The world has become quite obsessed with craft beer. More so in the UK, where pub culture has always been quite well-known, Hampshire is a small town and stands out as the destination for all beer lovers looking for a different type of pub culture. With Hampshire standing out as a craft beer destination, we look at what the ingredients might have to do with it and how craft beer, in particular, gets its taste from speciality ingredients.
These are the main ingredients used in brewing.
Water
Since beer is 95% water, the type and quality of water used play an important part in making craft beer. Water without mineral salts, sulphates, chloride, and lime is essential to creating the perfect craft beer taste. Many breweries customize their water to their own needs by removing slats and minerals depending on the profile of taste they need for the particular beer.
Malted Barley
The UK latitude brings many benefits to getting the best possible quality of malted barley. The latitude creates longer hours of sunlight when the grain is formed and leads to much richer starch content. Not only does malted barley give beer its colour, but it also has flavour, dextrin’s for the body, protein, and natural sugars.
Hops
Most craft beers are well known to have a prominent bitter taste over that of commercial lagers. This bitter taste is due to the type and number of hops used. The ingredient contributes to the formation and retention of foam in the beer.
There are more than 33 commercially grown British aroma hop varieties in the UK which provides a variety of options for the craft breweries in Hampshire to choose from.
Yeast
Yeast has an extremely important role in brewing. Yeast gets added to water and grain, which forms a sugary liquid, the yeast then eats the sugar and creates alcohol. This process is known as carbonation and gives beer its flavour.
These ingredients add a lot more than just a flavour to beer. It contributes to consistency, smell, taste, body, and more. With the UK’s weather and production benefits of some of these ingredients, it’s no surprise that the UK is so serious about beer.