Introduction
At John Harvard’s Brew House, we make a range of beers full
of aroma and flavor. We brew pale golden light lagers, copper colored
ales, malty brown beers, and coal black stout. With 8 to
10 beer lines at some of our restaurants, we can offer a lot of
stops in between, as well.
To see how we get the full range of color, flavor and aroma in
our beers, it is important to understand the basic ingredients. Each
brew is a blend of four items: malt, water, hops and yeast. Varieties
and quantities of each item will change the character of the beer.
Malt
Malt is the soul of beer. Malt is barley, a cereal grain
that has been soaked in water, germinated, and then kilned. The
amount of heat and water sprayed on the grain during malting also
produces varying colors, with further roasting giving the deepest
colors and flavors. The blend of these various types of malt
give beers their color, body, and fermentable sugars.
Malt provides color to the beer. Pale malt
gives us golden beers. We use 100% pale malt in our
Light Lager. The Pale Ale has pale malt, and
a little caramel,
or roasted malt for its copper color. Pale, caramel and chocolate,
dark roasted malt, give the Brown Ale and Porter their distinctive
deep brown appearance.
We also brew with specialty malt for certain brews. We
blend in wheat malt, smoked malt, carapils, and other types of
roasted malt, depending upon the brew.
The amount of alcohol in the final product is directly
related to the amount of malt in the brew. Malt contains
natural sugars that the yeast converts to alcohol during fermentation. The
unfermentable sugars from malt, dextrins, create the body
of beer.
Our beers range in strength from 3.5% alc by vol. [Light] to 8.1%
alc by vol. [Mid-Winter Ale].
Hops
If
malt is the soul of beer, then hops are the spice. Hops provide
bitterness and aroma to beer. Hops grow on vines, producing
tiny flowers that look like soft pinecones. They are resinous
and sticky. Once they are harvested and dried, they are vacuum
packed as whole hops or hop pellets. We use a number of different
varieties of hops that are traditional with either ales or lagers.
• Cascades, Willamettes and Brewers Gold varieties
are used in the ales we produce for their floral aroma.
• Tettnang hops are used in lagers for their spicy
aroma.
• Hops are added to the kettle during the boil.
• We add whole hops, in cheesecloth bags to the cellar tanks
for the IPA, and other seasonal ales to provide a more intense
hop aroma. This process is called dry hopping.
Water
Water makes up 92-95% of each glass of beer. While municipal
water supplies are an excellent source of brewing water, almost
all brewers treat their water in some fashion.
• We heat our brewing water before adding to the mash, during
this process, chlorine is driven off.
• We also use naturally occurring salts to lower the pH of
the water for optimal brewing.
Yeast
Yeast is a single celled microorganism that ferments various sugars
from the malt in the presence of oxygen. The byproduct
of fermentation is CO 2 and alcohol. Keeping the strain
pure and clean is the most important part of the process to ensure
a repeatable fermentation and consistent final product.
• JHBH has two yeast strains, a lager, or bottom fermenting strain,
and an ale, or top fermenting strain.
• Both yeast strains are kept on slants in a lab in San Diego. When
we need a fresh batch of yeast, usually every 2-3 months, they
provide a new starter culture.
• Ale yeast produces a distinctive fruity flavor to the beer.
• Lager yeast produces a distinctive, slightly dry flavor
to beer.
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