The history of beer
Most people associate the word beer with European culture. Bavarian beers, Belgian beers and Irish beers are known worldwide and sell millions of cases every year. However, the origin of beer is not actually European. Indeed, the first beer recipe was discovered in China and is about 5000 years old. Even the ancient Egyptians made a type of beer by fermenting half baked bread with water. The Celts had an especially developed beer tradition and produced several kinds of beer, including the so-called korma, an easily produced malt beer, and a wheat beer with honey, which was known by the name “cervesia”.
In medieval times, people thought that beer was an appropriate beverage for children for one simple reason: Thanks to the cooking of the wort, the beer contained much fewer germs than the available drinking water. Additionally, beer offered a high caloric content.
Today, beer is exclusively consumed for enjoyment and the beer market has become huge. In Switzerland alone, there are 900 breweries… and counting!
How is beer produced?
To produce beer, the ingredients have to go through a complex brewing process. First, water and malted barley are combined and heated while stirring continuously. With an iodine test, the brewer finds out when the starch of the malt has turned into malt sugar. During the so-called lautering, the beer wort (the liquid part of the mash) is separated from the malt draff (the solid parts of the malt).
Next up is the cooking of the wort in the wort copper. During this step, the hops are added and cooked. In the so-called whirlpool, the shed protein and the undissolved parts of the hops are separated from the wort. After cooling the wort down to 5 to 20 °C, yeast is added to start the fermentation process. The type of the yeast (top-fermented or bottom-fermented) plays a big role for the flavour. Sometimes producers choose to start the fermentation without adding yeast – a process which is called spontaneous fermentation.
Afterwards, the green beer is fermented for another few weeks to months in storage tanks. This process is important because it is how the rest of the sugar is converted into alcohol.
What’s important to know is that the brewing process often differs by location. While in Germany, there’s a purity law, for example, the regulations are looser in many other countries. In addition, it’s not unusual to find rice beer in Asia or corn beer in South America.
How many types of beer are there?
Depending on the location, there are many different ways to categorise beers. When classifying beer varieties by yeast type, the top-fermented beers include ale, Koelsch and wheat beer while the bottom-fermented beers include Pilsner, black beer and pale beer. Furthermore, there are specialties like smoked beer or non-alcoholic beer.
Beer at Gustero
Admittedly, our selection of beer is small. However, our assortment is growing steadily. Subscribe to our newsletter today to keep informed about new product arrivals in our shop!
