Portal:Beer/Sandbox

 The Beer Portal  

Introduction

At the Café by Édouard Manet, circa 1879

Beer is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world, the most widely consumed, and the third most popular drink after water and tea. Beer is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grains—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The fermentation of the starch sugars in the wort produces ethanol and carbonation in the beer. Most modern beer is brewed with hops, which add bitterness and other flavours and act as a natural preservative and stabilising agent. Other flavouring agents, such as gruit, herbs, or fruits, may be included or used instead of hops. In commercial brewing, natural carbonation is often replaced with forced carbonation.

Some of the earliest writings refer to the production and distribution of beer: the Code of Hammurabi included laws regulating it, and "The Hymn to Ninkasi", a prayer to the Mesopotamian goddess of beer, a recipe for it.

Beer is distributed in bottles and cans and is also commonly available on draught, particularly in pubs and bars. The brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries. The strength of modern beer is usually around 4% to 6% alcohol by volume (ABV).

Beer forms part of the culture of many nations and is associated with social traditions such as beer festivals, as well as activities like pub crawling, pub quizzes, and pub games. (Full article...)

Selected articles -

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  Steam beer, also known as California common beer, is made by fermenting lager yeast at a higher than normal temperature.
  
  Historically steam beer came from Bavaria, Germany, and is associated with San Francisco and the West Coast of the United States. It was an improvised process, originating out of necessity, and was considered a cheap, low-quality beer, as shown by references to it in literature of the 1890s and 1900s. (Full article...)
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  Bergenhus microbrewery, Bergen, Norway

  
  
  Craft beer is a beer that has been made by craft breweries, which typically produce smaller amounts of beer, than larger "macro" breweries, and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as emphasising enthusiasm, new flavours, and varied brewing techniques.
  
  The microbrewery movement began in both the United States and United Kingdom in the 1970s, although traditional artisanal brewing existed in Europe for centuries and subsequently spread to other countries. As the movement grew, and some breweries expanded their production and distribution, the more encompassing concept of craft brewing emerged. A brewpub is a pub that brews its own beer for sale on the premises. (Full article...)
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  A bottling machine being used in 1945 as part of an Australian beer production operation

  
  Beer arrived in Australia at the beginning of British colonisation. In 2004 Australia was ranked fourth internationally in per capita beer consumption, at around 110 litres per year; although, the nation ranked considerably lower in a World Health Organization report of alcohol consumption per capita of 12.2 litres. Lager is by far the most popular type of beer consumed in Australia.
  
  The oldest brewery still in operation is the Cascade Brewery, established in Tasmania in 1824. The largest Australian-owned brewery is the family-owned Coopers Brewery; the other two major breweries, Carlton & United Breweries and Lion Nathan, are owned by Japan's Asahi and Kirin Brewing Company respectively. (Full article...)
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  Bottles of beers from several Canadian-based breweries placed on a table being used to play beer pong

  
  Beer was introduced to Canada by European settlers in the seventeenth century. The first commercial brewery was La Brasseries du Roy started by New France Intendant Jean Talon, in Québec City in 1668. Many commercial brewers thrived until prohibition in Canada. The provincial and federal governments' attempt to eliminate "intoxicating" beverages led to the closing of nearly three quarters of breweries between 1878 and 1928. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that a significant number of new breweries opened up. The Canadian beer industry now plays an important role in Canadian identity, although globalization of the brewing industry has seen the major players in Canada acquired by or merged with foreign companies, notably its three largest beer producers: Labatt, Molson and Sleeman. The result is that Moosehead, with an estimated 3.8 percent share of the domestic market in 2016, has become the largest fully Canadian-owned brewer.
  
  Beer sales have been sluggish overall in volume and in growth in industry revenue as other beverages have increased in popularity. Growth in revenue for beer makers averaged 1.3 per cent per year during 2011-2016; the estimated annual growth over the subsequent five years is only 0.4 percent per annum. Nonetheless, the number of licensed breweries in Canada increased from 310 in 2010 to 640 in 2015. Many of these are small operations since there were only 30 large (making over 7.5 million litres per year) breweries in 2015. (Full article...)
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  Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH₃CH₂OH. It is an alcohol, with its formula also written as C₂H₅OH, C₂H₆O or EtOH, where Et stands for ethyl. Ethanol is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid with a characteristic wine-like odor and pungent taste. As a psychoactive depressant, it is the active ingredient in alcoholic drinks, and the second most consumed drug globally behind caffeine.
  
