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  • Book Review
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Raising a glass to ale

Nature volume 393, page 129 (1998)Cite this article

Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing

  • Charles Bamforth
Plenum: 1998. Pp. 245 $27.95, £18.50

Charles Bamforth has a stab at an explanation — that beer arose as an offshoot of baking technology — but the bulk of this entertaining and informative book is concerned less with historical matters than with the aforesaid complexity: the production of beer today. In outline, beer is made by allowing barley to germinate, so that hydrolysis of its storage polysaccharide, starch, begins. Germination is then halted by drying, and the nascent seedling is milled and extracted with hot water. This extract, rich in sugars, dextrans and residual biochemicals, is fermented with carefully preserved strains of yeast. Various filtration, heating, chilling, sedimentation, clarification and maturation steps are involved, and flavourings, notably hops, may be added. The ultimate product is then barrelled, bottled, canned or otherwise packaged for marketing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Microbiology at the University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RH, UK

    John Postgate

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  1. John Postgate
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Postgate, J. Raising a glass to ale. Nature 393, 129 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/30135

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