The Naked Pint (4 page)

Maybe the only ester you know is your Aunt Esther in Poughkeep sie, but we’re talking about the chemical compounds that yeast emits in beer. There are many different combinations of esters, but simply put, they are chemical compounds that our brains perceive as pleasant flavors and aromas. Brewers can choose these flavors and aromas based on the yeast strain they use. For instance, Hefeweizen yeast gives off banana and clove esters. Esters can be fruity like pears, strawberries, plums, and figs; they can be spicy like cloves, nutmeg, and pepper; they can be flowery like geranium and jasmine; and they can be herbaceous like sage and lavender. These are flavors you want hanging out in a wheat beer.

Sometimes a brewer wants to get a little crazy and add something to the mix that is not a basic ingredient. These are called
adjuncts
and
flavorings
. This is a big trend in brewing in America today and makes beer one of the most diverse and interesting beverages on earth. Adjuncts are unmalted grains that are added as a supplement to malted barley. These may be used to provide more sugar or to add a specific mouthfeel or flavor. Flavorings are any herb, spice, flower, and so on that are added to lend a specific flavor to the brew. Here are some examples of ingredients that might be added by creative brewers:

The use of additional ingredients underlines our point that the homogenized, industrialized light beer we Americans have been drinking doesn’t even scratch the surface of what our beer drinking experience could and should be. If you feel like having a chocolate bar, an orange sherbet, or a licorice whip, you could find it in beer.

There are some purists, however, who don’t agree with this new fangled beer making. The Germans (big surprise) are among the brewers who pooh-pooh the addition of anything other than the original four ingredients—malt, hops, water, and yeast—to make their beer.

M
ost every beer is given a name based on its general flavor profile, its origin and history, or both. This name is known as the beer’s style. The style is usually the first thing you know about a beer, as it’s often on the label, so it’s helpful to understand the attributes of the various beer styles.

We explained earlier that all beers are either ales or lagers. In addition, ales and lagers are broken down into styles. For instance, a Pilsner is a style of lager, a Dopplebock is a style of lager, a Porter is a style of ale, a Stout is a style of ale, an India Pale Ale is a style of ... got it?

Beers are categorized on the basis of historical tradition, ingredients, and sensory characteristics. According to the Beer Judge Certification Program, which is highly respected in the beer world and the go-to for beer style guidelines, flavors that are most important to a beer style are type and strength of malt, yeast strain, strength of bitterness, and type and strength of hops. Aromatics that are most important to a beer style include strength and type of malt aroma, strength and type of hop aroma, and yeast ester aroma. The feel of a beer in the mouth, from the thickness of the liquid to the amount of prickli ness from the carbonation, are also important factors in determining a beer style. The visual characteristics that are most important to a beer style are color, clarity, and the nature of the head (for example, the thickness).

Whether the beer is dubbed Bavarian Hefeweizen or Russian Imperial Stout, the name hints at what the aromatics are like, how strong it is, what sort of body it has, how it was brewed, and even what its history is. There are many, many variations of each particular style, and each brewer makes his or her own version of specific styles, but knowing a beer’s style gives you a general idea of what to expect.

Here are some examples of common beer styles: