We’ve all been there whilst attending a single malt whisky tasting; bright eyes and bushy tails, waiting to soak up the knowledge. Your host starts talking you through the process of making whisky: discussing how to grow barley; delving into scientific terms about turning starches into sugar; having yeast eat the sugar to create alcohol. Right, you’re thinking – my GCSE science classes have finally proven useful – it’s pretty straight forward science! Next, they start talking about putting their ‘beer’ into two stills to bump it up to a juicy 60-70% ABV spirit before being put into a cask – hang on a minute – I thought we were talking about single malt whisky, you may ask? Where did all of this talk about ‘beer’ come from?
Well, you’re not wrong in being a little confused. Whilst the product that sits in a mash-tun is technically a beer-like substance – often sitting around 6-8% ABV – if you were to drink it, it wouldn’t be like having a pint of something craft at your local pub. Though, considering you use the same three ingredients – water, barley and yeast – they’re not actually too far away from each other. The main difference with beer is the addition of hops for flavor, but with single malt whisky the ‘beer’ that you find in the mash-tun is distilled into a boozier kind of beverage that still has a long way to go before being able to claim its title.
To say that whisky and beer have had a close-knit relationship among the years is quite true – this can be proven by the all too familiar headache we’ve all experienced the next morning after drinking. As a wise man once said: “whisky drinking is thirsty work.” When you’re drinking something at room temperature, an ice cold beer is a pretty good palate cleanser. Whilst there are many ideas of how the Boilermaker came about, it is believed to be invented as far back as the 1800s when blue collar workers who built steam locomotives would go to bars after finishing work – they enjoyed a shot of whisky with a beer on the side as means to wind down after a long day.
Instead of overwhelming yourself with the search of the perfect Boilermaker, the producers of each have saved your efforts by marrying the two together. There are numerous beers that have been aged in whisky barrels and since the last few years, some distilleries are finishing whisky in beer casks. The definitive part of deciding which kind of beer you’re making depends on the kind of yeast. Bottom fermenting yeast (yeast that sinks to the bottom) is generally used for lighter styles of beer such as lagers, pilsners and bocks, whereas Top fermenting yeasts are used to make ales, porters and stouts – these are the kind of beers that you will find being used in the whisky industry.
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