Remember that post I did about the beer brewing last January?
Well, as it last stood, my brother bottled the beer and informed me that the resulting beverage was... weird.
Ultimately, I left it at that and basically moved on. I chalked it up to a valiant effort and assumed the beer would be aborted. Not so. I came back to Cleveland to find excessive amounts of the hearty brew available for consumption. Nice.
One may be inclined to conclude that since so much of this brew has remained months after being bottled is a sign that it is slightly undesirable. I would not go so far as to say this, but I enjoy a nice thick, hefty beer like a porter, which this particular brew is.
So, first I will briefly delve into zymology, the science of fermentation. The essential process of fermentation is converting sugar to acids, gases, or alcohol using yeast or bacteria. It is "a form of anaerobic digestion that generates adenosine triphosphate (ATP) by the process of substrate-level phosphorylation." Sure. The following equation sums it all up:
Humans have apparently been employing the process of fermentation for producing food and beverages since the Neolithic (around 10,200 BC through 4,500/2,000 BC). Though the first person to connect yeast with the process of fermentation was Frenchman Louis Pasteur in 1857. He originally defined fermentation as "respiration without air". So you could say fermentation has been around the block and then some.
And we humans have advanced the fermentation process to yield such tasty beverages as the English porter. The recipe we used was called Mama's Porter. But unless you are a master brewer then every brew is going to be inconsistent and unique. Thus, we shall dub our porter with a new name. We have yet to officially put the stamp on this one and any suggestions are welcome. I will have more on porter and the naming of our beer in the next episode.
Til next time,
Ty
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