Britisch Beers

Beer has a long history in Britain, they have been drinking it unrefrigerated at the city's pubs since the days of Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims. Today, the most popular pub beer is bitter, a hoppy ale drawn up by hand pumps from kegs in the cellar and traditionally offered in pint glasses (but half-pints are readily available, too). They also drink:

ALE
An alcoholic beverage brewed from Malt and Hops It's usually stronger and, because of the hops, more bitter than Beer The color can vary from light to dark amber.

STOUT
A strong, dark beer that originated in the British Isles. Stout is more redolent of Hops than regular beer and is made with dark-roasted BARLEY which gives it a deep, dark color and bittersweet flavor.

PORTER
A heavy, dark-brown, strongly flavored beer. The dark color and strong flavor come from the addition of roasted Malt Porters are usually higher in alcohol than regular Lager beers

MALT LIQUOR
A beer that has a relatively high alcohol content by weight - usually from 5 to 8 percent, with several varieties reaching as high as 9 percent

LAGER
Beer that is stored in its cask or vat until free of sediment and crystal clear. It's a light, bubbly, golden brew that ranks as America's most popular.

I've just used the words Hops and Barley, I'll explain them some further
HOPS: A hardy, vining plant that produces conelike flowers. The dried flowers are used to impart a pleasantly bitter flavor to beers and ales. This same plant produces hop shoots, which are widely available commercially only in Europe and can be cooked like asparagus and served as a vegetable.
BARLEY: This hardy grain dates back to the Stone Age and has been used throughout the eons in dishes ranging from cereals to breads to soups (such as the famous Scotch Broth). Most of the barley grown in the Western world is used either for animal fodder or, when malted, to make beer and whiskey.

As for brand names, it used to be that nearly every British pub was a "tied house", that is, it was owned by a brewery and served only the company brand. Recently, regulatory laws have been relaxed, but company pubs are still in the majority. Fortunately, Whitbread, Bass, and the Irish-owned giant Guinness, each of which operates dozens of pubs throughout London all produce excellent beers.

when we talk about British beers, we think about Bass. It is partly produced by, off course, a Belgian Company, Interbrew.
It is brewed exclusively in Burton since 1777. Draught Bass is the oldest brand of Bass Brewers. It is a full-flavoured beer and is also the most famous English ale in the world.
Brewed to 4.4% ABV, Draught Bass is still brewed to an original recipe using only the finest ingredients and the experience of generations. It is brewed with two strains of yeast to produce a complex nutty, malty taste with subtle hop undertones, which has widespread appeal to repertoire drinkers.

HOW TO MAKE BEER

To make beer, brewers use water and barley to create a sweetened liquid (called the wort), which they flavour with hops, then ferment with yeast. The basic process may be simple but the execution is highly sophisticated. The three most important stages are malting, brewing and fermentation - followed by maturation, filtering and bottling.

Malting is the process of readying barley to be used in brewing. Barley cannot be used to create the wort in its normal state, because the starch in its floury kernel is insoluble. So the grain is steeped in water, then spread out on racks until rootlets appear. The germination process produced enzymes which break down the starch. Once the plumule below the husk grows to three quarters the length of the grain, germination is halted by drying the green malt, as the barley is now called, on metal racks in the kiln house at 50° C. The temperature is then raised to 85°C for a light malt, or higher for a dark malt. The malt shoots are removed for cattle feed, and the dried malt is stored in silos. Although malted barley is the primary ingredient, unmalted corn, rice or wheat are sometimes added, to produce different beer flavours.

Brewing is the process of turning the finely-ground malt, the grist, into a sweetened liquid, the wort. The grist is mixed with warm water then gradually heated to around 75° C in large mash tuns to dissolve the starch and transform it into sugar - mainly maltose. The spent grains are filtered out and the wort is ready for boiling. Hops are added at this point to give a special bitter taste and aroma to the beer, and help preserve it. The wort is boiled for one to two hours to sterilise and concentrate it, and extract the necessary essence from the hops. Cooling follows, using a heat exchanger. The hopped wort is saturated with air, essential for the growth of the yeast in the next stage.

Yeast is a micro-organism that turns the sugar in the wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This process of fermentation takes ten days. The wort finally becomes beer. Each brewery has its own strains of yeast, and it is these that largely determine the character of the beer. In some yeast varieties, the cells rise to the top at the end of fermentation, and are then skimmed off. This is called top fermentation, and ales are brewed in this way. When at the end of fermentation the yeast cells sink to the bottom, the process is known as bottom fermentation, used for lager or pils. Some special Belgian beers, called lambic or gueuze, use a third method. Fermentation relies on spontaneous action by airborne yeasts typical of the Zenne valley near Brussels.

The beer has now been brewed, but it can still be improved through maturation. The taste ripens. The liquid clarifies as yeast and other particles settles. Secondary fermentation saturates the beer with carbon dioxide. Further filtering gives the beer a sparkling clarity. Then the beer is ready for packaging - in kegs, cans or bottles. Filling techniques ensure air does not come into contact with the beer, and cannot be trapped within the container. The process is fully automatic and fast. Bottles are filled, capped, labelled and crated at a rate of up to 100,000 bottles an hour.

The final excellence of the beer you drink depends on you. We advise drinking the beer as fresh as possible, serving it at the right temperature, in clean glasses, and properly poured - tilting the glass until it is half full to avoid foam, then straightening up to achieve a good frothy head.
Good health.