A BREWER'S GLOSSARY

BREWER

Anyone who brews beer.

HOME-BREWER

Anyone who brews beer at home (a 1978 federal law allows a two-person household to brew 200 gallons a year--it just can’t be sold).

BREWPUB

A restaurant that brews and sells its beer on-site (unlike some states, Oklahoma does not allow brewpubs to sell beer "to go" or at off-site locales).

MICROBREWERY

A brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels of beer to bottle and sell to outlets.

COMMERCIAL BREWERY

A brewery that produces, packages, and sells more than 500,000 barrels of beer a year.

HOPS

Flowers of a viny plant that contribute to both the flavor and aroma of beer (their bitterness usually balances the sweetness of malted barley); also serves as a natural preservative.

YEAST

A single-cell organism that eats the barley’s sugar and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.

BARLEY

A cereal grain that provides sugar for the yeast to devour (barley must be malted to trans-form its starches into sugar).

WATER

Often overlooked, water comprises 90 percent of beer; because its acidity and alkalinity vary from city to city, brewers monitor it carefully to ensure the best results.

LAGERING

The storing or aging of beer.

LAGERS/ALES

Lagers use a different yeast from ale to produce a different taste.a brewer’s glossary