How Beer Is Made

The way I typically describe making beer to people is that it is, quite arguably, one of the simplest and most complex things you could ever do.

But have no fear—it brings so much cheer!

Today, I will walk you through the process of making beer for a commercial craft brewery. The homebrewing process is slightly different, due to being on such a smaller scale, but, all in all, the fundamental steps are one in the same.

Rather than getting all nerd-o scientific and talk about enzymes and isomerization and all that jazz, I'm going to keep this pretty basic.

Grab a beer, and let's begin.

To start, take a look at this lovely infographic, which illustrates the essential steps of a typical brewing process. 

Now, let's walk through each of those adorable little graphics, shall we.

MILLING + MASH TUN
Before you can use your malted barley—or unmalted barley adjuncts like wheat, rice, oats, and rye—you must first grind (or, as many beer brewers like to refer to it, "crush") it. This step entails pouring your grain into a mill that grinds it up into tiny pieces, exposing all of the inner starches, sugars and enzymes locked deep inside each solid piece of grain. Homebrewers without their own mills can have their grains crushed at a local homebrew supply store. Once fully milled, the grain is referred to as malt grist.

Next, you will combine the malt grist with water into a mash tun, which is virtually an insulated vessel that can maintain a constant temperature. Over a period of 45 minutes to an hour, the starches in your crushed grains will convert into sugars necessary for fermentation.

LAUTER TUN
Now it's time to separate the sweet liquor from the spent grains. Some mash tuns are designed to include what is known as a "false bottom." The false bottom sits approximately 1–2 inches above the bottom of the mash tun and acts as a strainer. The act of separating the sweet liquor, known as "wort" (I know, a little weird, right?) from the mash is called "lautering."

BREW KETTLE
Once all of the wort has been extracted, it needs to be transferred into a stainless steel brew kettle. On a commercial scale, brew kettles can hold up to 5,000 gallons. Boiling serves three functions:
1. To sterilize the wort.
2. To concentrate the wort to the desired specific gravity.
3. To extract oils from the hops that are added at various times throughout the boil. 

WHIRLPOOL
After boiling your wort for about 60–90 minutes, we need to do our best to separate it from all of the hop resins that have settled to the bottom of the brew kettle, which is known as the "trub." To do this, we pump the hot wort into the whirlpool vessel at rapid velocity to cause the wort to start spinning like a whirlpool. This pumping process lasts for 10 to 20 minutes. The wort can now be easily separated from the pile by pumping it out of an outlet located on the side of the vessel.

HEAT EXCHANGER
The heat exchanger is a series of stainless steel plates and rubber gaskets pressed close together. The plates form two labyrinthine passageways—one for cold water, and one for hot wort. Cold water runs in one way and out the other way; hot wort runs in the other way and out one way. As they pass each other against the plates, the wort cools down and the water warms up.   

FERMENTATION TANK
Here is where all of the magic happens. Once your wort is cool enough—typically around 60–80 degrees, it's time to transfer it into the fermentation tank (or carboy or bucket for homebrewers). Then, it's party time. Pitch your yeast, and, within about 12–24 hours, those raging antibodies will begin to gobble up every last bit of that sweet, syrup-like substance and burp it back out in the form of alcohol and CO2. These yeast are marathoners, not sprinters, so give them two or three weeks to finish their job. 

FILTER
Once the yeast is done doing its thang, it doesn't just magically disappear. Most of it settles to the bottom of the fermentation tank, but some of it will float around like an overgrown man with floaties at the wading pool. So, unless you like snowflake beer (or Hefeweizens), you're gonna need to clear that crap out with a filtering mechanism. 

BRIGHT BEER TANK
A bright tank is the vessel beer is placed in after primary fermentation and filtering so it can further mature, clarify and carbonate, as well as be stored for kegging, bottling, canning and packaging. In brewpubs, bright beer tanks can even do double-duty as serving vessels. Shazam! 

BOTTLING + KEGGING
Alas, we made it to the final step. Once the beer is nice and conditioned, we can either bottle it up and distribute it for shelf space at designated bottle shops and grocery stores, or we can keg it and serve it on tap. Either way, after all of that love, sweat and beers you exhausted while making it will surely result in one tasty libation.

Cheers!