History of ale brewing

Ale is a type of beer brewed through top fermentation, a process in which yeast ferments at warmer temperatures and settles at the top of the beer.

Fermented malt liquors had been native to the British Isles since primeval times. In Roman times the shopping lists of the garrison document that beer was an important constituent of the legion’s diet.

Historically, the term ale referred to a drink brewed without hops. In 500 AD the Angles and Saxons started arriving in Britain to conquer and settle. Their social life revolved around beer halls and ale houses. In the eighth and ninth centuries different types of malt liquors were already in common use: clear ale, mild ale and Welsh ale, the latter probably being an originally Celtic drink made from ale and honey.

In England in the Middle Ages, ale was a drink made from malted grains, water, and fermented with yeast. Malted grain would be crushed; boiling water would be added and the mixture allowed to work; later the liquid was drained off, cooled and fermented. The ale might have been spiced, but it would not have had hops as an ingredient.

At the end of the fourteenth century their trading partners from the Low Countries confronted the Englishmen with hopped beer. Up to then, ale was the characteristic British drink of the time.

Popular in England, where the term is now synonymous with beer, ale was until the late 17th century an unhopped brew of yeast, water, and malt, beer being the same brew with hops added.

During the late 15th century English ale and beer were brewed separately because no brewer was allowed to produce both at the same time. By the 16th century, ale had come to refer to any strong beer and all ales and beers contained hops.

In 1522 the licensing of alehouses was made mandatory by law in England. The census of 1577 lists 14 202 alehouses, 1631 inns and 329 taverns (which sold wine in addition to ale) – one license per 183 people.

In early 1900s, the first English brown ales appeared. It is beer style with a dark amber or brown color. Brown ales were lightly hopped and brewed from 100% brown malt.
History of ale brewing

History of modern malting

Malting, one of the earliest ‘biotechnologies’ is a fascinating blend of pure and applied science with personal skills and judgments, all being used with industrial and commercial restraints and requirements in view.  The malting process results in development of amylase required for conversion of starch to fermentable sugars.

Many historians contend that primitive malting arisen as part of ordinary cooking, where it would have rendered the grain more nutritious and digestible. It was developed by trial and error.

The beer processing spread throughout Europe and Africa early in its history. In 1268, befoore he achieved sainthood, Saint Louis IX of France in 1268 enacted laws to ensure the quality of beer.

The making and selling of malts was often controlled. In Nurnberg in 1290 only barley was allowed to be malted, while in Augsberg between 1433 and 1550 beer was only to be made from malted oats.

The development of large breweries particularly in the 19th century, led to the industrialization of malting and a progressive increase in the size of production units and of the batches of grain processed.

In some respects, the malting technology used in the UK was beginning to differ from that used in North America and Continental Europe by the mid 1800s. Outside the UK, the introduction of mechanization and pneumatic malting was easily adopted.

The pro-active approach of the industry to research and development is exemplified by the observation that the malting industry was using gibberelic acid as a malting aid in commercial production of malt in 1960.
History of modern malting

History of brewing

Brewing is the processes preparing beverages through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. The brewer begins with malted barley or another grain cereal. Malted barley is dried, sprouted or geminated barley which the brewer grinds and then heats with warm water.

Scientific and archaeological evidence, researchers strongly believe that beer was first produced in the late fourth millennium BC by the Sumerian in Southern Babylonia.

The world’s oldest recipe, written on Sumerian clay tablets is for the making beer. A number of vats also found and one of the vats contained a number of small bowls, which are said to have been used for brewing purposes. 

Brewing practices had spread to Rome during Caesar’s reign and into other parts of Europe. Brewing flourished in Egypt until the end of the eight century AD when Muslim Arabs invaded the region and the art of brewing had spread far beyond the confines of the Middle East.

A major leap forward in brewing came in the 11th century when hops were introduced to beer in Europe. Hops gave beer a more satisfying flavor. Hops have certain antibacterial qualities and with hops beer will last longer than the ancient beers.

All the beer brewed in the seventeenth century used top fermenting yeast. During the second half of the nineteenth century European breweries were experiencing a transitional phase from which the modern brewing industry emerged.

The Danish scientist Dr Emil Chr. Hansen’s method for pure cultivation of yeast, in 1883 applied for the first time at the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen.
History of brewing

Processing of sake in history

The koji process was developed centuries ago in the Far East and nowadays, is predominantly a starter culture and a source of enzymes for the saccharification of rice starch in the brewing of sake.

In ancient times, Chinese sake was made from malt and a koji mould variety. Koji performs the same function as malted barley does in a Western brewing regime.

In the earliest Japanese brewing, saccharification of rice was brought by chewing and spitting out the rice so that diastatic enzymes in saliva would break down the starches. By tradition, this method of preparation was carried out only by virgins and apparently survived until the early 20th century in Okinawa.

At the beginning of the 5h century, the Imperial Household and its government were the string driving force in culture and industry and they established many factories and monopolized the sake brewing.

Around 1200, sake manufacturing increased in Japan. By the 1500s, many of the same processes that are used today to manufacture sake had been perfected.

Commercial sake was pasteurized and it was written by Buddhist monk in 1568, three hundred years before the process developed by Louis Pasteur.

Due to the development of a vertical rice-polishing machine in 1933, the sake quality began to improve.
Processing of sake in history