Beer is a ubiquitous staple in the line-up of alcoholic beverages in most countries around the world, but this is nothing new. Beer has been around for longer than you may think, and scientific brewing is much written about in history. Today making beer is a craft and drinking it is a study and definitely a growing passion in Viet Nam.
Beer History: When was the "birth" of beer?
It may seem like beer has only been bottled, canned and on draught or "tap" for the most recent modern societies to enjoy, but the history of brewing this "golden liquid" goes as far back as the 6th millennium BCE. Archaeological evidence proves that early civilisations in Egypt and Mesopotamia brewed beer in a very similar method to that of today. The Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Africans, Chinese, Incas, and Saxons, among various wandering tribes, discovered brewing independently. Clearly, humans were destined to imbibe beer!
The Study of Beer: What makes one a beer expert?
The history of beer brewing holds ancient and mysterious wonders, and the study of beer and the brewing process even has an official scientific name – zythology. It derives from the Greek words "zythos" (beer) and "logos" (study). A zythologist is someone who is a true beer connoisseur—no, not someone who has just tasted many beers in their day, but someone who has actually studied the immensely complex and sophisticated beverage, its ingredients and the roles they play in the brewing process.
The Science behind the Brew: The Raw Ingredients
Are you ready to embark on becoming a zythologist? Maybe just a little bit? The study begins with a look at what actually goes into the making of beer.
Yes, the taste of beer is magical, and there is definitely a science involved in its creation — but the beverage is really produced from a very simple formula. The basic ingredients of beer are water, a "starch source," (ex. malted barley or wheat), a brewer's yeast, and the flowers from a vine called hops. The simple formula can have its complexity altered for different brews: a mixture of starch sources or various flavouring agents may be used, and most modern beers also use a clarifying agent such as seaweed or gelatine to give the beer a bright, clean look instead of the cloudy appearance of older styles of beer.
The Brewing Process: the marriage of art and science
Let's look a little deeper into the science of how these ingredients interact. Firstly, the starch source in a beer provides the fermentable material, and the most common starch source used is malted grain such as barley. In Vietnam most beer is made from imported malted barley.
Basically, to "malt" the barley, the grain is saccharified (converted to sugars), fermented (converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide) with a brewer's yeast to produce the fermentation, and finally flavoured with hops.
So, to saccharify the grain, it is malted (by soaking it in water to prompt germination). It is then dried in a kiln and sometimes roasted. This germination process creates a number of enzymes that convert the starch in the grain into sugar. Then, depending on the extent the dried malted grain is roasted, the beer will get a hue ranging from light amber to a dark brown colour and a respective light to dark flavour.
The Last and Crucial Step: Quality through Pasteurisation
Pasteurisation is the process of gentle heating and rapid cooling of freshly packaged beer for the purpose of preventing bacterial contamination caused by spoilage microorganisms.
Most brewing facilities pasteurise beer after canning or bottling. This is quite the process since most packaging facilities typically include several canning and bottling lines as well as a keg filling operation.
To pasteurise packaged beer, each package must be sprayed with specifically heated water for the time period required for it to receive a certain number of total pasteurisation heat units (PU's). Pasteurisation enables a can or bottle of beer to be stored at room temperature for up to 120 days and more, ensuring that the consumer will drink a fresh product.
Most beverage manufacturers in Viet Nam follow international quality control standards for pasteurisation of beer since they want to ensure that only the best international quality reaches the passionate customers within its borders.
Dr Chu Quoc Lap, former deputy director of the Food Safety Department, MOH, says about the quality standards followed by beer manufacturers in Viet Nam: "Due to their progress and development, Viet Nam's breweries have to meet safety standards and quality specifications for products they manufacture as regulated by the country's system of quality control to meet the food safety standards approved by the government. I believe that the brewers in Vietnam can produce batches of beer comparable to any international beer sold around the world, given their most modern technologies and advanced manufacturing techniques."
Speaking on this subject, Mr Nguyen Van Viet, president of the Vietnam Beverage Association, said: "Viet Nam is a beer market with a lot of potential, which is attracting massive investment from both domestic and foreigner investors. We are having international beer manufacturers brew beer right in Vietnam with the same quality standards they have overseas. And those manufacturers are also following strict procedures to make sure that Vietnamese consumers are provided with the highest quality products."
With the newest technologies, importing and domestic opportunities and the scientific brewing formula stretched to new limits, breweries in Viet Nam are sure to see expansion. Vietnamese culture has absorbed the beauty of the ancient and scientific practice of brewing beer, and it is likely to be passed on to generations to come.