Jason Foster

It will come as no surprise to you that barley makes up by far the biggest proportion of beer’s ingredients (for the moment we will ignore wheat beers and other rare, non-barley beers). It is rather logical, then, to assume that malted barley also shapes the taste, aroma and quality of a beer more than any other ingredient.

This is true. Barley determines elements of colour, flavour, aroma, mouthfeel and even head retention. Therefore, to understand beer, one must first understand barley.

Barley is old, even serving as a staple of Ancient Egyptian diets. It is, fundamentally, a grass - more formally a cereal grain related to wheat, oats and bamboo. Its seeds, rich in simple starches and sugares, serve as the input for beer.

Most barley is relatively banal and used to feed cattle. However, a particular strain of barley is considered one of the most desirable grains, fetching lucrative prices for farmers. Dubbed “malting barley” it is the most respected of barleys. Such seeds tend to be plump and full of yeast-enticing starches and sugars.

What you need to know here is that in its natural state, barley is actually useless to brewers. To unlock its sweet sugars, it must go through a process of partial germination, called “malting”. In the process, barley is soaked in water for a few days. Natural processes behave as if the seed was ready to sprout, turning starches into sugars, and sugars into tiny shoots. If you stop the process at the right time, you will have a kernel that has few starches, many sugars, and only a tiny bit of sprout growth.

This is what talented maltsters do. They germinate for 4-6 days, then quickly dry the barley. From here, you can make beer. This is basic malted barley. But basic malt alone makes for a boring beer.

So malt producers have learned to do other things to this germinated grain. And here is where the world of malted barley gets dizzyingly complex. There are hundreds of barley products available to brewers, each offering a different characteristic to beer.  So, let’s walk through some of the basic categories.

Base Malt. This is the un-altered malted barley. It will be the bulk of any recipe, offering sugar, a touch of graininess and little colour. Few beers are made exclusively with this type of malt, but almost every beer  has some of it in it. Mt. Begbie High Country Kolsch show off base malt in an admirable fashion.

Specialty Malt. This is malt very similar to base malt, but is dried and then kilned at high temperatures to minimize moisture. This means a darker colour, plus a larger residual sweetness, from starches not being transformed into fermentable sugars. Brewers use this malt to create sweeter, maltier beers. Some good examples of beers accenting specialty malts are Samuel Adams Boston Lager and  Ayinger Celebrator.

Caramelized Malt. This is a malt kilned while still moist. The stewing it undergoes results in caramelization of the sugars. It is added in small proportions, intended to add sweetness, body, and head retention to a beer. Almost every beer has some element of caramelized malt (sometimes called crystal malt). Any grainy or honey or caramel sweetness you detect in your beer  will come from the crystal malt. The sweet in Fuller’s London Pride or the heft of Belhaven’s Wee Heavy show off caramelized malt quite well.

Roasted Malt. This is the coffee of barley. It is roasted at high temperatures which darkens and sharpens the barley. It is an intense malt, meant for delicate handling, added in very small proportions to add colour and roasty bitterness. It quickly adds colour and roast flavour to a beer. St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout and Paddock Wood London Porter are classic examples of roasted malt’s effect.

Within each of these broad categories there are dozens of versions, varying due to regional origin of the grain, kiln temperatures, moisture content, kilning time, and other variables. Each offers its own quality to the beer.

How a brewer combines different barleys will fundamentally mould the final shape of their beer. And whether you experience from your beer a rich caramel maltiness, a delicate graininess or a robust espresso-note depends entirely on the malt use by that brewer.

This is what distinguishes beer from other, simpler beverages such as wine. There are literally thousands of combinations of barley forming vastly different flavours and aromas. And it is the brewer’s magic to combine them in such a fashion as to create something truly original.

And such is our privilege to consume such a versatile drink.

Jason Foster

Where better to start a course on beer than with how to better enjoy the experience of drinking it. It may surprise those who have grown up drinking Coors Light that beer is actually a very complex beverage. There is an impressive mixture of flavours and aromas found in that pint glass in front of you. But if you chug it down unthinkingly, you are going to miss most of it.

