Visit our new Front Page Store . New Sign up for MyNews Receive headline news, full articles and breaking news via the Web or wireless device. The Dallas Morning News Wine is a great passion of mine, but on a recent trip to Belgium and The Netherlands, I rediscovered great beer, a beverage that is made in more countries in the world than you might expect, but often is rather bland.
Wine is pretty much a function of the grapes that make it.
You plant cabernet, you harvest the grapes and the resulting wine is going to taste either slightly or very much like cabernet. But beer is a formulated product that is made from malt, yeast, water, hops and other ingredients, each of which is chosen by the brewmaster for the style of beer being produced. To most Americans, beer is that cold, mildly alcoholic bubbly stuff you quaff straight from its container, and the colder it is, the better. Of course, the more you chill any beverage, the less you will be able to smell and taste it. The three largest American beer producers suggest we consume beer very cold.