In my family, beer is a constant beverage in our celebrations, and at one of these events, a simple question arose, “How is beer made?” I remember we had an excellent discussion and some fascinating hypotheses about it, but at that moment, none of us knew the answer.
I’ve always had a deep interest in beer, and this question needed an answer.
So, I did some research and soon started a craft beer course; I was excited because it was the first time I applied my chemistry and biology knowledge acquired at school in practice. I never imagined that beer is about breaking complex chains of molecules of sugar into small pieces for the yeast to make the magic. Yes, it sounds complicated, but it is pretty simple: we break the malt, put it in the water, and boil it at different and specific temperatures for some time. It’s enough to transform complex molecules of sugar into simple ones. I wondered: why do we need to do this?
There is a valid reason for this, and I will try to streamline it. After boiling the malt, we add the yeast, so it eats the tiny molecules of sugar and, as a result, produces an alcohol molecule. This magic transforms a simple soup of cereal into a beer.
These steps alone are enough to produce a good beer. Still, another essential ingredient in this recipe that can be added in the boiling or fermentation process is hops, the beer seasoning, which provides extra flavour and fragrance. Add a bit of patience and love, and some weeks later, you can enjoy a good craft beer.
After sharing some beer glasses, my father and I started crafting our beer, and what began as a question was transformed into a father and son hobby.
