Everything you need to know about cereals

In the latest in our series Nigel Huddleston considers grains other than barley that can be used in beer

Lest we should start mired in confusion, what we’re talking about here is the raw ingredients that provide the nuances of some of the world’s great beers (and some of the less-acclaimed ones) rather than cornflakes or Weetabix.

Malted barley is the predominant cereal type used in making beer and has already been the subject of an “Everything you need to know…” all of its own, but what of the rest?

Wheat is probably the most important, and, although used widely in the brewing world, it is associated primarily with Belgium and Germany.

For straight white or wheat beers, which go under the names Wit, Weisse, Weizen or other regional and national variations, the wheat is malted as it is (normally) with barley.

Wheat beers are normally made with a proportion of malted wheat in addition to the malted barley, and they can change the flavour according to the amounts used and other ingredients.

In Belgium, the challenging wheat content is softened and balanced by the addition of fruit and spices.

Hoegaarden, a current United Kingdom favourite, uses coriander and curacao orange peel. The result is a beer with a bitter, medicinal tang, but a citrusfruit smack.

German wheat beers are arguably drier and more austere because the Rheinheitsgebot (brewing purity laws) do not allow the addition of fruits and spices.

In fact, they’re often recounted only to permit the use of water, yeast, hops and barley, though wheat is included as an alternative or addition to barley.

In Berlin the .....

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By Nigel Huddleston

Section : Beer Production

Page number : 32