plenty of time to clean up its messy work environment, leaving lager beer untainted by the fruity and spicy overtones common to ale.

The Yeast Rancher

As a brewer, this is really good stuff to know. Each different strain, especially with ale types, has its own signature set of characteristics, and subtle tweaks of temperature can make dramatic differences in flavor and aroma. Between choice of strain and control of temperature, there is a world of flavor yeast can add to your beer.

Yeast adds an overlay of character that largely follows national origin. English yeast, although widely varied, always has a certain “Englishness” about it, and that is true of other brewing traditions as well. You can take just about any wort and make it taste Belgian just by using Belgian yeast, which is a neat trick if you like Belgian beer. A few styles—saison and hefeweizen for example—are utterly dependant on specific strains for their signature aromas.

Brewers do not make beer. We only make wort, and it’s the yeast that turns it into beer. As a brewer, you must add “yeast rancher” to your list of responsibilities. Yeast likes the same things we do: a nourishing meal, plenty of good company, and now and then a breath of fresh air. For brewers of all (or mostly) malt beers, nutrition is rarely a problem, but it does become an issue in high-adjunct beers and especially in meads, where nutritional supplements are essential. Pitching an adequate amount of yeast is usually covered by following the supplier’s directions, but be advised that with strong beers the amount of yeast needed can rise, often dramatically.

Yeast for homebrewing comes in two forms, dry and liquid. The liquid comes in more varieties, often with known pedigrees. The dry forms are a little more generic, but great strides have been made in dry yeast in the last ten years or so. Either can produce perfectly delicious beer. Read the descriptions carefully; they contain lots of clues as to how each strain might affect your beer.

For advanced brewers, yeast culturing is well within the capability of reasonably advanced brewers, although far too complicated to describe here. It pretty much follows basic microbiological techniques. With a bit of kit and some basic skills, you can preserve yeast, grow it up from bottled commercial beer, and join the secret society of yeast rustlers and rare strain traders.

Below is a recipe designed to be adaptable to a number of different yeast types. With an English strain it becomes a summer, or golden bitter. With a Kölsch yeast, you have a fair version of that style. Use a Bavarian weizen yeast, and it will morph into a reasonable approximation of that style, and with the various Belgian strains, you can ferment up a brew with many possible personalities. And who doesn’t like a blonde with a little mystery about her?

For beer drinkers who are aware of the diversity of styles from craft and foreign breweries, such questions sound absurd, but there are historical reasons why the US beer industry is dominated by taste-alike pale lager beers. Understanding how developments in the US brewing industry led to the homogenization of American beer helps define the reasons why today’s craft beers taste different from mass-marketed brands.

History

To provide the proper perspective, it’s helpful first to review the history of the brewing industry in the United States and remember that there were no national breweries before 1850. Before the Industrial Revolution created innovations in hygiene, refrigeration and packaging, brewers had difficulty extending the shelf life of their product long enough to ship it safely to distant markets. After 1850, the expansion of railroads also enabled brewers to transport their product to a wider area in a shorter time.

In the late 1800s, an innovative brewer in St. Louis transformed brewing from a local to a national business. Anheuser-Busch, which introduced Budweiser in 1876, was the first US brewer to pasteurize its beer and keep the product fresh during shipment in railcars cooled by ice. History confirms the 2001 A-B annual report, which describes Bud as “…a light-colored lager with a drinkability and taste that would appeal to the masses….”

The opening of national markets brought about the beginning of a century-long consolidation in the brewing industry. The number of US breweries peaked at 4,131 in the 1870s. As breweries were able to expand their markets, they began to grow larger in size and decrease in number until only about 1,500 breweries existed before the start of Prohibition in 1920. Unfortunately, only 353 reopened after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. Further consolidation occurred after World War II as breweries used radio and television in expansive marketing campaigns that created nationally known brands.

For such brands to be accepted nationally, they had to appeal to a broad spectrum of tastes. The result was the extinction of local styles and the homogenization of the survivors into the pale lagers that today most often typify “American beer.” In effect, breweries recognized the same fundamental principle learned by presidential campaign managers—that the best way to appeal to the greatest number of people is by offending as few of them as possible.

By 1978, only 89 breweries producing fewer than 25 nationally distributed beers were operating in the United States. For some reason (perhaps it was the growing availability of import beers or the greater number of Americans traveling overseas and experiencing good beer), beer lovers began seeking out distinctive styles and demonstrating a willingness to pay a premium for them. During the 1980s, entrepreneurs—aided by new brewpub legislation and encouraged by the growth of small wineries in California—began opening craft breweries and brewpubs to meet consumer demand for specialty beers.

