The Naked Pint Read Free Page A

process, yeast consumes that sugar, and the byproducts of that process are carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), or carbonation (beer bubbles), and alcohol (loud mouth soup).
    Once the grain is dried, it is roasted or baked or smoked or kilned to every degree of lightness or darkness under the sun, from the palest of pale to the deepest black malt. The color to which the malt has been roasted (and the combination of the colors of malt) is solely responsible for the color of that beer. (We’re going to be emphasizing this point a lot.) The amount of malt used, in conjunction with the amount of yeast used, is solely responsible for the alcohol content and carbonation of that beer.
Hops
    We like to use the analogy that malts are the male part of beer. You have to encourage them to grow; you have to cajole, manipulate, and control them to make them useful. Hops are the female part of beer. They come in many varieties and can easily dominate, can be quite flowery, can be high maintenance, and are often bitter. (Just kidding... kind of.)
    Hops are actually the female flowering cones of the vining hop plant: scientific name Humulus lupulus . Hops look like delicate, tiny green pinecones and are in the family of Cannabaceae, which also includes the genus Cannabis . That’s right, people, another reason to love beer is that hops are a cousin of cannabis, aka Mary Jane, weed, marijuana, grass, la molta, or, as our mothers call it, “the pot.”

Water
    If you don’t know what water is, then we’re not sure that we can help you. But what you might not know is that water type and quality are very important in the brewing of beer. The use of soft or hard water affects the flavor of beer in the same way that it affects any beverage, such as coffee or tea.

Yeast
    All right, let’s just get all the jokes out now. Just get ’em out! It’s a completely normal reaction. Believe us when we tell you that Yeasty Girls was on our short list of titles for this book just because it made us laugh. We know: Yeast is funny. Ready to move on?
    Yeast is a living organism, which forms colonies of single, simple cells. Officially, scientists call this organism a fungus, but in the days of yore, before brewers fully understood the brewing process, yeast was simply called “God is good.” Yeasts are hungry little buggers who are responsible for “eating” fermentable sugars, producing CO 2 (beer bubbles) and alcohol (the hooch).

    You’re probably already familiar with yeast. Maybe you have a packet of it in your cabinet right now. It’s that stuff that you sprinkle in your bread machine when it beeps, right? Well, yes and no. The yeast you’re probably used to is bread yeast, which has been specifically cultured to make bread and not beer. Beer yeast (scientific name Saccharomyces cerevisiae ) is specifically cultured for the fermentation of beer. Some bread recipes do call for brewer’s yeast, but if you try to use bread yeast for beer, you will be disappointed with the results. And the brewer’s yeast that you can find at a health food store is inactive and is meant to be consumed for its high protein and vitamin B content. If you used either of these in beer making, fermentation would not take place, and there would be no alcohol. And that would be sad.

The Birds and the Bees of Beer: Fermentation
    A h, fermentation—it’s where the magic happens. Now that you know all of the basic ingredients in beer, you’re ready to learn about the birds and bees of beer. We’ve mentioned fermentation several times already when talking about the brewing process. We’re pretty sure that you understand that fermentation is when something becomes alcoholic, but if someone asked you to define fermentation, you might find yourself going numb, with crickets chirping and your pounding heart the only sounds you hear.
    So, quickly, what is fermentation? In beer, it’s when yeast consumes the sugar provided by the malt and creates the byproducts alcohol (liquid