Brewing Beer

How old is beer?

Documents relating to beer production go back many thousands of years before Christ. It really started probably in Iraq, what is today Iraq, Mesopotamia as it was at the time, where evidence of brewing has been discovered from that era. It seems the brewers in those days used to take barley, bake it into bread, soak that bread in water, and allow wild yeasts in the atmosphere to ferment it. And that's basically how beer started.

How has the brewing process changed over the years?

Apart from advances in technology, hygiene and other scientific areas, the way in which traditional beer, traditional ale is produced in Britain hasn't changed an awful lot for centuries. Probably the most dramatic change that came in was about 400 years ago when hops were introduced. Before that time, brewers would season their beers with spices, herbs, anything they could, just to take the sweeter edge off the malt. When hops came in with their bitter flavours, that changed the whole industry. Traditional beer is still being made today in roughly the same way.

How is beer made?

The brewer takes malted barley, soaks it in hot water to extract all the important enzymes, starches and sugars that are needed for the brewing process, then runs the resultant liquid off into another vessel called a copper, where it's boiled up with the addition of hops, which add bitterness and other flavours to a beer. That liquid is then cooled down, flowed into a fermentation vessel and yeast is added. The yeast starts to ferment the beer, and after about a week, you have beer in a primitive form. What happens after that depends on the sort of beer you're making. If it's a lager that'll be stored at low temperatures for weeks, if not months, so the yeast can continue to condition the beer, to round out the rough edges. If it's an ale, very often it will be packaged into a cask, with the yeast continuing in the beer, and taken to a pub where a secondary fermentation continues, right up until the point it's being served.

Can I still get beer brewed the old-fashioned way?

There's plenty of beer still being brewed in an old-fashioned way. Traditional real ale in Britain hasn't changed very much for centuries. It's brewed by craftsman brewers using traditional processes and although the technology and the sciences may have moved on, the process is still the old-fashioned one.

How many breweries are there in Great Britain?

In Britain, there are about 600, maybe 700 breweries. Some belong to the international brewing concerns, some belong to major regional breweries, but most of them belong to the micro brewing sector. This micro brewing sector is basically consists of tiny breweries serving local areas and is probably run by about 3 or 4 people.