Today, the number of breweries has grown to about 1,400, or roughly the same number as before Prohibition. Although large breweries still dominate sales, the variety of beer styles has increased, and craft beers and imports now dominate premium beer sales.

Among a host of imaginary species, the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy created the babelfish, a creature that feeds on the soundwaves of one language and excretes the soundwaves of a different language. The interplanetary traveler slips a tiny babelfish into his ear—Adams wrote science fiction, after all—and can instantly understand any spoken language in the universe. The babelfish is “so mindbogglingly useful” that it triggers an intergalactic theological debate.

Almost as useful—and as unbelievable—as yeast. Like the fantastical babelfish, yeast goes about its biological business, which is making more yeast, and just happens to produce a byproduct that transforms human perception. Yeasts ingest sugars and excrete a substance that is literally mindboggling—alcohol.

The effect of alcohol on the human mind is profound enough that every ancient society that stumbled on alcohol associated it with the divine. Little wonder that the foamy evidence of yeast in action was known to brewers in the Dark Ages as “Godisgood.” They couldn’t see where it came from, they couldn’t explain it, but they knew it turned mundane ingredients into something inspirational.

Trial and Error

In its beginnings, brewing had to have been a pretty haphazard process. All fermentation would have been of the sort we now call “spontaneous fermentation,” carried out by so-called “wild yeast”—modern terms to distinguish it from the highly controlled fermentation practiced today with known yeast sources.

And yet, brewers in antiquity clearly learned by trial and error how to make conditions most hospitable for the magic of fermentation to occur. Some physical locations must have been better sites for brewing than others, in part because the ambient yeast populations vary from one micro-environment to another. And brewers would have learned the best phase in the brewing process during which to expose their beer to the elements, much the way that modern lambic brewers in Belgium still throw open the brewhouse windows to let in the local wild yeast.

Brewers also learned to save some of one brew to inoculate the next. Brewers’ yeast is unique among yeast species in its tendency to clump together, or flocculate, at the end of fermentation. This quality allowed brewers to collect yeast from the top or the bottom of the fermentation vessel to start the next batch.

In Norse brewing tradition, a family kept a brewing stick that was used to stir the wort (the sweet liquid that will ferment into beer) at a critical stage. The family knew the sticks were valuable enough to pass from one generation to the next, even if they didn’t necessarily know that they were maintaining a colony of yeast on the stick.

By replicating the methods that produced good beer and rejecting the ones that didn’t, by skimming yeast that floated to the surface of the fermentation vessel or collecting what settled to the bottom, brewers inadvertently favored yeast with certain characteristics over others. With careful selection of yeast, brewers could increasingly replicate beer qualities over and over.

And brewers weren’t just looking for the efficient creation of alcohol. Whether the brewers knew it or not, the different types of yeast that thrived in their beer left their mark on the flavor and aroma, as surely as the type of hops, the roasting of the barley, the nature of the water, or the idiosyncratic techniques of the brewer.

Legislation and Science

Of the four ingredients of beer, yeast was the last to be identified. The original Reinheitsgebot, the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, specified barley, hops and water as the only legal ingredients of beer. Yeast, the agent that turned the other three ingredients into beer, was not mentioned.

In the next century, Dutch amateur naturalist Anton van Leeuwenhoek found life everywhere he turned his microscope—tiny “animalcules,” including yeast cells, which he described for the first time in 1680. Nearly two hundred year later, in 1866, Louis Pasteur confirmed the role of yeast in the fermentation of beer.

These men observed living organisms whose life cycle made scientific sense of the brewing process. The infant science of microbiology joined the centuries-old skills of brewers.

Yeast is a single-celled organism: specifically, a type of fungi. Yeasts are found everywhere, on surfaces and floating in the air. They thrive and multiply quickly on sources of sugar—which describes beer wort perfectly—and release equal parts of alcohol and carbon dioxide, which gives beer its fizz.

In a third scientific breakthrough, in 1883, Emil Hansen at the Carlsberg Laboratories in Copenhagen isolated a pure yeast type with individual characteristics—which we know now as a distinct yeast strain. His techniques allowed the identification of different strains that operated best at different temperatures, utilized raw material at different rates, and produced different mixes of byproducts. With access to pure strains, brewers had much greater control over the beer they brewed.