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A Geologic View Of Beer
jmichaelg writes "Older beer drinkers may remember the Olympia Beer ads that trilled "tis the waters..." The NY Times (reg required) has an article that describes how the geology surrounding a brewery affected the local water chemistry and determined the kind of beer a brewery could produce. Pilsners came from regions with naturally acidic waters while Guiness Stout comes from alkaline waters which percolated through pre-Permian limestone. Read the article and learn how German Brewmeisters hacked their way around the laws which banned chemically augmenting their product."
The article in another newspaper - no reg required.
Olympia was bought by Miller. The Tumwater brewery closed in 2003, and Oly is now brewed by Pabst in San Antonio (along with Rainier...sigh).
b rewing.com/w .laconnerbrewing.com/i ng.com/
Red Hook is the only major brewery left in the Puget Sound area. (Well, you could count Pyramid or Hale's). However, there's a huge number of micro-breweries in WA, that are all way better than Oly.
Some of my favorites:
http://www.elysianbrewing.com/
http://www.pike
http://www.baronbeer.com/
http://ww
http://www.scuttlebuttbrew
Even more info can be found on Home Brew Digest.
Hops, a type of flower, is added to give a bitter, fruity taste to the beer.
Definitely, hops add a bitter taste to beer, which is often used to balance out the sweet barlety malt sugars. While it is true in some cases for hops to add fruitiness--for example the citrussy hops of the Pacific North West--most often fruitiness in a beer comes from fermentation byproducts, which are determined by the yeast. In general, ale yeasts are less efficient at converting malt sugars to alcohol, and as a result are sweeter with more fruity byproducts than the dryer crispier lagers.
The balance of fermentable sugars has everything to do with the flavors and the kind of beer that results. The mashing stage is crucial.
The type of mashing (decoction/infusion/sour) can play a roll in how smooth a beer can be, and different minerals can accentuate different taste qualities. However, this article does not mention that the yeast strain plays a much bigger roll in the flavour profile. Belgian yeast strains can lead to sour/spicy/dryish beers. British yeast strains often produce fruity and sweet beers. German lager strains tend to be crisper, allowing the beer to focus on the hops.
It should be noted that you can change the amount of fermentable sugars by simply increasing the amount of grain to water ratio, making a stronger beer regardless of region. The ratio of fermentable to non-fermentable sugars may stay the same with the same mashing and water, but the yeast strain can play a bigger roll in converting more or less of the fermentable sugars into alcohol and various tasty byproducts (buttery diacetyl, astringent phenols, banana-like iso-amyl acetate, etc.)
The water was also rich in sulfates, which acted as a preservative, allowing the beer to be shipped to distant locations, even India - the Burton beers were called India pale ales, or I.P.A. for short. "The I.P.A. style came about because of the geology on which Burton was sited," Dr. Maltman said.
Back in those days before pasteurization, hops were used as preservatives, and the IPA style owes more of its defining characteristic to extra hopping. IPAs have the highest levels of hops and subsequent bitterness/aroma/hop flavour of any beer style. Although technically incorrect to market a modern beer as preservative free, the hops now are added purely for flavouring, because pasteurization or cask/bottle conditioning preserves modern beer.
Today, any brewer anywhere can produce India pale ales by adding minerals to - or "burtonizing" - the water to match what burbles in Burton-on-Trent naturally.
Although this is a common practice for Brittish style ales, the style of beer Burton made famous was pale ale or bitter. India Pale Ale can also benefit from "Burtonizing", but the article seems to confuse the two styles.
Overall, it's an interesting thesis. Definitely, geography has a big impact on the brewing, but I believe that is due more to the variety of hops growing in a region or the yeast strain found in a region than the minerals in water. Mineral in water do play a significant supporting roll. I can often tell what stylistic region a beer is from by just smelling it and identifying the types of hops, but the same cannot be said for the mineral/water component. Czech hops are spicy and resiny, German hops are foral and woody, Brittish are earthy tea-like and herbal, and American hops are citrussy. If you try to grow a type of hop in a non-native region, it will still produce a flavour or aroma similar to the region it is grown in. It has something to do with the soil. This brings up an interesting question. How has the water influenced the local yeast and hops in the beer? Did Czech brewers gradually select more efficient yeast strains over the years to match their famous soft water? Similarly, the hops could be selectively grown to match beer type. Local water probably played a roll in determining which hops and yeast were prefered, but how much of it was di