How malt shapes beer

A pale lager and a stout may both begin with barley. Yet one can smell of fresh bread and light honey, while the other brings coffee, dark chocolate and burnt toast. Many of these differences start in the malt house, before the grain reaches the brewery. Malt is grain that has been allowed to begin germinating, then dried to stop its growth. It provides the starch that will eventually become fermentable sugar, but the type of grain and the way it is malted also help shape the beer’s colour, aroma, body and flavour. Preparing barley for brewing Barley is the most widely used brewing grain because several useful features come together inside it. The endosperm contains starch, stored as energy for the young plant. The embryo is the part that will begin to grow when the grain takes up water, while the tough outer husk protects everything inside. That husk also becomes useful in the brewery, where it can help form a natural filter bed as the brewer separates the sweet wort from the spent gr

by WSETglobal · source ↗