Well, I’m going to go on the assumption that you’re kidding here, but in the off chance you aren’t I want to say that brandy is essentially distilled wine, not beer.
I really feel I should explain beer to the best of my knowledge for those of you who are curious.
Before I begin, let’s explain the basic premise of what beer is. Beer is generally made up of the following ingredients: Yeast, Hops, Grains, Malted Barley, adjuncts (in some cases) and of course its main ingredient, water.
Yeast is a single celled organism that ferments all the sugars in the beer. It is primarily responsible for giving beer its alcohol. What is lesser known is the type of yeast used combined with the types of ingredients is what gives a beer its distinct flavor. It also decides depending on what type of yeast you use whether your beer is an ale or a lager.
Hops or Humulus Lupulus is the bitterness that you typically taste in beer. Depending on the types and amount of hops you use can decide how bitter or the type of bitterness will be in your beer. For example: Munich Style Lagers typically use low acidic European hops for a bitter bite without it being overly bitter while American style pale ales may use high acidic hops such as cascade for a hoppier, fresher bitterness. Hops grow in vines and are under the family of Cannabaceae; the same as marijuana, though to my knowledge will do nothing but make you cough if you smoke it.
Grains both flavor and color the beer. A lighter grain like crystal grains are used in lighter beers while grains like chocolate and east patent are typically used in stout. Most grains give away what kind of flavor they have given the color. Crystal has a lighter taste for example and chocolate have a darker flavor.
Malted Barely is the sugar that the yeast consumes to make alcohol, but the type of malt you use can have an effect on what kind of beer you make. For the sake of simplicity we will go with two basic types of Malt: Wheat and Pale (barley). Wheat malt can product wheat based beers such as bocks (lager) and hefeweizens (ale) typically use wheat malt. Pale malt is widely used. Pale malt is the malt in which most beers derive. Pale malts in there simplest form can give you your typical lager and pale ale, but when darkened with certain grains to darken it you can make the malt an amber color: Scotch Ales, Brown Ales, Doppel Bocks or a Dark Malt: Stouts, Porters, Dark Lagers, etc.
Water. Must I say more? This is usually 80-90% of the beer. Make sure its good tasting waters with lots of minerals that has been boiled to remove as many impurities as possible.
Adjuncts are basically the “misc” category of typical beer ingredients. This is where creativity can kick in. I and my comrades like to throw in fruit while boiling our beer among other things. Some add extracts during or after fermentation (this never works well in my experience). Budweiser uses a lot of rice which is why I hate Budweiser to high Hell. Basically, you can name anything without preservatives and it may work as an adjunct.
That’s enough for now. We will continue with the beer lesson some other time. Next we will talk about categorization. Any questions or comments?
Beer is quite unbearable for me. Maybe I just need to grow up.