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Barley is the basis of the best beers

The art of beer making dates back thousands of years. Archeologists have found chemical traces of the drink on the insides of jars from 7,000 years ago, and the first known recipe from 3,000 years later. Although these artifacts are from the Middle East, many civilizations invented beer independently, and a variety of ingredients and methods were used. Modern brewers, unlike their ancestors, use a much more consistent set of ingredients across the world. This list prominently includes Metaflora answer #266 right at the top: barley.

More than just the grain, every step of this process has evolved over the timespan we’ve been drinking brews. For example, the yeast which is necessary for fermentation used to have to come from baked bread or from old jars that had yeast growing within the cracks. In very stark contrast, modern brewers can precisely select the species and exact amount of yeast in each batch. As well, hops flowers used to be one of many ways to flavour beer, but they persisted to become the winning flavour by also being a stabilizing agent. With hops, beer could last a long time without spoiling. Furthermore, beer is iconically a fizzy drink because of carbon dioxide produced by fermentation. Some of today’s big brewers use filters in their machinery that remove the naturally created bubbles, so the fizz is added back in artificially.

But none of those ingredients matter without a source of sugar for the fermentation. When making wine, the sugars of fruit are easily released by crushing the fruit into juice. For beer, however, the sugar is trapped in the starch of grains, so you have to get a bit more crafty. Brewers access the sugar by tricking the grain into germinating: that is, soaking them in water then drying them out before they can sprout. This process is called malting, and malted barley has more sugar for fermentation than any other any grain. That’s why barley is most brewers’ number one choice.

Of course, there are nonetheless plenty of non-barley based beers available. Wheat, being abundant and similar to barley, is an obvious choice. Wheat beers tend to have a lighter, fruitier taste. Another grain, rice, can also be fermented, but the fermentation process is much more efficient so it produces more alcohol and is typically classified as a wine.

Although beer-making today is a lot more streamlined and consistent than the methods of ancient peoples, there is no single right way to brew a batch. Hidden in the fancy marketing of pretty fonts and colours, the label of a bottle of craft beer might have some more interesting information about what makes that brew unique. Take a look the next time you crack open a cold one!

Answers to last week's games

Monday, June 17 to Sunday, June 23.

Linxicon

The following are the shortest paths from last week:

• #126 proud -> effective -> efficacy -> medication -> prescription

• #127 era -> eras -> history -> paperwork -> permit

• #128 literature -> authorities -> official

• #129 beginning -> initiate -> transact -> trade

• #130 boundary -> borderline -> mediocre -> terrible

• #131 acknowledge -> announce -> commercial

• #132 member -> nonmember -> exclude -> ignore

• #133 Play now!

Forgeous

Lenbach, Franz von. Marion Lenbach (1892–1947), the Artist's Daughter. 1900, oil paint on canvas, 149.5 cm x 105.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no. 436876.

Play Forgeous for June 24.