beer is a moderately alcoholic beverage derived from grain. By volume and expenditure, it is the world’s most popular alcoholic beverage. It is a cousin to whisky, which can be described as “distilled beer,” and to Japanese sake. Most beers are flavored with hops, giving the drink its bitterness and a wide range of flavors and aromas. Many mass-marketed beers, similar in origin, color, and flavor, are bowdlerized versions of Czech-German pilsner. Over the mid-twentieth century, this class of beer assumed a bland sameness, especially in the United States, the country now leading recovery of traditional beer flavor through the insurgent “craft beer movement.” Now the flavor spectrum of beer is the broadest of any class of alcoholic drinks except, perhaps, for cocktails.
Most beers are based upon barley (or, less frequently, wheat). Mass-market beers may incorporate large portions of corn or rice, which lighten flavor and body. Before it is ready to use for brewing, most barley is malted. It may also be roasted or caramelized to make malts of varying flavors, colors, and uses. Once the grist of barley and other grains is established and blended, it is then milled to crack the grains and expose starches within. The crushed grist is then mixed with water into a porridge called mash in which natural enzymes convert starches to sugars. Rinsed from the grain husk, these sugars yield a liquid called “wort.” The wort is then boiled, flavored with hops in the kettle, and cooled. Added yeast ferments the wort into beer over three to twelve days. After brief aging, most beer is then filtered, carbonated, and packed in bottles or kegs. Despite inevitable outliers, most beers are between 2.5 and 15 percent ABV.
If the brewing process is interrupted at the mashing stage and the mash cooled and fermented, the resulting mash is suitable for distillation into whisky. In bourbon production, the fermented mash, now containing about 9 percent ABV, is typically referred to as “the beer,” while in scotch whisky making it is referred to as “the wash.”
Beer is a natural partner to whisky at the bar. When served together, beer may simply be deployed as a chaser, but they are sometimes further entwined into an alliance known as the Boilermaker—generally a glass of beer accompanied by a shot of whisky. A more committed version involves dropping the entire shot glass into the beer and then downing the mix in one draught. See Boilermaker.
Around the world, beer is used to “chase” many drinks. In the American Midwest a beer chaser may follow the Bloody Mary, while in the Netherlands it follows genever in a revered combination called a kopstootje (“little head-butt”). See Bloody Mary; Herrengedeck; and Kopstoot. In Mexico the chaser follows tequila, though it also sometimes takes the lead position in the Michelada. See Michelada.
Though their history is long and storied, beer cocktails are controversial. There are many old recipes for ale-based punches, and the modern cocktail movement has minted a few new classics, such as the Black Flip (stout, egg, and rum). Still, many beer cocktails can have a forced gimmicky quality about them, as if the beer were included as a stunt or show of cleverness. Better beer cocktails use the beer’s specific qualities—roasted flavors, citric hop flavor, bitterness, or even acidity—to drive the cocktail’s flavors.
In a good cocktail bar, a short, focused beer list can be a fine feature. The beers can step into longer evenings as a brief pause in the march of cocktails, allowing the evening to progress more pleasantly. A good choice of beers can reflect the personality of the bar—old-school, funky, geeky, steampunk-ish, and so on. Just as a cocktail menu often expresses a point of view, so can the cocktail bar beer list, thus becoming an essential part of the bar’s offering of fine drinks and best evenings.
See also
Byson, Lew. Tasting Whiskey: An Insider’s Guide to the Unique Pleasures of the World’s Finest Spirits. North Adams, MA: Storey, 2014.
Grier, Jacob. Cocktails on Tap: The Art of Mixing Spirits and Beer. New York: Abrams, 2015.
Meehan, Jim, and Chris Gall. The PDT Cocktail Book: The Complete Bartender’s Guide from the Celebrated Speakeasy. New York: Sterling Epicure, 2011.
Oliver, Garrett. The Oxford Companion to Beer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
By: Garrett Oliver