Brewing

Brewing is the production of beverages by extracting flavors, aromas, and fermentable compounds from raw materials through controlled heating and fermentation. In common usage, brewing refers most often to beer production, but the term also applies to other beverages such as coffee, tea, and certain distilled or fermented drinks. Brewing differs from distillation, which concentrates alcohol after fermentation, and from simple infusion, which does not involve fermentation.

Beer brewing involves converting starches in grains into fermentable sugars, then fermenting sugars with yeast to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. Core steps include malting (preparing grains), mashing (mixing ground grains with water to extract sugars), lautering (separating wort from spent grain), boiling the wort with hops for bitterness and aroma, cooling, and fermenting with yeast. After fermentation, beer is conditioned and eventually carbonated and packaged. Core ingredients are water, malted grains (typically barley), hops, and yeast. Variations in yeast strains and temperatures generate different beer styles, such as ales (fermented at warmer temperatures with top-fermenting yeast) and lagers (cooler temperatures with bottom-fermenting yeast).

Beyond beer, brewing includes methods for making coffee and tea, emphasizing water quality, grind size, temperature, and contact time to extract desired flavors. In both professional and home contexts, sanitation, precise measurements, and quality control affect product consistency. The craft beer movement and specialty coffee and tea industries have driven experimentation with ingredients, equipment, and processes.