“Beer fills me up”. That is one of the most common complaints I hear when people tell me why they don’t like beer.
There are several reasons why people get the impression of being full when they drink beer: Carbonation, Color, Flavor, Quantity.
Carbonation is a natural by product of fermentation. Fermentation is the process of yeast converting sugars into alcohol and CO2. The amount of CO2 in beer during the initial fermentation process is so high that the pressure is literally explosive. It is during the conditioning period that carbonation development occurs at a more gentle rate.
The problem is how does a brewer know that the amount of CO2 during transportation or storage is not going to aggravate the conditions in the bottle so that it will not cause the CO2 to escape and create loss of product. The best way for this to be controlled is to control the amount of CO2 in the beer. Here in lies the issue with those who complain about the "filling" quality of beer.
Most beers are pressurized up to as much as two times the amount of CO2 naturally occurring in beers. That is a lot of gas! So what is a person to do?
There are several ways to rectify the dilemma. One way is to aerate the beer. Pour the beer into a carafe at least two times the size by volume by turning the bottle upside down. This is not the time to be following the “correct” way to pour beer. You are not concerned about this right now. What you are trying to achieve is a release as much of the gas as possible by agitating it without it ending up all over you.
Allow the beer to rest at room temperature. Cold temperatures will hold CO2. As the beer comes up in temperature from traditional storage such as refrigerators which are about 40 degrees. Way too cold for most beers to be served at anyway. By allowing the beer temperatures to come up CO2 is naturally released. So now we have provided two ways to minimize CO2 in beer. All in all I would say allow at least 15 minutes for both techniques to bring the beer up to it best. Both ways do more than release CO2 in the beer. It also provides a way for the beer to open up and display more appealing aroma and flavor attributes.
Color is a visual clue that is as deceptive as prejudice. In the world of beer domestic consumers have to wade through decades of marketing. Even today beer that is advertised as “light” or “lite” is brewed toward the palest spectrum of beer color.
The fact of the matter is that color of beer has little to do with being more alcoholic, heavy or filling. The contributing ingredient which allows the brewer to make beer as black as obsidian is a roasted barley which contributes very little to the beer other than color and flavor and aroma.
Roasted barley is much like a roasted coffee bean. Roasted barley has been so deeply kilned that any opportunity for the barley to contribute carbohydrates ( necessary for sugars and alcohol) has been eliminated through the process of kilning. Like a coffee bean what you get with a roasted barley is color and flavor and aroma. It take a very small percentage of the roasted barley to make a large contribution to color and flavor. I will say that the majority of darker beers which are in the market today do lean toward the sweet and alcoholic side. This why it is important to understand beer style.
There are several different dark beer styles out there that are not sweet or alcoholic. Look for dark lagers such as a Schwarz bier or even a dark American Lager. Lager beers can have a lower impression of sweetness due to the yeast used during fermentation. English brown ales, Brown Porters, and Dry Stouts are also good choices for dark beer without considerable alcohol content or residual sweetness which gives the impression of “heaviness” to a beer.
I’ve talked about sweetness in a beer contributing to the impression of feeling full. So now I will go into flavor as the third reason why people tell me they don’t like beer. Our palate or tongue or taste buds as you will has the ability to discern five flavors: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and Unami. Lager beers which have dominated the market particularly after Prohibition have the upper hand in producing beers with a lower sweetness or residual sugar.
The secret behind this is the yeast used for these beers. Lager yeast a.k.a Saccharomyces uvarum has the ability to digest practically all sugars made available during the brewing process. Another attribute of the lager yeast is it’s ability to digest sugars very slowly and carefully at cooler temperatures found while being stored in caves in the Northern European area. As a result lager beers have the particular ability to be dry. Lager beers armed with this secret weapon have been able to corner the market of light or “lite” beers.
Beers that are dry are not as sweet or do not have the same residual sweetness as their sister beers ale. Ales are brewed with a different type of yeast. This yeast is probably closer to yeast used prior to the practice of lagering beers in caves in the Northern European area therefore are more like the beers brewed before the popularity of Pilsner beers in the 1800’s.
Ale beers are fermented with a yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiea. The fermentation period is fast and furious, leaving behind a flurry of residual sugars as well as other yeast by products such as aroma and flavor which will not be found in lager beers. I am not going to talk about these because I want to focus on what the tongue perceives. Which is the sweetness of the beer. Flavors do not contribute to this perception. If it did then our mother would not have told us to hold our nose when taking medicine which “taste” terrible. It is important to differentiate the difference between flavor and taste for the purpose of this discussion. Back to taste.
Residual sugars in beer not only give us the perception of a heavier beer but they also contribute sugars to our body. These sugars are responsible for the satiability of sweeter beers or beers with more residual sugar.
Having said that, I would like to talk a bit about the last subject: quantity
We can do something about the CO2 in beer by decanting the beer and allow the gas to escape. Allowing the beer to be brought up in temperature also allows the gas to escape. We can educate ourselves and others regarding the color of beer and its relativity to the perception of heaviness. Learning the difference between lager beers, ale beers, the contribution their respective yeast and residual sugars in relative beers give us the tools to understand beer choices and the contributions that yeast make to beers.
The last factor I am bringing up is not in the list of most common complaints I get from people who say they do not like beer. As a matter of fact, in my experience, quantity has never come up as an issue as to why people will tell me why they don’t like beer.
Who is going to complain about having too much beer? Certainly I am not, However the issue is in fact it is mine. When people tell me that beer makes them feel full they don’t associate the amount that is dispensed from the tap or poured from the bottle as contributing to them feeling full. Twelve ounces of anything is going to make a person feel full. Twelve ounces of water is going to make a person feel full! A serving of Distilled spirits is measured as an ounce. A serving of wine is measured as 4 ounces. Who said we had to drink 12 ounces of beer? It is no wonder people complain about beer making them feel full. What can you do about that? I will leave that up to the consumer. No pun intended. Actually, I did intend it.
Seriously, consumption is a factor. Hopefully we will consume less and enjoy more. But don't blame it on the beer!
picture was copied from
http://toomuchnews.com/featured/what-you-need-to-know-on-how-to-lose-a-beer-belly/
