How is beer made?

Most of the beer we all drink is made from the same four ingredients; barley, water, hops and yeast.The basic idea is to extract the sugars from grains (usually barley) so that the yeast can turn it into alcohol and CO2, creating beer. 

In order for barley to be made into beer, it must first be malted. The malting process renders the grain usable to the brewer. It's basically taking a live seed, steeping it in water and tricking it into thinking it's time to grow." The grain starts to ready itself to grow into a plant but the germination is then stopped by drying the barley. Malting helps to create the enzymes necessary to convert the starches present in the seeds into sugars. Without malting, the beer would not have enough sugar content to properly ferment.

The malted barley is crushed or milled and then soaked in warm water in order to create a sugar solution known as wort. Any other grains used in the brewing process are also added at this point. Soaking the grains in warm water helps to further convert the starches into the sugars necessary for fermentation.

The wort is then moved to a copper pot and boiled. During boiling, some of the water in the wort evaporates, leaving behind a higher concentration of sugars. Boiling also helps to sterilize the mixture in preparation for fermentation. 

After boiling, the solid hops and grain are removed, and the mixture is cooled. The brewers then add yeast to this mixture. Fermenting with yeast is what makes beer alcoholic. The time it takes to ferment a beer varies based on type of yeast and style of fermentation, but most beers take about a week to ferment.

Different strains of yeast and different fermentation techniques determine what kind of beer is being made and how it will taste. For example, when making a lager, the yeast ferments at the bottom of the wort at a cooler temperature. Ales are made with a different strain of yeast, and top fermented at warmer temperatures. After fermentation, the beer is then cooled again before bottling or canning.