#Opening a homebrew supply store series#

Sadly, the authorities didn’t like the idea of women holding a respected role in the community and perpetuated myths about brewsters-with their cauldrons, long stir-sticks and tall hats, which made them more visible in the marketplace-as practitioners of witchcraft. They combined their knowledge of herbalism and brewing to keep their communities happy and healthy. The brewers were often female and were known as brewsters, or alewives. Until around the 15th century, most beer and ale was produced at home and the excess was sold. When hops began to be used heavily in commercial brewing, brewers could use less grain and thus produce lower–alcohol beers for much cheaper than most herbal ales.

Other herbs can accomplish this as well, but hops are the workhorse. The use of hops took precedence over herbal ales and beers partly because hops have strong preservative and antibacterial properties. While a strict, modern definition of beer wouldn’t include drinks made from sugar sources other than grain, perusing cookbooks and brewing recipes published as recently as the early 20th century shows that the definition wasn’t always this strict.įor hops, there are many alternatives. Throughout much of history, alcoholic beverages were made with all manner of botanicals and sugar sources. (Yeast was added later.) This law was subsequently extended to all German brewers and eventually took over the brewing world.Ī well-balanced, grain-based, hopped beer can be difficult to put down, but what about those of us who avoid gluten or just don’t like the flavor of hops?

#Opening a homebrew supply store series#

The culmination of this thorny series of historical circumstances was the Reinheitsgebot, an edict issued in the Bavarian region of Germany in 1516 primarily for economic and trade purposes that required beer be made only from malted grains, hops and water. The reason hops and grain are what most people think of as the core components of beer stems from a long, convoluted series of cultural, societal, economic and religious shifts that go back to the beginning of humanity. The hot water is drained from the mash, and the resulting liquid is a sugary wort that can then be boiled, have flavoring and preservative ingredients-such as hops-added to it, cooled and fermented with yeast. Then, the grains are coarsely ground and heated with water to create a mash. The grains are then dried so that the germination process stops and the sugars and starches are locked in. This process helps make simple sugars and starches available to the brewer. To malt grain, the kernels of harvested and dried grain are moistened at a warm temperature until the embryos sprout. This is why malted grain is a core component of most beers. For yeast to create alcohol, it needs sugar to feed on.

While those are the two primary components of the vast majority of modern commercial beers, neither is absolutely necessary for brewing your own beer.īeer’s two core components are the ingredients most people take for granted: water and yeast. What’s the first word that comes to mind if someone were to ask you what beer is made of? Many would say hops, and others might think of grains.