Beer is one of the oldest types of alcoholic drinks in the world, and the most widely consumed. It is the third most popular drink overall after potable water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal grains—most commonly from malted barley, though wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. During the brewing process, fermentation of the starch sugars in the wort produces ethanol and carbonation in the resulting beer. Most modern beer is brewed with hops, which add bitterness and other flavours and act as a natural preservative and stabilizing agent. Other flavouring agents such as gruit, herbs, or fruits may be included or used instead of hops. In commercial brewing, the natural carbonation effect is often removed during processing and replaced with forced carbonation.
Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source 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 and Mesopotamia, brewed beer. Since the nineteenth century the brewing industry has been part of most western economies.
Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air, a process known as "malting". Malted grain is used to make beer, whisky, malted milk, malt vinegar, confections such as Maltesers and Whoppers, flavored drinks such as Horlicks, Ovaltine, and Milo, and some baked goods, such as malt loaf, bagels, and Rich Tea biscuits. Malted grain that has been ground into a coarse meal is known as "sweet meal".
Homebrewing is the brewing of beer or other alcoholic beverages on a small scale for personal, non-commercial purposes. Supplies, such as kits and fermentation tanks, can be purchased locally at specialty stores or online. Beer was brewed domestically for thousands of years before its commercial production, although its legality has varied according to local regulation. Homebrewing is closely related to the hobby of home distillation, the production of alcoholic spirits for personal consumption; however home distillation is generally more tightly regulated.
Genesee Brewing Company is an American brewery located along the Genesee River in Rochester, New York. From 2000 to 2009, the company was known as the High Falls Brewing Company. In 2009, High Falls was acquired by the capital investment firm KPS Capital. Together with newly acquired Labatt USA, KPS merged the two companies as North American Breweries. Along with this change, High Falls Brewery changed its name back to the original "Genesee Brewing Company" operating under the North American Breweries name. In October 2012, North American Breweries was purchased by FIFCO
The Siebel Institute of Technology is a for-profit, unaccredited vocational college located on Goose Island in Chicago that focuses on brewing science. The school is the oldest brewing school located in the United States and has been in operation since its founding in 1868 by German immigrant chemist John Ewald Siebel (1845-1919). Prior to immigrating to the United States in 1866, Siebel earned his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Berlin Originally named the Zymotechnic Institute, the school was renamed after its founder in 1872. During Prohibition, the institute diversified by adding courses in baking, refrigeration, engineering, milling, carbonated beverages and related topics; after the repeal of Prohibition, courses not concerned with brewing were discontinued.
Rogue Ales is a brewery founded in 1988 in Ashland, Oregon. The company brews their own beer, distills their own spirits, and coopers their own barrels. Rogue has pub locations in Oregon.
Beer styles differentiate and categorise beers by colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin.
Beer is one of the oldest drinks humans have produced. The first chemically confirmed barley beer dates back to the 5th millennium BC in modern-day Iran, and was recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and spread throughout the world.
Otto Frederick Eckhardt was an American brewer, homebrewing advocate, and writer. Eckhardt is best remembered as a pioneer in the field of beer journalism, publishing a series of articles and books on the topic, including the seminal 1989 tome, The Essentials of Beer Style. At the time of his death in 2015, Eckhardt was memorialized as "the Dean of American beer writers".
Shmaltz Brewing Company is an American craft brewing company headquartered in Troy, New York, US. Originally primarily known for its He'Brew flagship brand, the company produces a large line of Shmaltz Brewing beers and numerous other brands including 518/838 craft beers and the Alphabet City Brewing brand. It also produced Coney Island Craft Lagers until that brand's acquisition by Boston Beer Company in 2013.
Bell's Brewery, Inc. is an American craft brewing company, with operations in Comstock and Kalamazoo, Michigan. Bell's brews acclaimed beers such as Hopslam Ale, Oberon Ale, and Two Hearted Ale. It operates a brewpub and a store selling merchandise and homebrewing supplies at its Kalamazoo location. Begun as a homebrewing store in 1983, and producing beer since 1985, it is the oldest existing craft brewery in Michigan and the oldest craft brewery east of Colorado. As of 2021, it was the 6th largest craft brewery in the United States, and was the largest independently owned brewery in Michigan when founder Larry Bell sold the company to Lion Little World Beverages - an Australian subsidiary of the Japanese Kirin beverage group at the end of 2021. The company also owns Upper Hand Brewery, a separately operated division in Escanaba, Michigan.
Mirella Amato is a trilingual beer consultant, beer sommelier, and author based in Toronto, Ontario, a foremost specialist on Beer in Canada. She was the first woman in Canada to become a Certified Cicerone and, in 2012, became the first non-US resident to earn the Master Cicerone® certification. Amato is one of very few judges in the Beer Judge Certification Program in Canada to have reached the National Level of certification. She is also the recipient of the 2012 Ontario Craft Brewers Centre of Excellence Industry Choice Award in Food & Beer Matching Development and in 2018 she was inducted into the Belgian brewers' Guild as an Honorary Knight of the Brewer's Paddle.
International Women's Collaboration Brew Day is an annual event that takes place each year on International Women's Day. The event gathers women brewers around the world who brew the same beer. All proceeds are donated to charity. It was established to raise awareness of women in the brewing industry, especially as beer brewmasters. It also networks women interested in brewing.
Women have been active in brewing since ancient times. Though Western societies have viewed brewing as a male-dominated field for the last 150 years, traditionally, it was an activity engaged in by women. Ethnographic and archaeological studies have shown that brewing was an outcropping of gathering or baking traditions, which were predominantly women's roles throughout the world. From the earliest evidence of brewing in 7000 BCE, until the commercialization of brewing during industrialization, women were the primary brewers on all inhabited continents. In many cultures, the deities, goddesses and protectors of brewers were female entities who were associated with fertility.
Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela is a South African brewmaster. Nxusani-Mawela is the first person from South Africa to earn a National Diploma in clear fermented beverages. She is also the first black woman in South Africa to found a microbrewery. Her company, Brewsters Craft, introduces students to the science of beer making through training and provides professional breweries a service through beer quality testing. She helped organize International Women's Collaboration Brew Day (IWCBD) events in South Africa.
The Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives (OHBA), established in 2013, is a community archive in the U.S. dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing materials about the story of Northwest hops and brewing.
Teri Fahrendorf is an American brewer and founder of the Pink Boots Society, an organization that supports women in the brewing industry.
F.H. Steinbart is a homebrew supply store on SE 12th Avenue in Portland, Oregon. It is the oldest homebrew supply store in the country and helped nurture the vibrant Pacific Northwest craft-brewing scene.
Alisa Bowens-Mercado is the founder and owner of the first Black-woman owned brewery in Connecticut - Rhythm Brewing Co. As of June 2022, Bownes-Mercado's brewery is also the only Black-woman-owned brewery in Connecticut.
