Beer is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world, the most widely consumed, and the third most popular drink after water and tea. Beer is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grains—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The fermentation of the starch sugars in the wort produces ethanol and carbonation in the beer. Most modern beer is brewed with hops, which add bitterness and other flavours and act as a natural preservative and stabilising agent. Other flavouring agents, such as gruit, herbs, or fruits, may be included or used instead of hops. In commercial brewing, natural carbonation is often replaced with forced carbonation.
Malt is a cereal grain that has been made to germinate by soaking in water and then stopped 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".
Low-alcohol beer is beer with little or no alcohol by volume that aims to reproduce the taste of beer while eliminating or reducing the inebriating effect, carbohydrates, and calories of regular alcoholic brews. Low-alcohol beers can come in different beer styles such as lagers, stouts, and ales. Low-alcohol beer is also known as light beer, non-alcoholic beer, small beer, small ale, or near-beer.
Barley wine is a strong ale from 6–12% alcohol by volume.
Wheat unfiltered beer is a top-fermented beer which is brewed with a large proportion of wheat relative to the amount of malted barley. The two main varieties are German Weizenbier and Belgian witbier; other types include Lambic, Berliner Weisse, and Gose.
Malt liquor is a type of mass market beer with high alcohol content, most closely associated with North America. Legally, it often includes any alcoholic beverage with 5% or more alcohol by volume made with malted barley. In common usage, it refers to beers of high alcohol content, generally above 6%, which are made with ingredients and processes resembling those for American-style lagers.
Traditional ginger beer is a sweetened and carbonated, usually non-alcoholic beverage. Historically it was produced by the natural fermentation of prepared ginger spice, yeast and sugar.
Happoshu, or low-malt beer, is a tax category of Japanese liquor that most often refers to a beer-like beverage with less than 67% malt content. The alcoholic beverage is popular among consumers for having a lower tax than beverages that the nation's law classifies as "beer". Although the happoshu label is most frequently found on low-malt beer or beer-like products, alcopops that contain malt are also categorized as happoshu.
Vitamalz is a German malt beer without alcohol.
In brewing, adjuncts are unmalted grains or grain products used in brewing beer which supplement the main mash ingredient. This is often done with the intention of cutting costs, but sometimes also to create an additional feature, such as better foam retention, flavours or nutritional value or additives. Both solid and liquid adjuncts are commonly used.
Umqombothi, is a South African traditional beer made from maize (corn), maize malt, sorghum malt, yeast and water. It is very rich in vitamin B. The beer has a rather low alcohol content and is known to have a heavy and distinctly sour aroma. In appearance, the beer is opaque and light tan. It has a thick, creamy, and gritty consistency.
Beer styles differentiate and categorise beers by colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin.
Malt beer is a sweet, low-alcohol beer that is brewed like regular beer but with low or minimal fermentation. To keep the alcohol content low, one of two methods may be used: either the yeast is added at about 0 °C or fermentation is halted at the desired alcohol content. It is made from barley malt syrup, sugar, yeast, hops, and water.
Beer is one of the oldest human-produced drinks. The first chemically confirmed barley-beer – from the area of Mesopotamia, part of modern-day Iraq – dates back to the 5th millennium BCE. The written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia records the use of beer, and the drink has spread throughout the world; a 3,900-year-old Sumerian poem honouring Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, contains the oldest surviving beer-recipe, describing the production of beer from barley bread, and in China, residue on pottery dating from around 5,000 years ago shows that beer was brewed using barley and other grains.
Gluten-free beer is beer made from ingredients that do not contain gluten, such as millet, rice, sorghum, buckwheat or corn (maize). People who have gluten intolerance have a reaction to certain proteins in the grains commonly used to make beer, barley and wheat. The hordein found in barley and the gliadin found in wheat are types of gluten that can trigger symptoms in sufferers of these diseases. Gluten-free beer is part of a gluten-free diet.
Mash ingredients, mash bill, mashbill, or grain bill are the materials that brewers use to produce the wort that they then ferment into alcohol. Mashing is the act of creating and extracting fermentable and non-fermentable sugars and flavor components from grain by steeping it in hot water, and then letting it rest at specific temperature ranges to activate naturally occurring enzymes in the grain that convert starches to sugars. The sugars separate from the mash ingredients, and then yeast in the brewing process converts them to alcohol and other fermentation products.
Ale is a type of beer originating in medieval England, brewed using a warm fermentation method. Historically, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops.
Huangjiu is a type of Chinese alcoholic beverage most popular in the Jiangnan area. Huangjiu is brewed by mixing boiled grains including rice, glutinous rice or millet with qū as starter culture, followed by saccharification and fermentation at around 13–18 °C (55–64 °F) for fortnights. Its alcohol content is typically 8% to 20%.
A malt drink is a fermented drink in which the primary ingredient is the grain, or seed, of the barley plant, which has been allowed to sprout slightly in a traditional way called "malting" before it is processed.
