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Hi everyone, and welcome back to Bluffer's Guide.我们好久没有做酒馆装B指南了.So far we have done coffee and wine. But today we are going to do a very different topic. We're gonna to do beer, to be more precise, we're gonna do craft beer.今天我们来说说精酿啤酒,现在很流行的这个, but for that because I'm not a beer drinker, so I've invited our own beer guru in the house. Hi, James.

Hi lulu. Hi everyone. Beer guru, that's such a nice compliment. Thank you.

Because every time we meet, you are drinking craft beer, right, the fancy beer.

Usually, yeah, that or coffee.

Yeah so I thought that I would just invite you to talk to our listeners about craft beer and what the fuss is all about.

I would be happy to, it is something that not many people here know about.

But it is getting really popular in China.

Yeah, especially in big cities like Beijing where this craft brewing is popping up everywhere.

Yeah. So first of all, let's get to the concept of craft beer or microbrewery, right？叫精酿啤酒,所以精酿中文我就感觉是精品酿制.How is that different from your normal Qingdao or Yanjing beer？

Ok, if we're going to use the term like microbrewing, this has to do with the size of the brewery. So if we just use like Chinese companies like Qingdao, Qingdao brewery is massive.

Yeah.

They can produce millions upon millions of cans of beer a year, a microbrewery is going to be a much smaller operation, usually local usually only has maybe one place where they make the beer and they make much smaller quantities. It's about size.

All right. So now let's move on to how to make beer, I know it's fermentation, right？

Ok. So making beer as a lot of people like to say beer is liquid bread.

Because it makes you fat right?

No. It has to do with it…It uses similar ingredients and a similar process.

Okay.

So there are a few key components to beer. Number one obviously is water.

This will affect flavor quite a bit. Two, it's going to be your malt.

Malt.就是麦芽.That's basically from grains.

Yes, this is your grains. But it goes into also how those grains are prepared, what grains are mixed together. This will greatly affect a couple of things of beer, such as flavor and color, and also sweetness or even bitterness.

So the next thing is key is hops.

Hops?

China calls them beer flower.

啤酒花儿,I've heard... Why is it called beer flower?

Because they are flowers, from actual flower.

Ok.

They grow on vines, and they are a bittering agent, so they will help balance the beer because if you make a beer with just multiple grains, it might come out really sweet.

Oh, so you need to intentionally make it bitter.

Yeah, so balance it, but it also can affect flavor a lot, because different hops also have different flavor profile depending on where they're grown, and the species of flower.

True.

That's why if you go to a lot of these craft brewery places, they will list where the hops come from, because different hops taste differently, just like wine, different grapes taste differently.

I think to me because they're all beer. So I never noticed that.

And lastly, yeast.

酵母.

But it also is different. Different yeast used for different kinds of beer depending on how long you cook the malt, hops or how much hops you use, which yeast do you use, how you age it, or all will affect the kind of beer that you produce, the flavor, alcohol and so on.

Yeah, there are so many variables. One thing that often confuses me is that you have all these names, you have什么艾尔啤酒ale, 什么拉格lager and then you also have like yellow beer, black beer, exactly, how are these kinds of beer categorized?

I'm glad you said something about yellow beer and black beer. So that's how you'd see a lot of beers labeled here in China: This is a yellow beer, this is a black beer, this is a white beer, so it doesn't mean anything in English.

So you don't actually say black beer, yellow beer, white beer.

No, because that's just describing a color, not the kind of beer it is, for example, a yellow beer can be a lager but some ales are also yellow.

I see.

A black could be a stout or a dark lager.

So what I'm hearing is lager is a type.

Lager is a type of beer.

So let's talk about these types.

So we might as well start with probably the most popular type of beer in the world: lagers.

Honestly, I thought lagers are just yellow beer.

That's what a lot of people in China would say because that's how they're listed, it's like yellow beer. Now in general many microbreweries do not produce lagers because there's a lot of competition. Most of the main brands like in China Qingdao or in the West like Budweiser, all these big companies, they all make lager.

Oh, so Qingdao beer as we know it, that's a lager.

There are craft lagers too. They just tend to be a little bit less common. What makes a lager a lager is the fact that when the beer is produced and then aged, it's fermented in a cool environment, the name itself comes from the German word for storage.

I see.

So it's stored in a cooler environment to age, and that's partially what makes it have kind of this kind of crisp light flavor. That's what a lot of people like.

比较爽口的这种感觉light crisp flavor. I think perhaps for beer beginners, or for a lot of ladies, it's just easier to drink lagers.

It's the most common... everyone, like in China most people drink lagers; in America, most people drink lagers, it is the common beer. Just in general how would it enjoyed in China is a little bit off, lagers are supposed to be served chilled.

