Beer Terminology Glossary Guide

To many people beer is just a drink that will get them feeling good after enough of them. For others, beer is a hobby and a science that they take great pride in. There is a lot of different terminology that has to do with beer. Below are some common and some uncommon terms used with beer.

• Adjunct - Is used to increase the content of alcohol and make the flavor lighter. They are unmalted grains.
• Aerobic - Ale Yeast that is top fermenting is an example of an organism that is an Aerobic.
• ABV (Alcohol by Volume) - Measurement of space alcohol takes up in a beer, which is a percentage of the volume. It is the standard all over the world for measuring the content of alcohol in beer.
• ABW (Alcohol by Weight) - Measurement of alcohol weight as the percentage weight of the liquid. It is a standard that is not used very much today.
• Ale - Made of the parts of yeast that is top-fermenting, this is the part of the yeast at the top part of a fermentation tank.
• All-Malt - Beer that is made from pure malted barley.
• Alpha Acid - Hop plant that makes beer bitter.
• Astringent - Puckering taste that is drying from boiling the grains.
• AA (Apparent Attenuation - Sugars that are converted into alcohol (percentage).
• Balance - The overall flavor of beer or the levels of hops and malts.
• Barley - A grain that helps create malt - which is the main ingredient in beer.
• Bitter - Tangy sharp sensation that is from hops.
• Body - Thickness of beer.              
• Bottle Conditioning - Right before bottling sugars and yeast is added to the beer.
• Brettanomyces - Yeast that makes beer have a flavor of barnyard or horse blanket. (Not normally wanted).
• Bung - A plug made out of woo for a barrel of beer.
• Carboy - Plastic or lass container used to ferment beer by home brewers.
• Cask Conditioning - Beer that is kept in a cask.
• Cloying - overly sweet beer that is not good.
• Cold Filtering - Beer pasteurizing alternative.
• Dexterin - Barley enzymes that produce unfermentable carbohydrates.
• Diacetyl - A compound that is produced by yeast.
• Fermentation - Sugars that are converted into alcohol along with CO2 from yeast.
• Final Gravity - How much bee weighs when fermentation is finished.
• Hops - A blossom that is dried out from a female hop plant.
• IBUs (International Bittering Units - The amount of bitterness that is in beer (measurement).
• Lager - German word that means “to store”. A lager is made from yeast that comes from the bottom of a fermentation tank (known as bottom-fermenting).
• Lees - After fermentation, sediments and yeast are deposited to the bottom of the tank.
• Malts - An ingredient for beer that is barley that s steeped inside water. It is one of the main ingredients of beer.
• Mashing - The process that creates wort.
• Mash Tun - This is the vessel that is used to mash in.
• Original Gravity - Original weight prior to fermentation
• Pasteurization - The heating of beer that is used to stabilize microbiologically. The beer is heated to 60-79 degrees C.
• Phenol - In beer phenol leads to a taste that is medicinal.
• Pitching - This is the process when yeast is added to the wort n a fermentation tank.
• Rack - Siphon beer from a vessel to another vessel to separate beer from trub and lees.
• Sparge - Same thing as mashing.
• Tannic - This is the taste of astringent.
• Trub - The same as lees.
• Wort - Liquid malt extract for a fermentation tank.
• Yeast - An organism from the fungus family. It converts sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
• Zymugy - Fermentation science.
  
  

There are a lot of different terms that are associated with beer that most people do not think about. Most of the terms have a lot to do with brewing the beer. There are all sorts of different ingredients and things that go into making the beer taste differently. Not all beer tastes the same and that has a lot to do with the words that are located in the beer glossary above.