History of Warm Beer.
 
 

Here comes summer used to be the British beer-drinker's lament. The country that produces the most original and idiosyncratic beers in the world tended to abandon them once the weather turned warm. 

The problem was a myth  one accidentally perpetuated by John Major with his faux-nostalgic vision of a Britain of "warm beer", cricket and old ladies on bicycles. 

British beer should never be served warm; draught beer was traditionally served at cellar temperature, and the traditional cellar was a cold, dank underground storage place. 

The design of late-20th-century pubs, in which the "cellar" was often just a back room no more insulated than the rest of the building, meant that landlords needed to pay more attention to keeping their beers in good condition. And the lazy ones unfortunately couldn?t be bothered. 

However, modern temperature-control devices and the new Cask Marque scheme, which gives awards to pubs that keep their beers well, have gone a long way to remedying things. 

The traditional English summer ale was not a weak beer. A classic example is Haymaker, from the Hook Norton brewery in north Oxfordshire, rediscovered five years ago by its young head brewer, James Clarke, from an old recipe for beers which were taken into the fields in casks at harvest time. 

Its 4.9 ABV (alcohol by volume) strength was necessary to keep the beer in good condition in the heat. Today a cool draught pint of it, crisp, clear and golden in colour, is the perfect drink for a summer evening. 

The perceived trend towards lighter coloured beers led John Gilbert of the Hop Back brewery in Wiltshire to produce Summer Lightning for the 1988 Salisbury beer festival. 

"I was tired of the same old malty taste," he explains. Summer Lightning is light in colour but strong (5.0 per cent) and has masses of hops (East Kent Golding and Challenger). It became so popular that it is now available in pubs and supermarkets all year round. 

The London brewer Fuller's Summer Ale, by contrast, is deliberately weaker (3.7 per cent) than its flagship London Pride, on the assumption that summer thirsts can be stronger. Again lighter in colour, it has that unmistakable bittersweet Fuller's flavour. 

The other pillar of London brewing, Young's, produces its delicious honeyflavoured Waggledance (5.0 per cent) all year round in bottles, but on draught only in spring and summer. But for a really refreshing curiosity try its Acclaim, available bottled in pubs and from some supermarkets. The 1999 winner of Tesco's competition for flavoured English beer, Acclaim is made with lager malt but is finished off with extract of passionfruit, which gives a distinctive fruity nose. 

The current Tesco challenge winner, Golden Glory, comes from the Badger brewery in Dorset. Flavoured with the unmistakable aroma of peach blossom, it may wrinkle a few laddish noses, but Dame Nellie Melba would have adored it. 

For those who cannot resist a foreign flavour, even made in Britain, the Yorkshire brewer Samuel Smith now produces, under licence, authentic Bavarian wheat beer. 

Hefeweiss (pronounced Heh-fa-vise) means literally 'yeast white'. Like the Belgian Hoegaarden, it is naturally cloudy, lemony and, for those who like the fizz buzz, not just sparkling but positively effervescent. If only we could say the same for British summer weather. 

 

The Brewing Process
 

Raw Materials

The basic raw materials of the brewing process are barley, water, hops, and yeast. Other adjuncts may also be used to change the characteristics of the final product.

Barley

Malted barley has been a principal ingredient of beer since the earliest times - it is the primary source of the sugars which are turned into alcohol. Following harvesting, the barley is stored for a period of a few weeks before it is sent to the maltings. At the maltings it is steeped in water to stimulate germination of the seed and turn the constituent starch into sugar. At the correct moment the maltster stops the germination process by heating the malt in a kiln. The temperature of the kiln depends upon the type of beer to be produced - the darker the brew, the higher is the temperature required. Before being used in the brewing process, the malt must be 'cracked' to enable the sugars to be removed more easily. Cracking consists of breaking the malt husk and grain into fragments between rollers in a mill. Some brewers carry out the cracking at their own premises.

Water

In times past brewers would make beer from locally collected water. Indeed, some breweries still use their own spring water. However, it is now recognised that water with certain mineral content suits certain types of beer. In modern brewing the appropriate natural minerals can be added to the water to improve its suitability to the brewing process.

Yeast

Yeast is used in the brewing process to convert the sugars recovered from the malt into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The yeast used in brewing is roughly categorised as ale yeast, which rises to the top of the fermenting vessel, and lager yeast, which sinks to the bottom of the vessel. Under the right conditions, yeast cells will reproduce constantly. Brewers suppress this activity by keeping it refrigerated until it is needed.

Adjuncts

Many purists believe that beer should be brewed only with water, malt, hops, and yeast. However, there are others who believe that use of appropriate adjuncts can have a favourable effect on the characteristics of the beer. Examples of some adjuncts are: torrefied wheat (improves the beer's ability to create and maintain a head), rice (changes the texture of the beer), caramel (darkens the colour), and sugar (assists fermentation).

Brewing Processes

The main brewing processes are mashing, boiling, fermentation, and racking.

Mashing

The water to be used in the brew (called 'liquor' in the trade) is brought up to temperature and drawn off into a vessel known as the mash tun. The malt to be used in the brew is mixed with any adjuncts (the mixture is called the 'grist') and placed in the mash tun with the water for a period of an hour or so. The hot water further converts the starches and proteins in the grist into soluble sugars. A liquid called 'wort' is the result of the mashing process. This is drained off for further processing. To ensure that all the wort is removed from the mash tun, the grist remaining is 'sparged'. Sparging is the spraying of water onto the grist from rotating metal arms within the mash tun. The spent solids of the grist are waste materials which are removed. These waste materials make excellent fertilisers or, as most micro brewers do, pass them on for a tasty meal for a local farmer's pigs!

Boiling

The wort is passed to a vessel called the 'copper' where hops and extra sugars (if required) are added and the mixture boiled vigorously for a period of an hour or so. The type and quantity of hops placed in the copper varies according to the type of beer being brewed. Often all the hops used in a brew are put into the copper at the start of the boil. At most micro breweries a proportion of the hops are kept until a few minutes before the end of the boil as this enhances the beer's aroma. Vigorous boiling is necessary to extract all oils and resins from the hops and to destroy any remaining harmful bacteria.

Fermentation

Upon completion of the boiling, the wort is cooled and transferred to a fermentation vessel. Yeast is added to the wort and, within a few hours, a creamy head of yeast is brought to the surface of the liquid by bubbles of carbon dioxide generated in the fermentation process. The fermentation process is usually completed within five or six days.

Racking

Racking is the process of packaging the beer into kegs or casks. Beer that is to be packaged in kegs is pasteurised and filtered to kill off and remove remaining traces of yeast from the packaged beer. The so-called 'real ale', such as that produced by the Oakleaf Brewery, retains some yeast and continues to ferment after it has been packaged in casks. Being a living product, the final version of the beer is not determined until the moment of drinking. However, to ensure that the product delivered to the customer is clear with no sediment remaining in suspension, 'finings' are added the beer at least 24 hours before drinking. This causes remaining sediments to sink to the bottom of the cask.