  Ethanol is naturally produced by the fermentation process of sugars by yeasts or via petrochemical processes such as ethylene hydration. Historically it was used as a general anesthetic, and has modern medical applications as an antiseptic, disinfectant, solvent for some medications, and antidote for methanol poisoning and ethylene glycol poisoning. It is used as a chemical solvent and in the synthesis of organic compounds, and as a fuel source. Ethanol also can be dehydrated to make ethylene, an important chemical feedstock. As of 2006, world production of ethanol was 51 gigalitres (1.3×10¹⁰ US gallons), coming mostly from Brazil and the U.S. (Full article...)
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  Barley wines range in colour from translucent deep amber, to cloudy mahogany (left), to near opaque black (right).

  
  Barley wine (often stylised barleywine) is a strong ale from 6–12% alcohol by volume. (Full article...)
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  Pilsner Urquell, the world's first pale lager and ancestor of today's Pilsners

  
  
  Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň (German: Pilsen), where the world's first pale lager (now known as Pilsner Urquell) was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Brewery. (Full article...)
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  The Hakata brewery of Asahi, Japan's biggest brewing company

  
  Beer in Japan mostly comes from the country's four major breweries, Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory, which mainly produce pale lagers around 5% ABV. Beer is immensely popular, far ahead of sake consumption.
  
  As well as Pilsner style lagers, the most commonly produced beer style in Japan, beer-like beverages made with lower levels of malt, called happōshu (発泡酒, literally, "bubbly alcohol") or non-malt happōsei (発泡性, literally "bubbly"), have captured a large part of the market, as tax is substantially lower on these products. (Full article...)
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  Founders Curmudgeon old ale

  
  Old ale is a form of strong ale. The term is commonly applied to dark, malty beers in England, generally above 5% ABV, and also to dark ales of any strength in Australia. It is sometimes associated with stock ale or, archaically, keeping ale, in which the beer is held at the brewery. In modern times, the line has blurred between Old Ale and Barley wine. (Full article...)
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  Assortment of beer bottles

  
  A beer bottle is a bottle designed as a container for beer. Such designs vary greatly in size and shape, but the glass commonly is brown or green to reduce spoilage from light, especially ultraviolet.
  
  The most widely established alternatives to glass containers for beer in retail sales are beverage cans and aluminium bottles; for larger volumes kegs are in common use. (Full article...)
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  Hop flower in a hop yard in the Hallertau, Germany

  
  Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant Humulus lupulus, a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to which, in addition to bitterness, they impart floral, fruity, or citrus flavours and aromas. Hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. The hops plants have separate female and male plants, and only female plants are used for commercial production. The hop plant is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a field called a hopfield, hop garden (in the South of England), or hop yard (in the West Country and United States) when grown commercially. Many different varieties of hops are grown by farmers around the world, with different types used for particular styles of beer.
  
  The first documented use of hops in beer is from the 9th century, though Hildegard of Bingen, 300 years later, is often cited as the earliest documented source. Before this period, brewers used a "gruit", composed of a wide variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound (the old German name for horehound, Berghopfen, means "mountain hops"), ground ivy, and heather. Early documents include mention of a hop garden in the will of Charlemagne's father, Pepin the Short. (Full article...)
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  Liefman's oud bruin

  
  Oud Bruin (Old Brown), also known as Flanders Brown, is a style of beer originating from the Flemish region of Belgium. The Dutch name refers to the long aging process, up to a year. It undergoes a secondary fermentation, which takes several weeks to a month, and is followed by bottle aging for several more months. The extended aging allows residual yeast and bacteria to develop a sour flavor characteristic for this style. Usually, cultured yeast and bacteria are used, as stainless steel equipment does not harbor wild organisms as wood does. (Full article...)
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  Samuel Smith Brewery's Imperial Stout – a vegetarian beer

  
  
  Beer is often made from barley malt, water, hops and yeast and so is often suitable for vegans and vegetarians. Some beer brewers add finings to clarify the beer when racking into a barrel. Finings can include plant-derived products, like Irish moss, or animal-derived products, like isinglass and gelatin.
  
