Whether you’re enjoying a ball game, having fun on local tasting tours, or sitting by the fireplace with friends, nothing tastes better than a cold, refreshing beer. While beer continues to be America’s most preferred adult beverage, many people don’t know much about the ingredients inside. Here’s a quick lesson you can use to impress your friends with your beer knowledge.

4 Critical Ingredients That Make Beer

1. Consistent Water

Beer is smooth and drinkable thanks to its high percentage of water—generally about 90 percent of the entire drink. As the main ingredient, brewers put a great deal of thought into the water they use for their brews. Factors like acidity, the presence of minerals and chlorine, and salinity all have an impact on the final taste of beer. Since brewers want a recognizable taste, controllable water consistency is key.

2. Harvested Barley

All alcohol requires a sugar source. In beer, that source is barley, but not the same kind you’d find in your grain cereal. For beer making, barley is harvested and put through a process called malting, where it is soaked in water for several days to prepare the starches inside it for fermentation. The barley is then roasted, giving beer its color, body, and aroma.

3. Yeast

If you’ve ever been on a tasting tour, you’ve likely learned about this single-celled microorganism. Introduced to eat simple sugars created during the barley malting process, yeast converts sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol. Yeast will continue to work its magic, eating and reproducing under proper light and temperature levels, until the environment is no longer hospitable for the fungus. At that time, the brewer will be able to remove it from the batch.

4. Fresh Hops

Hops, which are small green flower buds grown on a vine, are used in beer making as a balancing agent. The bitterness they add balances out the sweetness of malt, so the more hops added, the more bitter the beer will taste. India pale ales have a distinctively strong taste due to the prevalence of hops used during brewing.

 

Now that you know a little more about what goes into beer, it’s time to appreciate the delicious taste these ingredients create with Cincy Brew Bus. This brewery tour bus is a fun and interactive way to explore Cincinnati, OH. During their tasting tours, you’ll get to experience several of the city’s best local breweries, distilleries, and wineries, all the while gaining a new appreciation for what goes into making each one. Whether you’re looking for a fun date idea or want to book an experience for a bachelor or bachelorette party, Cincy Brew Bus has the perfect tour for you. To book a spot on a tasting tour, give them a call today at (513) 258-7909. You can also visit them online for their full tour schedule of upcoming beer tours.