Although I know that drinking alcohol is harmful to health, I still drink some beer from time to time. For example, it always feels wrong to eat hot pot or barbecue without drinking some beer. On the streets or in the park in summer, eating skewers and drinking beer is a sight to behold.

Beer is an extremely ancient beverage. All over the world, throughout the ages, various styles of beer have been produced.

However, the basic raw materials and core processes of all kinds of beer are the same. There are only four basic raw materials for beer: water, malt, hops and yeast.

There are many enzymes in malt that convert starch into sugar and break down protein into peptides and amino acids. After clarification and separation, these soluble substances will remain in the wort and become raw materials for fermentation; hops are the key to the flavor of beer, and the soluble components enter the wort, bringing bitterness and other flavors. The components in hops can also inhibit miscellaneous bacteria in the wort, thereby ensuring that fermentation is completed by yeast.

There is a lot of sugar in wort, and different beer brewings will control the sugar content to different standards. Indicators such as "wort concentration", "original wort concentration" and "malt degree" on beer labels refer to the sugar content in the wort, represented by "°P". For example, 9 °P means that the wort before fermentation contains 9% "extractables" (mainly sugar, but also some amino acids and minerals, etc.).

Most people drink beer not for "nutrition" but for sensory enjoyment. If you want to compare the "nutritional value", you should look at the wort concentration. The higher the concentration, the higher the "nutrient content" in it. Some foreign beers can reach 20°P.

In real life, few people consider the "nutritional value" of beer, and they only care about whether it tastes good. Part of the flavor of beer comes from the extracts in the wort. The higher the content, the richer the flavor from the raw materials. Most of these leachates are converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The higher the original wort degree, the more complete the fermentation, the higher the alcohol content, the more flavor substances produced through fermentation, and the richer the flavor.

But what has a greater impact on the flavor of beer is the bitterness brought by hops. On the basis of this bitterness, the flavor of wort extract, the flavor produced by yeast fermentation, as well as the bitterness of alcohol and other flavors of hops, constitute the final flavor of beer. Different raw materials, different processes, and different control of "heat" will create ever-changing beer flavors.

Traditional beer uses only barley to make wort. Compared with other grains, the price of barley is relatively high. As a drink for the public, “lower price” is crucial. In the new technology of the modern beer industry, part of the malt is often replaced with other starches or sugars. The resulting beer may be different from the "classic flavor", but with careful adjustments, it can still be accepted by consumers, or even preferred. For example, the now widely used "beer syrup" has found a good balance between flavor and cost.

Hops are the soul of beer flavor and the most difficult ingredient to control. The variety, origin, climate, age, etc. of hops will all bring about differences in flavor. For small breweries this is not a big problem, but for large-scale production, product consistency is crucial - without standardized products, you cannot build a brand. The stability of hops is perhaps the biggest challenge in ensuring a consistent flavor of beer

Traditionally, the way breweries solve this problem is to mix all the hops acquired in a vintage and then use them. This ensures that the hops used in the product are consistent throughout the year. Another approach is to extract the flavor components from hops and make "hop extract", so that the consistency of the flavor can be controlled by measuring and controlling the characteristic components. Newer research is to identify the main components of hop flavor and produce them through yeast fermentation - of course this method is still in its infancy in the laboratory and is still a long way from being practical.