How Beer Tastes (part I)

There are four flavors that the human tongue is able to detect; Sweet, Salty, Bitter, and Sour. (yes, there is a difference between bitter and sour.)

Sweetness is noted on the tip of the tongue. All beer is made from grain is a process known as mashing. During Mashing the grain is added to hot water to extract the natural sugars and make them available for yeast to convert them into alcohol. There are many types of sugars that vary slightly depending on their chemical make-up. The arrangement of atoms in the sugar molecules effect how they break down and how well the yeast will be able to use them for food as well. There are residual sugars (ones the yeast can’t use) in beer which affects the flavor depending on a variety of factors like concentration, solubility, acidity and ultimately preference of the brewer. 

Bitterness is derived from the flower of the hops plant. These green pine smelling plants have been used in beer making for imparting both flavor and as a preservative for a long time. Other such ingredients include flowers, spruce needles or spices. These other ingredients have mostly gone away with the early brewers who first used them with some really tasty exceptions which are interesting subcategories of beer.  Hop flowers became king as the bittering agent of choice for most beer making traditions and it remains so today. Bitterness will be experienced toward the back of the mouth.  If you can’t imagine what I mean when I say better then get a small piece of baking chocolate of unsweetened coco powder, all will be clear immediately.

Salt is not something you think of when pondering the qualities of beer but consider this. Beer is made of over ninety- percent water. The water used in making your brew will contain various minerals and dissolved particles in different concentrations depending on where it is from. If you had the same beer made with water from two different parts of the world but all other ingredients were the same it, would taste different

Sourness is affected by the amount of acid in your beer. It doesn’t mean that your beer will taste like a lemon, though it could be brewed with lemons. Hmm. The proteins and sugars in the beer donate organic acids during production. Yeast can create and prefer to live in an acidic environment. There are two major products from yeast in your beer: alcohol which provides the buzz, and carbon-dioxide gas which gives your suds their bubble. CO2, when it is dissolved in water becomes an acid. With all of these factors beer can be up to 10,000 times more acidic than pure water. Not to worry, many things we consume every day are just as acidic as beer or ever more so.