Ten Cool Beer Facts

Beer is amongst the oldest and most favored beverages available. People hang out with friends and sip beer to socialize with others and in certain instances to get friendly with new people. People throw beer parties in order to celebrate special moments. A lot of sports buffs love hanging out and consuming beer while viewing the sport together. Others prefer spending a night out at a pub, where they can get to meet new people, sip beer, and listen to great music with other beer lovers.

These days it’s becoming extremely popular to have good food and beer combinations to improve a meal. Now beer is thought to be perfect for any occasion, even if you just wish to stay at home and unwind. Moreover, there are a few truly cool facts linked with beer that may come as a surprise to you.

The following are 10 cool beer facts that you’ll find enjoyable:

1. Way back in the 1900’s, nearly all saloons were under the ownership of the brewery that made the beer served there and the weekly earnings of the bartenders were $10-$15.
2. When on a Safari in Africa, President Theodore Roosevelt carried with him no less than 500 gallons of beer.
3. The expression “Rule of Thumb” actually came from brewers, who used to insert their thumb into the mix during the beer making process to find out when the temperature was just right for the yeast to be added.
4. The expression “Wet Your Whistle” in fact can be traced to a fascinating tale from England. It appears that whistles were in fact baked into the edge of beer mugs in order to enable beer drinkers get the waiter’s attention to refill their mugs.
5. The term “cerevisaphile” refers to any body that enjoys beer.
6. The expression “Mind Your P’s & Q’s” comes from the time when ale was ordered in English bars, the order was taken in pints or quarts. When someone became slightly drunk the bartender would holler at that person to mind his pints & quarts.
7. In Japan, you will see beer being sold at train stations, in vending machines, and also by street vendors.
8. The recipe for making beer is the oldest one ever to be written.
9. The actors Bruce Willis, Bill Cosby, Sandra Bullock, Tom Arnold, and Chevy Chase are some of the stars that began their careers serving beer as bartenders.
10. Next to tea, beer is the second most well liked beverage in the world, enjoyed by millions.

There are lots more cool beer facts available that you’ll find interesting. They are ideal as terrific conversational pieces and as trivia to be stored.

Should I Use A Keg?

Now that you have begun home brewing your own beer, you may be getting tired of bottling the beer you make every time. It can take awhile and can be hard to do. Or you may also be tired of always having to make beer all the time to have a good stock available. Not to mention, the fact that it can become contaminated through the transfer process. As you have become better at making your own home brewed beer, it is somewhat of a natural progression to go from bottled beer to kegged beer. However, there are few things to consider before beginning doing this.

First is the cost of kegging equipment. Purchasing the kegging equipment is expensive and is a hard sell. It can cost from a few hundred dollars up to six hundred dollars for the CO2 tanks, canisters, towers, and possibly a kegerator. Deciding to keg your home brewed beer may start to seem like you are not saving as much money as before. If you can afford it, it will over time pay for itself and still save you money. However, you need to consider space also.

Next, is the space it takes up to have a kegging system in place. You will need to be able to store everything needed for a keg system and be able to use it and dispense from. You will need to refrigerate your kegs, just like you did your bottles, that is where having a kegerator is important. The only purpose of a kegerator is to store and keep cold your kegs of beer. These are great, however they cost around the same as a refrigerator, so be prepared for the cost.

Furthermore, because you are kegging your beer now it does mean that you do not need to sanitize and clean bottles, storing the empty bottles, and waiting for a number of weeks to carbonate the bottles. You can also more easily adjust the carbonation level to exactly the way you like it. Also, using a kegging system means you can complete closed beer transfers for better sanitation and also you can filter your beer more easily.

However, as convenient and liberating kegging your beer can be, there are still reasons to bottle your beer too. When making seasonal or specialty home brewed beer batches you may not want to make an entire keg of it. Using your bottles for this will come in handy. Or if you plan on making your home brewed beer and giving it away as gifts or taking it to parties. Bottles are great too because you can add your own personal labels and look to the bottles, giving them your own look.

Whether you decide to keg your home brewed beer or bottle it, there is always a place for both. Of course cost and the amount of room you have available to you will be a consideration. Ideally, having both ready and accessible will give you more options and open up many more choices for your home brewing experience.

Learn Home the Fun Hobby of Brewing Beer

Do you want to learn how to make beer? I bet it’s easy, inexpensive and most important of all fun. Ever since the popularity of home brewing got bigger, more and more have started beer brewing as a hobby. With a wide variety of high quality ingredients available, you can brew thousands of styles that will impress your friends and taste good. It’s not an expensive ordeal and should cost a small amount depending on your level of interest. Several beer making kits range from $60 to $200 and are unique.
Beer making is as easy as cooking, provided you know how to cook. Different ingredients and techniques are used for different recipes. Let’s now look at some of the basics of home brewing in order to get a feel of how beer is made.

To start with, yeast, hops, malt and water are primarily used in the making of beer. Amongst all, water is the most available ingredient in any style of beer. Instead of using plain tap water, I recommend filtered water for a better outcome. It makes an impact on the taste of beer. If you are planning to use distilled water, forget it. Why? Because you cant find oxygen content.

You must soak malted barley in water until it sprouts and has to be dried. This procedure results in the development of necessary Sugars and Soluble Starches that add fermentation. To continue, the malt has to undergo a process called mashing which extracts the starches and sugars from the grain. You can consider following this self-explained procedure, provided you are experienced in home brewing. If you are a novice and looking to start home brewing, you can find malted barley in market in the form of a product known as malt extract.

Know hops? It’s a green flower that grows on a vine and is similar to a pine cone. They are known to perform several roles in the beer making procedure. Taste and Aroma are the most notable features they impact on a beer. Not all sugars ferment which will cause the malt to make beer taste sweet. Use of Hops will balance the sweetness by adding considerable bitterness. They also add a distinctive aroma to the finished beer.

Yeast is one of the most key ingredients as stated above. It is a living organism that feeds off sugars in the malt. They convert sugars into alcohol in a process known as fermentation. Did you know that there are several strains of yeasts? Even in the air we breathe! In order to get the best results, especially cultured beer yeast is utilized that imparts taste and mouth feel qualities.

I’ve written enough. Let’s now summarize the whole process in short. Initially hops, malt and water are boiled for a short period of time. This combination is known as Wort, pronounced as Wert. Coming back to the topic, Wort is allowed to cool down by using a fermenter. After it cools down, the prepared yeast is poured into the fermenter and an airlock is inserted over the opening. Yeast will multiply innumerable times as it consumes the sugars in the brew. After some time, normally within 7 to 10 days, the Yeast will go through the whole process, consumed all it can and shall fall to the bottom of the fermenter. At last, beer is bottled and kept in storage for a couple of weeks to carbonate and mature.

What are you waiting for? Follow what has been stated above and start brewing today.