General Beer Terms

Alcohol by Volume (abv)
Percentage of alcohol content in a beverage, by volume. The percentage of alcohol by weight is approximately 20 percent lower than that by volume.

Alcohol by Weight (abw)
Percentage of alcohol content in a beverage, by weight. The percentage of alcohol by weight is approximately 20 percent lower than that by volume.

Brew on Premises (BOP)
Businesses that rent their facilities for do-it-yourself brewers to come in and brew their own beer.

Breweriana
Brewing memorabilia, such as old beer containers and advertisements.

Brewpub
A restaurant that brews and serves its own beers on premises.

CAMRA
The Campaign for Real Ale, the British-based grassroots organization formed to educate, lobby and protect traditional cask-conditioned ale from becoming extinct.

Cask-Conditioned
Unfiltered, unpasteurized beer that is naturally carbonated by undergoing a secondary fermentation in its own serving vessel.

Cicerone
A term used to designate those with proven expertise in selecting, acquiring and serving today’s wide range of beers. Is to beer what a sommelier is to wine.

Contract Brewing
A company that markets and owns all rights to a beer brand but has the brand brewed at another company's brewery.
  
Growler
A glass or ceramic jug used to transport draft beer. They are commonly sold at breweries and brewpubs as a means to sell take out craft beer.

Microbrewery
A brewery that produces 15,000 barrels or less of beer a year.

Nanobrewery
A type of very small brewery operation, often culturally defined by a less than 470 L brew system.

Real Ale
The term used by CAMRA for traditional cask-conditioned ale.
 
Regional Brewery
A brewery that produces 15,000 to 500,000 barrels of beer a year.

Reinheitsgebot
The German beer purity law of 1516 that states that beer shall only be made with grain, hops, yeast and water.

Shelf Life
The length of time after bottling, three to four months for most American beers, before a beer begins to spoil.

Zymurgy
The science or study of fermentation.

Popular posts from this blog

A Beginning

I'd asked for the beer brewing starter kit for Christmas in 2007 and after almost 3 years of it sitting and gathering dust I finally decided that it was time to brew my first batch of beer. What made me suddenly decide that the time was right? I think that it was the "are you ever going to make beer with that kit I got you for Christmas?" questions from my loving partner, and the need to get off my ass and finally do it! After all it was something that I'd asked for. So I looked at what I had...and it was an interesting array of beer making paraphernalia. The basic kit that I had came with the following items: closed primary fermenter (white plastic 30 litre food grade bucket with a 3 cm hole drilled in the lid) 23 litre glass carboy hydrometer - used to test the alcohol content of the beer test jar syphon rod hose and clamp airlock and bung sanitizing powder big spoon instructions Along with these things I also got a basic 23 litre canned beer kit...in this case it w...
Read more

Just a Few Beer Brewing Basics

So to make beer there are four essential ingredients: water, fermentable sugars (traditionally malted barley), hops and yeast. These ingredients are processed and combined according to a recipe. Given the right conditions the yeast will convert the fermentable sugars to alcohol, CO2 (Carbon Dioxide), and the taste that we know as beer. The beer is then bottled and, depending on the type of beer being made, aged from a week to three months. There are three standard methods to making beer and they are ranked in order of complexity: Basic- Malt extract - a "canned" beer kit. Basically a can of pre-hopped malt extract where you add water and stir. Intermediate - Malt extract/Grain - Made with unhopped malt extract, hops, grains and yeast. The grains are steeped in warm water and this water, plus the malt extract is added to the wort which is then boiled for an hour. For most recipes both boiling and finishing hops are added. A little more work but results in a much better beer. A...
Read more