Basic Home Brew Beer Ingredients

If my memory serves me correctly there is an old german law that states that beer should be made of these four ingredients only; Malt, Yeast, hops and water.
Although beer often has other things in it, mostly other forms of sugars besides what is in the malt.

Now this is just the basic home brewing ingredients, for those who want more information on where these ingredients come from click HERE.
Here I will concentrate more on kit brewing where only limited knowledge of where the ingredients of beer come from.

The First ingredient is malt which with out a doubt is the ingredient that most shapes what beer is. It gives it its colour, it is where the foamy head comes from and last but not least where the sugars come from that are fermented into alcohol. As said earlier some times other sugars are added. These ferment as well.

Yeast is the means by which the sugars are converted into alcohol. These microscopic organisms are related to the fungi family of plants.
They are some times quite fussy about there living conditions and that is where temperature is important. So as yeast consumes sugars they produce alcohol and CO2 gas.
This comes in handy when we carbonate our beer in the bottles.
Yeast contributes to the flavour of the beer and some yeast strains require careful temperature control to get the best out of them.

Hops are a flower and there are many varieties grown all over the world.
the extract from them was originally used as a preservative but later the bitter flavour and the aroma that was contributed by them became the reason for them being an ingredient.
Hops are the one thing that makes a beer of a particular style the most.
They can give an idea of where a beer may have come from.

Water..... you think not much can be said about water eh!
Well.. there are many old wives tales out there and basically there is no comprimise when it comes to water.
Where ever you get it make sure it is bacteria free or your beer will taste and smell more like sewer water.
Basically just use the water you have. If you feel that it may spoil your beer boil it.
I will descibe the best method for boiling water in Making Your First Home Brew Beer.

The other ingredients that are often put into beer (especially home brew beer) are various kinds of sugars.
They include;
Sucrose(white sugar)
Dextrose(made from corn)
Maltodextrin(corn syrup)
Lactose(made from milk)
Honey
Brewers caramel(colouring agent)

There are a few others but for now we will just stick with these.
There are many sugar packs that can be bought and most of them are made from one of these basic ingredients or a combination.

Personally I stay away from sucrose lactose and honey as they are just too far away from what beer should be made from.
Others swear by sucrose but in my experience it leaves a cidery taste that is the taste that has been coined the home brew taste for the last 20 years and not for good reasons believe me!
Sucrose is used because it is cheap and available.
But feel free to experiment at your own leasure.

There is one other thing that is some times put into beer at the pre fermentation stage.
Dry Enzime is often used to create dry beer taste.
What happens is the enzime breaks down the more complex sugars that the yeast cannot consume into some thing that yeast can consume.
This reduces any sweetness that beer has and gives that dryer characteristic.

So where does that leave the home brewer, well lucky for us all the hard work is done.
All we have to do is go to the home brew shop take a look at the selection of beer pack concentrates of which there are dozens.
Pick the one you like the sound of;
Pilsener
Munich Lager
Dry Lager
Pale Ale
Blonde
Bitter
Mexican Cerveza
Dutch Lager
Premium Lager
Czech Pilsener
Wheat Beer
Brown Ale
Stout
Draught

Thats just a quick guide on what is on offer these days. There are many more.
You should be able to find something to your liking amongst that list. Any good brew shop will have mre styles than that available.
Now its time to HOME BREW YOUR FIRST BEER.