Beer Equals Health 1. Beer reduces stress Alcohol in general has been shown to reduce stress. This may be the best reason beer is good for your health. 2. Beer is good for the heart A recent study found that those who drank at least 1.5 per day had a 20-50 % less chance of having heart failure. 3. Beer improves blood circulation Beer increases your "good" cholesterol, or HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol. Its basically a kind of blood fat, that reduces blood's clotting. 4. Beer is chock full o' fiber The fiber comes from the cell walls of the malted barley. A liter of beer can have as much as 60% of your daily recommended fiber. The extra fiber will lower the risk of heart disease. 5. Beer as a multi-vitamin Beer is a significant source of magnesium, selenium, potassium, phosphorus, biotin, folate, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12. 8. Beer is good for your liver Alcohol expands the small blood vessels in the liver. This speeds up metabolism which cleans pit liver toxins . |
Yeast - Unsung Hero Marketers long have viewed water, malt, and hops as some of beer's strongest selling points. But beer's fourth ingredient - yeast- often gets overlooked Yet it's this otherwise unglamorous fungus that gives ales and lagers their personality as well as their kick. The home-brewer in his garage and the head brewer down at the beer plant follow the same basic formula: they mash water and malt into a pre-beer mixture called wort and then add yeast, which goes to work devouring sugars and turning them into alcohol, while emitting CO2 for carbonation and adding other flavors and aromas. Yet for most of beer's 10,000-year history, yeast went about its business anonymously. People didn't even know there was such a thing until the invention of the microscope. In 1836, Cagniard de Latour showed that beer yeasts were indeed living organisms, and not chemical substances as was believed before. In 1860 Louis Pasteur proved that fermentation is caused by living organisms of a yeast cell. Pasteur did not invent pasteurization specifically for milk or other food items, he did it to kill yeast so it would halt further fermentation. That allowed breweries and, later, laboratories to begin tailoring strains of yeast to produce specific tastes and various alcohol levels and to maintain consistency between batches of beer. Almost none of the brewer's yeast used today occurs naturally in the wild. Yeasts convert the sugars in the wort into alcohol. It breaks down the glucose sugars into carbon dioxide, water, and pyruvic acid. Pyruvic acid later becomes alcohol. Yeast that adds little in the way of flavors are usually described as having a "clean taste". Yeast produce three metabolic by-products that affect beer taste: phenols - spicy or clove like taste or medicinal taste; esters - a fruity taste; Diacetyls - a butterscotch or "woody" taste. Small changes in the yeast make huge differences in the way the beer tastes. For example, an experiment in which a group of home-brewers made 12 batches of beer, identical except for the yeast, showed a stunning result: 12very different beers. |
Women Beat Men at Beer SABMiller has concluded that females often are more sensitive about the levels of flavor in beer," says Barry Axcell, SABMiller's chief brewer. Women trained as tasters outshine their male counterparts, he says. If practice makes perfect, men should have the clear edge in beer tasting, since they account for 72.8% of the world's beer sales, but SABMiller, which makes Pilsner Urquell, Peroni and Grolsch in addition to Miller and Coors brands, says its empirical evidence shows that females are the superior sex when it comes to detecting such undesirable chemicals as 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, which makes beer "skunky." Finding the very best tasters is crucial to the beer industry. Tasting panels ensure that the beer coming out of the tanks each day conforms with the specific characteristics for each and every brand. Tasters also help brewers decide how long their beers will stay fresh on store shelves, and what new products to introduce. Today, 30% of SABMiller's 1,000 advanced-level tasters are female. The number of women tasters has roughly quadrupled in 10 years. Only about one of every five people—male or female—who try out for tasting at breweries ascend to the level of corporate panelist, says Bill Simpson of Cara Technology Ltd. in the U.K., who consults companies on training and evaluating beer tasters. People with natural ability must go through at least several months of training and be able to recognize numerous flavors to qualify as an expert panelist, he adds. Still, scientists say women may have a physiological edge. Research shows they have a better sense of smell, a critical part of identifying flavors in beer, according to the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a research institute in Philadelphia. |