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A Geologic View Of Beer

Posted by timothy on from the limeade-doesn't-dull-the-senses dept.

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."

3 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Beer by epsilon720 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know that my dad, who is a groundwater hydrologist, is personally convinced that the Deschutes Brewery in central Oregon benefits greatly from the quality of the water that they use. Since he is extremely familiar with both beer and water, I tend to believe him.

  2. Caves by booch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Saint Louis was home to many breweries in the 1800s, including Anheuser-Busch, now the largest brewer in the world. One of the main reasons is that there are a lot of caves in the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. The caves provided natural refrigeration that allowed the beer to last longer after brewing. Later, A-B was able to pull ahead of the pack by developing refrigerated rail cars and a national distribution network.

    (I work at Anheuser-Busch as a contractor, and I've lived in St. Louis most of my life.)

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  3. Real Ale by martin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Those people who have been 'into' real ale already know this.

    There's a brewing term 'Burtonising' where brewers articifically change the water minerals to be close to that at Burton-on-Trent which is then used to reference the beer's quality from...