And the good thing about beer is that, unlike those snobby wine tasters, you need to actually swallow it to pick up its full offerings.

The first thing you need to know is that beer is about balance. A beer needs to keep its two dominant characteristics - sweet and bitter - in some kind of harmony. Where on that scale of balance the brewer lands determines much about the style of their particular beer. And how you experience that beer depends upon how you detect its flavours.

The key to fully enjoying the taste of a beer is to be able to both appreciate the whole of the experience, but also to isolate the different components. The former is about your mental state of mind, but the latter requires a bit of awareness of how to detect flavours. Let’s walk through the taste cascade of beer.

Of course, most of us now know our perception of flavour is really a complex interaction of smell and taste. Fair enough. But allow me to oversimplify by focussing solely on your tongue and mouth. And while everyone is different, we can generally identify different areas of the tongue that detect various flavours.

Take a sip of your favourite beer, but slowly. That first sensation, on the tip of your tongue, is the sweetness. It might be light and grainy. It could be caramel or toffee.  Regardless, the first impression a beer will make is with its sweetness, which comes from sugars left behind from fermentation. This is the first sign post for beer tasting - how sweet is it and what is the quality of the sweetness?

Jumping to the end, the other major sign post is at the very back of your tongue - bitterness. (This is why beer must be swallowed, unlike wine). Here you find the sharp, drying sensation of bitterness. It can be grassy or spicy or citrusy. This is the hops talking. And it is the bitter yang to the barley malt ying.  But note, in darker beers, that coffee-like bitterness you pick up isn’t from hops but from malt roasted just like coffee.

In the middle of the sipping a number of taste buds might get triggered. If it is a bitter beer, like an Alley Kat Full Moon Pale Ale or a Wild Rose Industrial Park Ale, then after the swallow you might get some lingering grassy dryness. This is also hops, but not bitterness. It is from hop resins not boiled off - and it creates a complexity and dryness to a beer. It comes from adding hops after the boil.

Some beers might set off your sour buds, which are at the middle-edge of the tongue. In most beers, this is a bad sign, of something gone wrong. But there are certain Belgian and French beers which highlight this quality. Duchesse de Bourgogne and any beer from Lindeman are good examples.

Other beers leave a puckering sensation in your mouth. This is a graininess that comes from the grain used and the fermentation. In some styles it can be positive at low levels. Generally it should be avoided.

Finally, you might get the fruitiness across the sides of your mouth that you will recognize from, well, fruit. It might be a light pear or berry flavour. It could be darker like raisins. Or it might be a noted banana flavour. This is to be expected, as fruity notes are a natural byproduct of yeast fermentation, especially in ales. German wheat beer brewers use special yeasts to highlight this fruity nature.

Once you start paying attention, you will find dozens of different flavour sensations in that beer. It won’t all come at once, however. Teaching yourself to identify the components of beer takes time. But knowing how to highlight particular flavour notes will enhance your enjoyment of your beer. This column is just a primer on how to taste beer. There are subtle complexities awaiting you as you develop your palate.

For now, sip that beer with care and bask in its complex flavours as it works its way across your mouth and down your throat. That is beer heaven speaking.

Welcome to Beer 101 w/ Jason Foster:
The class where studying is fun.

I know you love beer. You might even know a thing or two about beer. Once a month on this website I am going to take your love for beer and make it deeper and richer by teaching you more about this lovely elixir that has enraptured men and women for centuries.

The column will offer something for everyone. For the beer newbie, it will inform you about beer basics such as fermentation, ingredients and styles. Yet the more experienced beer drinker will find enough fact, anecdote, history and quirkiness to add to their knowledge base, too.

But before we start, you have a right to know about your professor. I am Jason Foster from Edmonton, Alberta. I am an award-winning homebrewer, certified beer judge, and beer columnist for CBC Radio (Edmonton), Edmonton’s Vue Weekly and Planet S Magazine in Saskatoon. I know a lot about beer - its history, how to brew it, and, mostly, how to enjoy drinking it.

So let’s get started with the lessons…