Beer Quest Sneak Peek!

Hi Fellow Questers!

There is a Beer Quest Sneak Peek Video up on YouTube in HD! Steve introduces you to his world and the adventures he will encounter along the way! Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJuVQMSpVM

Also if you are on Facebook, the Beer Quest event is now online. You can find out more information by going onto Facebook and signing up for our Fan Page "Beer Quest!"

We hope to see all of you at the Premiere on Sunday, September, 20th as there will be two screenings at 4 & 8 PM. Along with the screenings there will be 40 rare kegs, a raffle, fresh produce, and live music. We will also be celebrating Jon LaPearl's birthday!

We hope to see you all there! Keep checking back for more information!

- Beer Quest Team

State of the Brewnion

Greetings Beer Quest fans! It’s been awhile since we’ve posted here as we’ve been wrapped up in preparing for the premiere coming up in September (don’t worry The Beerducation segment will continue). We wanted to give you all a little reminder of said premiere and update you on the state of the show.

As has been mentioned before the rootin’ tootin’, epic and magical premiere episode of Beer Quest! will be screened on September 20th, 2009 at Studio Square in Long Island City, Queens, NY. This will be in conjunction with the closing ceremonies for New York Craft Beer Week and will also include food, live music and TONS AND TONS of great beer. The show will be screening at 4 pm and 8 pm so you’ll have two opportunities to catch it as well.

This premiere also coincides with co-producer Jonathan LaPearl’s birthday so make sure you come or else he’ll cry!

Other stuff you can look forward to soon includes our official website on way at www.beerquest.tv, more on the Continuing Beerducation, and a short video shedding a little more light on the show. Also we will home brewing again soon and we’ll be sure to let you know how the day goes!

In the meantime, stay safe, live well and enjoy some great beer for us!

Part 2 of the Beerducation Crash Course: Hops

Greetings everyone! We hope you had a great weekend are excited about this latest installment in your continuing Beerducation. Today we will be covering our next ingredient, the spicy, floral and vital hop.

Back in times of yore before refrigerators and beer cozies, preservation was rather difficult when it came to food and beverages and beer was no exception. For years brewmasters of old (and we assume wizards too), experimented with a variety of ingredients to try and solve this problem. After much trial, error, and more trial and touch more of error the mighty hop came to their rescue!

The hop, a close relative of cannabis sativa (we here at Beer Quest have no idea what that is), not only behaved as a natural preservative, but also infused the beer with many other pleasing qualities, such as herbal, floral and spicy flavors and aromas and a crisp bitterness (measured in IBUs, a.k.a., International Bittering Units) to balance out the sweetness from the malt. Grown around the world, the varieties of hops are countless, though most fall within the categories Continental, British and American.

Continental (or European hops) often have spicy, earthy characteristics and a staple in European beer styles. A notable example is the Pilsner with distinct Saaz hops. British hops often come across in floral and herbal aromas and Fuggles and East Kent Goldings are behind many of the flavors in ESBs and Brit Pale Ales. American hops are often piney and citrusy (grapefruit is common) and many an American craft brewer loves to hop up big IPAs and Barleywines with Cascade, Centennial and other American hop varieties.

When it comes to the actual brewing process the hops are added in after the mashing while the wort is boiling in a process known as a hop schedule. Most beers boil for an hour and during this hour the hops are added at different times which is a huge factor in what the hops will contribute to the beer. If they’re added at the beginning of the boil the oils break down they add more bitterness to the beer. Those added towards the end of the boil are not in long enough to completely break down and add strong aromas to the beer. And those added around the middle will give strong flavors. Some beers, particularly those big hoppy IPAs, will have hops added during fermentation to enhance aroma in a process known as dry hopping.

Now that you’ve learned some of the basics take a moment to thank this wonderful plant that has made it possible for your beer to stay fresh and crisp. That’s something I know I’ll drink to. Stay tuned for our next class of your continuing Beerducation in which we will cover the wonderful alchemical little organism that makes wort into beer: yeast! In the meantime, enjoy these late summer days and see you around.

Part 1 of the Beerducation Crash Course: Malted Barley

Part of Beer Quest’s mission is to bring awareness to a wider public of good beer and beer knowledge. Part of this is educating all our friends on the science, artistry and people behind great beer. To begin this beerducation crash course, let’s get into the ingredients. We will cover the four primary ingredients of beer, being malt, hops, yeast and water in a series of ongoing segments, beginning with malt.

The malt is the base of the beer and its source of the sugar that the yeast consumes and converts into alcohol. It also can provide a myriad of flavors and add to body and head retention (i.e. long lasting foam). The malt comes from barley grain which is mostly cultivated for it use in producing beer and liquor, though it is also used for animal feed and occasionally other examples of human consumption. But today (and for me, most days) it’s just all about the beer.

To prepare the malt the barley grain it is first steeped in water. The purpose of this is to initiate germination, the sprouting of the embryonic plant in the kernels which are used for beer. This prepares the starches and enzymes but the process needs to be stopped before they fully germinate and sprout. To put a halt on the process the malt is dried by kilning, or baking it, at different temperatures. The length of the steeping process and kilning temperature determines the characteristics of the malt. For example, a pilsner malt that is lightly roasted will impart biscuit flavors while a heavily kilned chocolate malt will produce bacon-like flavors.

Nah, I’m messing with you. Chocolate malt will produce chocolate flavors.

The malt is the first ingredient, along with water, used in the brewing process. The malt grain is steeped again in waters of various temperatures to reactivate the enzymes and convert its starches into sugars. It is mostly kept around 154 degrees Fahrenheit at this time, but slightly varying the temperature will also impart different results. This is called mashing and the use of different temperatures during the mashing process is called a mash schedule. The final product of this is the wort, a syrupy liquid consisting of the extracted sugars. Eventually, with a couple more steps and a few more ingredients, it will become…beer!

The malt is responsible for the sweet, grainy and toasted flavors of a beer. In long, it can provide a whole myriad of flavors that can include bready, biscuit, chocolaty, toffeeish, espresso or coffee-like, caramel and more. The fermentable sugars come from the malt as well and a beer made with more base malt will produce a beer with a higher ABV (with the proper yeast, of course). One thing to keep in mind though is that some malts are included not to produce fermentable sugar, but impart other qualities such as flavor, thicker body, improved head retention and color. Crystal malts for example impart darker colors and additional body and head retention, but lack in fermentable sugar. Malt also gives beer its color, with a darker malt producing darker colors, as well as different flavors. The Standard Reference Method, or SRM, is a numbered system to define the color of a beer with a higher number representing a darker beer. Various extracts are available on the market for home brewing.

Well I hope you enjoyed that and maybe even learned something new. Keep an eye out for the next part in our series on beerducation on those flowery, fruity heroic natural preservatives, Hops!