  Most breweries do not reveal if they do or do not use animal products in the processing of their beers; some exceptions are Samuel Smith, Heineken, Harp Lager, Anheuser-Busch, the Marble Brewery in Manchester, the Black Isle Brewery, and Black Sheep Brewery, all of whom have declared they make vegetarian and/or vegan beer. (Full article...)
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  A 16th-century brewery

  
  
  Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, at home by a homebrewer, or communally. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BC, and archaeological evidence suggests that emerging civilizations, including ancient Egypt, China, and Mesopotamia, brewed beer. Since the nineteenth century the brewing industry has been part of most western economies.
  
  The basic ingredients of beer are water and a fermentable starch source such as malted barley. Most beer is fermented with a brewer's yeast and flavoured with hops. Less widely used starch sources include millet, sorghum and cassava. Secondary sources (adjuncts), such as maize (corn), rice, or sugar, may also be used, sometimes to reduce cost, or to add a feature, such as adding wheat to aid in retaining the foamy head of the beer. The most common starch source is ground cereal or "grist" - the proportion of the starch or cereal ingredients in a beer recipe may be called grist, grain bill, or simply mash ingredients. (Full article...)
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  Modern American pale ale made by Sierra Nevada

  
  In the United States, beer are manufactured in breweries which range in size from industry giants to brew pubs and microbreweries. The United States produced 196 million barrels (23.0 GL) of beer in 2012, and consumes roughly 28 US gallons (110 L) of beer per capita annually. In 2011, the United States was ranked fifteenth in the world in per capita consumption, while total consumption was second only to China.
  
  Although beer was a part of colonial life in the United States, the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919 resulted in the prohibition of alcoholic beverage sales, forcing nearly all American breweries to close or switch to producing non-alcoholic products. After the repeal of Prohibition, the industry consolidated into a small number of large-scale breweries. Many of the big breweries that returned to producing beer after Prohibition, today largely owned by international conglomerates like Anheuser-Busch InBev, still retain their dominance of the market in the 21st century. However, the majority of the new breweries that have opened in the U.S. over the past three decades have been small breweries and brewpubs, referred to as "craft breweries" to differentiate them from the larger breweries. (Full article...)

Selected brand -

Corsendonk Pater, sold as Abbey Brown Ale in USA

Corsendonk is a Belgian beer brand. The brandname refers to the Priory of Corsendonk in Oud-Turnhout; which was in operation from 1398 to 1784, and was rebuilt in 1968, as a hotel complex by new owners Corsendonk Hotels. In 1982, on the 125th anniversary of the Oud-Turnhout municipality, Jef Keersmaekers, grandson of Antonius Keersmaekers who had founded a brewery in 1906, was approached by the local tourist office to use the Corsendonk name for its abbey association, as an abbey beer marketing technique. He launched Pater Noster, now called Corsendonk Pater (or "Abbey Brown Ale" when marketed in America), and Agnus Dei, now called Corsendonk Agnus (or "Abbey Pale Ale" when marketed in America). As the family brewery had closed down in 1953, the beers were contracted out to other breweries, including Brasserie Du Bocq, who now brew all the brands. Other brands include Corsendonk Blond, Corsendonk Bruin and Corsendonk Christmas Ale. (Full article...)

Selected biography -

Michael Thomas Bass (23 July 1760 – 9 March 1827) was a brewer of Burton-on-Trent, England, who considerably developed the Bass brewing company. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that brewer Sophie de Ronde is allergic to most beer?
• ... that Pope Pius IX gave the monks of Saint Vincent Archabbey permission to brew Saint Vincent Beer?
• ... that the debate in "Game On" invokes the beer question?
• ... that a beer named after the barley variety Golden Promise was not brewed using the variety?
• ... that Ein Samiya, which provides the water for Taybeh, the first beer brewed in Palestine, was depopulated in 2023 after harassment by neighboring Israeli settlers?
• ... that at the 1965 World Pentathlon Championships, Herbert Polzhuber was said to have drunk ten beers and a bottle of cognac before firing his pistol at the ground and passing out?

