Extracts -- good or bad?

Is the use of extracts in beer brewing a good thing?

It is actually quite common for commercial breweries to use hop extracts. Even Belgian Trappist breweries do it(!). And their beers are considered among the best in the world.

In my opinion it is not necessarily a detriment to good beer. Same thing with malt extract, from which you can actually make some damn good beer. But it won't give you the same flexibility as all-grain would.

The reason the big commercial breweries use them is because they strive for consistency -- and hop extract give them just that. It is very predictable. That said they do also put a lot of effort into making beer cost-efficiently. On a larger scale the little things have a big influence on cost. Note that the reason they aren't using malt extract is that it is much more expensive than all-grain, which lets them squeeze the last drop of malt sugars out themselves.

This shouldn't stop them from making good beer though, as there is no defense against making bad beer.

The hop harvest - a time for wet hopping

September is hop harvest season. Fresh hops are picked off the bine and dried. The drying makes the perishable wet hop much more stable and useable all year-round. These dried hops are called dried whole hops, and this is the traditional way of handling hops, you just put them whole into the brew kettle. Recently more and more hops are being processed into pellets which makes them even more stable, in fact they can keep their quality properties for a much longer time. At the same time they also take up less space as they are more space efficient, meaning that it takes less to achieve the hopping qualities you need.

Recent years have introduced a new phenomenon: wet hopping (sometimes also referred to as fresh hopping or green hopping).  Freshly-harvested wet hops are used directly in the brewing process skipping the drying process. This imparts much stronger, and different, flavour and aroma qualities to the beer than what dried hops would do.

Because wet hops is a perishable product it must be used very shortly after it is picked off the bine. This typically means that the brewers that do make wet hopped beers get shipments overnight from hop harvesters so that they can make their beer the day after. Because of this wet hopped beers is a seasonal product. In many ways this is similar to the beaujolais nouveau only this time for beer.

As far as I can tell this trend started in the hop-growing regions of California and the Pacific Northwest. There are even wet hop festivals! It is indeed a very nice way to celebrate the hop harvest.

I tried to get hold of some hop rhizomes this spring, but soon found that I had started searching for them too late, so I have to wait until next year to make my own wet hopped beer. But if you happen to have a hop plant, consider making a wet hopped beer. Now is the right time, unless you want to wait another year.

"Purity laws"

In fact the previously listed ingredients, water, barley malt, hops and yeast[1], were the only allowed beer ingredients according to the historical German Reinheitsgebot (literally 'purity requirement', or 'purity law' - if you will). Lars Marius Garshol and Ron Pattison have interesting views on it - both recommended reading.

The Reinheitsgebot originates from Bavaria, Germany (1516), but it has been enforced in several other countries up until modern times. In Norway it was enforced between 1857 and 1994. In practice this meant that brewers were constrainted with regard to what kind of beers they could make. Historically the law has been used as a means of market protection, stamp of quality assurance, and for marketing purposes. But creativity and diversity have suffered...

[1] Yeast was actually not included as constituent of beer in the original version of the law as people did not know that it existed. It was added later when it was discovered by science.

So, what's in a beer?

To make beer you need:

• water
• barley malt
• hops
• yeast

That's it. Well, there's nothing stopping you from putting other things in there as well, but this is what is considered to be the minimal number of ingredients.

What are hops and malt you say? Follow the links to find out.

If you are new to beer brewing you may want to start out by using malt extract instead of barley malt as this simplifies the brewing process somewhat. This is fine at first, and you can make some great beers with it, but after a while you'd want to take the step up to all-grain brewing. Doing so will give you a wider palette of flavours and aromas to play with.

I started out with extract brewing myself and did about 10 brews before taking the step up. I have not regretted that move. Anyway, at least for your first brew you should use malt extract as there are enough new things to keep track of the first time. Trying to do and learn too many new things on the first brew is not neccessarily a good idea. You'll have plenty of time to perfect your brewing skills later.