The Brewing Process:

Traditionally, beer is made from the combination of four ingredients; water, barley, hops, and yeast.

Water makes up about 90% of what beer is. Barley is what gives beer its color, body, and sweetness. Hops balance this sweetness by adding bitterness, hop flavor and hop aroma. Finally yeast is what gives beer its unique character, sometimes imparting particular flavor characteristics. It also produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. If you took the same recipe of water, barley and hops, and brewed it twice with two different yeast strains, you would have two totally different beers.

There are three basic steps to brewing; Mashing, Boiling, and Fermenting. Combined, Mashing and Boiling generally take approximately eight hours to complete, while Fermenting can take anywhere from one to many weeks.

Mashing extracts sugars and other important compounds from the barley. First, the barley is ground in a mill to a coarse texture. It is then mixed with hot water and allowed to steep at a temperature of about 150-155 degrees F. This process extracts the sugars and other compounds from the barely. This sugar-rich water is called wort. At this point, the wort is drained off into the boiling kettle, and the barely is rinsed with fresh, hot water to extract every last bit of sugar. This process is similar to making a cup of tea by steeping a tea bag in a cup of hot water.

Next, the fresh wort is boiled in the kettle. This process lasts about an hour. During the boil, hops are added at various time intervals to impart bitterness, hop flavor, and hop aroma to the beer. It is very important to balance the malt sweetness, with hop bitterness and flavor in order to make a well rounded beer. At the end of the boil, the wort is separated from the hops and chilled to prepare it for fermentation.

At this point yeast is added to the beer to begin the process of fermentation. This is the point at which the wort becomes beer. During this time period, the yeast consumes the sugars, and produces alcohol, carbon dioxide and the unique flavors (as in our Hefeweizen). This process can take anywhere from 2 weeks to several months depending on the style of beer. After this, the beer is generally filtered, carbonated, and packaged for your enjoyment.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Alcohol by Volume: This is what most people think of when they talk about alcohol content in beer. It is the percentage of volume of alcohol per volume of beer. Most of our beers range from 4-7% Alc/Vol.

IBU (International Bitterness Units): A scale that expresses the bitterness in a beer. The higher the number, the more bitter the beer. 0-20 = low to mild bitterness, 21-40 = medium to high bitterness, 41 and higher = very bitter. Our IPA is approximately 65 IBU.

Specific Gravity (O.G. - Original Gravity): A measure of a substances density (thickness), The higher the number, the thicker the liquid (1.000 - 1.100). The higher the O.G. of a beer, the heavier it is and the more alcohol it has.

Ale: Generally, ales have fruity aroma and flavor characteristics, while lagers do not. They ferment at warmer temperatures than lagers, and they typically are not aged at cold temperature for an extended period of time.

Lager: Generally, Lagers (which lack fruity flavors) are smoother and crisper in character. The beer is stored (aged) at near-zero temperatures, for long periods of time, in order to precipitate yeast cells and proteins, and improve taste

Malted Barley: Barley that has been steeped in water, germinated, then dried in kilns. This process converts unusable starches to usable substances and sugars.

Yeast: A group of unicellular organisms, which convert sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Also can contribute distinct flavors to certain styles of beers (ie. Hefeweizen, Belgian ales,..)

Mashing (Mash Tun): Mixing ground barley with hot water to convert starches to fermentable sugars and non- fermentable carbohydrates. It also extracts color from the barley.

Lauter Tun: Vessel in which the mash (barley and hot water mixture) settles and the grains are removed through straining. It has a false, slotted bottom that allows the hot water to pass through the grain while keeping the grain from flowing into the kettle.

Sparging: Spraying the spent grains in the mash tun with hot water to extract all sugars.

Wort: The liquid mixture that results from mashing the malt and boiling the hops, before it is fermented into beer. You could think of it as the hopped sugar water that comes out of the kettle. There has been no alcohol formed yet.

Dry Hopping: Adding fresh, "dry", whole hops to the beer in the fermenting tanks. This adds nothing but fresh hop aroma. Our IPA is dry hopped in both the fermenter and serving tank.

Brewpub: Restaurant that brews and primarily distributes its own beer within the restaurant.

Microbrewery: Brewery that brews beer to be bottled and keged for sale in bars, stores etc. Usually produces much more beer that brewpubs, but there are definitely exceptions.