Selected brewery -

Selected image -

General images

The following are images from various beer- and brewing-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  A hydrometer measures beer's specific gravity (from History of beer)
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  Bottling beer in a modern facility, 1945, Australia (from History of beer)
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  D. G. Yuengling & Son is the oldest operating brewing company in the US, established in 1829. It is also the largest craft brewer, and the 6th largest brewing company overall. (from Craft beer)
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  Great Leap Brewing operates a chain of brewpubs in China (from Craft beer)
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  Spent grain, a brewing by-product (from Brewing)
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  Casks of real ale from British microbreweries at a beer festival (from Craft beer)
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  Hop cone grown in a hop field, Hallertau, Germany (from Brewing)
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  Cask ales with gravity dispense at a beer festival (from Brewing)
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  Lauter tun (from Brewing)
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  Diatomaceous earth, used to create a filtration bed (from Brewing)
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  Bergenhus microbrewery, Bergen, Norway (from Craft beer)
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  Open vessels showing fermentation taking place (from Brewing)
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  A mash tun at the Bass Museum in Burton-upon-Trent (from Brewing)
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  A can of Juicy Ass IPA from Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery in Barrie, Ontario, Canada (from Craft beer)
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  Malted barley before kilning or roasting (from Brewing)
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  A growler of beer from Flounder Brewing, a nanobrewery in New Jersey, US (from Craft beer)
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  The Caledonian Brewery, founded in 1869, Edinburgh, Scotland (from History of beer)
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  World beer consumption per capita (from History of beer)
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  Irish Craft Beer Festival, 2015 (from Craft beer)
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  Smoked beer from the Schlenkerla brewpub in Bamberg, Germany (from Craft beer)
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  A funerary model of a bakery and brewery, from the Eleventh dynasty of Egypt, c. 2009–1998 BCE (from History of beer)
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  Bill Urquhart at Litchborough Brewery (from Craft beer)
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  Castaña, a smoked beer with chestnuts from Cerex in Extremadura, Spain (from Craft beer)
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  A yard of ale at Jolly Brewery, Taiwan (from Craft beer)
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  Dogo Beer from Minakuchi-shuzō microbrewery in Matsuyama, Japan (from Craft beer)
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  Modern closed fermentation vessels (from Brewing)
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  Spontaneous fermentation at Timmermans in Belgium (from Brewing)
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  A replica of ancient Egyptian beer, brewed from emmer wheat by the Courage brewery in 1996 (from History of beer)
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  Craft brewing at Allagash in Portland, Maine (from Craft beer)
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  A beer sommelier tapping a barrel for a taste at Nebraska Brewing Company (from Craft beer)
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  The Alulu beer receipt records a purchase of "best" beer from a brewer, c. 2050 BC from the Sumerian city of Umma in Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). (from Brewing)
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  Yeast ring used by Swedish homebrewers in the 19th century to preserve the yeast between brewing sessions. (from History of beer)
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  Alulu beer receipt recording a purchase of "best" beer from a brewer, c. 2050 BCE, from the Sumerian city of Umma in ancient Iraq. (from History of beer)
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  Steamworks Brewing, Vancouver (from Craft beer)
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  Gambrinus – king of beer (from History of beer)
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  Traditional fermenting building (center) and modern fermenting building (left) in Pilsner Urquell Brewery (Czech Republic) (from History of beer)
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  A 16th-century brewery (from History of beer)
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  Microbreweries, regional breweries, and brew pubs per capita (from Craft beer)
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  Mexican craft beer from Tequixquiac in Zumpango Region (from Craft beer)
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  Conditioning tanks at Anchor Brewing Company (from Brewing)
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  Robohop, a session IPA from Cervisiam in Oslo, Norway (from Craft beer)
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  Brew kettles at Brasserie La Choulette in France (from Brewing)
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  Rock mortars in Raqefet Cave, used to make beer during the Stone Age. (from History of beer)
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  A 16th-century brewery (from Brewing)
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  A selection of French craft beers (from Craft beer)
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  Põhjala Brewery, Estonia (from Craft beer)
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  Philistine pottery beer jug (from History of beer)
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  Pasteur Street Brewing, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (from Craft beer)
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  Zoigl beers from the communal brewhouses of Oberpfalz in Germany (from Craft beer)

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