How Beer Works

How Beer Works
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Beer

Tracy V. Wilson, HowStuffWorks.com

Barley, water, hops and yeast might not sound like a recipe for success, but to the beer connoisseur, the fine balance of those four ingredients is the stuff of legend. If you've ever been to a specialty beer store, the variety can seem infinite, but there are really just two main varieties -- lager and ale.

See for yourself how beer is made in a slide show.

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Where Beer Comes From
Nobody's quite sure exactly how it got its start, but beer has been around for thousands of years. It has a place in "The Epic of Gilgamesh," one of the first works of literature. Ancient Babylon had goddesses for beer, and it became a staple during the Middle Ages, when it was cleaner and safer to drink than water.

What Makes Beer, Beer
Whether it's pale or dark, bottled or draft, beer wouldn't be beer without barley and hops. In 2008, simultaneous shortages in both these ingredients caused beer prices to spike in much of the world.

What Beer Begat
It's spawned a plethora of pubs, pub songs, tankards, steins, barrels, bottles, kegs and drinking games such as beer pong. There's even a word for the collection of the beer mats used in bars -- tegestology.

The Surprising Thing About Beer
Hops and marijuana are cousins. Although there are uses for hops as an herbal medicine, almost all of the world's hops go toward beer production.

Will The Jetsons Tip a Pint?
In 2008, California Polytechnic State University scientist Raul Cano made the news for using 45-million-year-old yeast to make beer -- so for this ancient beverage, future innovations may come from looking deep into the past.