So like 冰的.

It doesn't be that cold, but it should be about 4℃, it's aged at a cold temperature, so it's supposed to be enjoyed at cool temperature, and it can go bad…

When it's like 20…

The beer can go bad when it's warm it, and it becomes what we call skunky, the term is skunky.

Like skunk?

Like skunk, it has a really bad odor, it should be chilled. That's what I always find it weird when I was in China going to order beers, it's like would you like it room temperature or cold？

It should be cold! It should always be cold! It's a lager, it should be chilled.

But it's interesting that you're mentioning temperature how it should be enjoyed. Because a lot of people seem to be making fun of the English people for drinking ale. They have something called ale, right？And then ale is not necessarily chilled, a lot of the time is room temperature or other people would say warm.

Right, that's because it's how it should be drunk.

Oh, so they're doing the right thing.

So ales which is a different style of beer, it's produced with the different yeast than lagers. It's also not aged in chilled environments, fermented in room temperature environments, and ales when you drink them they should be at room temperature. Now what they mean by room temperature is it should be about like 12℃, it’s what they mean by that, it's that warm, they're not serving you 27℃ beer, but it is warmer than what a lager would be served as.

这个是艾尔啤酒.What about those...many microbreweries in China, you see IPA.

The India Pale Ale.

Why do they call it Indian Pale Ale?

Well, it has to do with the origin. It's still an ale, but when India was a colony of England, the people in England needed to make a beer that would last the voyage from England to India.

And by adding like a lot more hops, IPA is very hoppy, they have a lot more hops than standard beers.

They are very bitter.

It helps keep it stable for the months on voyage. So that's where IPA comes. And then we have also like APA, there's an American Pale Ale, it’s still a pale ale just with American hops.

So you mentioned earlier拉格lagers they’re light and crispy, what about ales? Ales are not as crispy？Right？

No, I like ales, they tend to be... the flavors can vary a lot, but general ones they tend to have kind of sweetness to them. They can be kind of a fruity flavor, nutty, some hazelnut or walnut kind of taste to them.

It sounds more multi-layered.

Yeah.

There's usually much more flavor profile behind in an ale than a lager.

But then there is another type, I believe because I don't really like the beer, the hops flavor. But I, once or twice, drink something called milk chocolate peanut butter stout.

I've had one of those, it was good.

It’s stout? Another type of beer?

Stout is another type of beer originating again in the isles like Ireland mostly, because the most famous stouts are from Ireland, Guinness.

Guinness is a stout.

Guinness is a stout. Stouts, they're dark because the malts have been roasted. So that leads to a much darker colored beer.

But they're not always sweet, right？Not always the milk chocolate flavor.

The flavors can vary a lot. They do tend to be richer in flavor. So that's why a lot of stouts and they have kind of a chocolaty, coffee-like flavor, or even kind of a milky flavor. They also tend to be, for a lot of people, heavier.

It is much heavier if you compare to lager.

Yeah, but don't confuse it, it doesn't mean that they're higher in alcohol because they're not. In fact, it's unlikely you'll drink as much stout as if you were going to drink a lager.

Yeah, exactly because it's so rich, it's almost like a dessert beer.

For some people, yeah. Like when you said the peanut butter chocolate milk stout, there's another beer that easily allows you to add some flavors to it in the brewing process, like adding some chocolate or some peanut butter or peanuts in it to give it a kind of desert flavor.

Yeah, I cannot imagine lager with chocolate flavor. It sounds disgusting.

No.

So what is your favorite type of beer？

My favorite type of beer or what would call red or amber ales, which tend to have a very nutty earthy flavor to them.

And it's amber in color.

And it's amber in color, they're not too hoppy. They're a little bit sweet but they're not that common, at least in China, I haven't found many places that have it.

And one last question, one of my favorite types, because again, I don't drink beer that often, I do like the... what they call white beer like the Berliner Weisse like...

Oh, wheat beers.

They're called wheat beers. So is that another type outside of lager, ale and stout？

Yes. It's a complete... because what makes them different is the main grain is wheat.

Because the others, the main ingredient is…

Mostly barley.

Barley.

Whereas wheat beer is made with wheat, so like Weiss Beer or wheat beer or Hefeweizen or Weisse, they're all wheat beers which tend to be very light and summery, very citrusy.

You basically cleared a lot of my questions, my confusions so far, and hopefully if you're listening to this episode that has given you a basic understanding of the different types of beers, especially for craft brewery. We have an advanced episode where we are going to talk about the craft beer trend in China and also in the world, generally about craft breweries.

Sounds awesome.

All right. Thank you, beer guru.

Thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun.

All right. I'll see you in the next episode.

Bye everyone.

Bye.