Making beer

• Four key ingredients for brewing beer; barley, water, hops, yeast
• Barleycorn is soaked in water until it starts to germinate, the germinating grains are dried and finely chopped- it is now known as malted barley
• Malted barley is mixed with hot water. Sugars (glucose) in the malt dissolve in the hot water. It is drained to form a sweet, syrupy liquid known as wort
• Hops is added to the wort and boiled- it adds to the bitter taste and flavour of beer. Yeast cells are added to the mixture of hops and wort and left to ferment. The yeast converts the sugar (glucose) into alcohol (ethanol) and CO2.
• The CO2 produces the bubbles in the beer.
• Fermentation lasts about 2 weeks, once fermentation is complete, the yeast cells sink to the bottom of the container. The beer is cooled, filtered and poured into bottles or kegs