What is beer made of?

Let’s not overthink this, it’s pretty simple really - beer is made from 4 key ingredients.

Grains form the base of your beer.

Hops add flavour and aroma.   

Yeast makes the magical fermentation process happen.

Water makes up about 90% of your beer (a vital ingredient!)

You can also use additives and adjuncts to make your beer better quality but they are the basics.

Let’s take a look at some basic ingredients homebrewers use when they first start making beer at home.

Extract Can

Most beers begin with grain, the malt extract being mashed grain. This process of crushing grain and mixing it with water is known as mashing. Big batch breweries take this ‘extract’, removing all the water and canning it, creating a concentrated extract.

There are extract cans available for almost every style of beer which make a great base to start your brewing journey. We have the best recipes in the biz to help you try out the styles of your favourite beers. Check out our Extract Can Recipe Kits here

Yeast

The small magical sachet underneath the cap of an extract can is yeast. This fascinating microscopic organism is responsible for transforming your wort into beer, kicking off the fermentation process.

Once you’ve added your yeast to the fermenter, put the lid on with your airlock in action, you can listen for bubbles as the fermentation process kicks into gear.

There is a yeast that suits each style of beer. Take a look at our range of Brewing Yeasts here. 

Hops

Absolutely every beer on the market today contains hops. Whilst many of us are familiar with ‘hoppy beers’, we don’t actually know the role hops play in our favourite beer.

Hops are flowers which help keep beer fresher, longer and help beer retain its head of foam. It was initially used as a preservative in beer.

Hops are a key component of beer, adding that “hoppy” aroma, flavor, and bitterness.

There are many different varieties of hops available each adding their own attributes to the flavour profile of beer. Split into two general varieties; bittering and aroma.

Get to know hops and experimenting with different varieties when creating your next beer at home.

We stock all the common varieties (and a few left of field ones too!). You can shop our range of hops here

Fermentables

The base of any recipe, fermentables are the sugars yeast digest to make alcohol. Fermentables give a beer colour, flavor, mouth-feel, and sweetness. These come in the form of dextrose and malts, both powder and liquid (and even syrup).

We stock ‘em all. You can choose the right fermentables for your brew right here

Brewing is all about experimenting with different styles and flavour profiles. It’s all about trial and error! You will learn a lot about what you like (and what you dislike) and will enjoy the process of starting with some basic ingredients to make a great beer.

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