A Fun Day Out On A Michigan Brewery Tour

By Author: Maggie Hinton
Total Articles: 9
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Spread around the motor city of Detroit are some 90 different breweries. Each brewery has a different character and different formulas to ensure that their beer tastes different to the products of the other breweries and each is unique in its own way. No one has the time to visit them all but there is a company in Detroit which is steadily working through them by taking bus, bike or walking tours which each take in 3 breweries at time.

The basic formula for beer is pretty similar. Chuck some barley into water add yeast and hops and away you go.. right... well basically but the process is somewhat more complex than that and to control the process so that the taste remains consistent takes some expertise. The Romans had beer from Africa just after Augustus and we know that the Germans were brewing lagers pretty much in the same formulae as we have today back in the middle ages.

To make beer the brewers take Barley and soak it is water and then draining the water barley naturally malts over a period on 5 days. (Malting is like germinating and the barley husks sprout.) The temperature of the germinating barley is important. ...
... The sugars thus produced are caught while the sugars are present but before all the starch is broken down. This is done by raising the temperature and drying the maltings. Any roots that have formed must be removed. Then the malted barley is crushed to break up the kernel. Then this mash is sprayed with warm water as it enters the tun (brewing vessel) and are kept in there for an hour while the starch converts into fermentable sugars. The liquid is then drained off and it is sweet and sticky. It is sent to boil in a wort. While boiling the hops are added. This is the part which gives each beer its own distinctive taste and aroma. The exact quantity of hops, added at precisely the same time is critical in the consistency of the beers taste.

The liquid is then drained off and cooled down till the yeast can be added. This starts the fermentation process whereby the sugars now convert themselves into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Each different type of beer ferments for different lengths of time but a normal lager will ferment for about 6 weeks.

The Specific Gravity is tested and normally beer out of the fermentation tanks has a higher density that the packaged beer so this process will be corrected as the brew is bottled (or put into cans or kegs)

This is a very rough sketch and the process itself is interesting but most people are more interested in the end result. So these tours will each take in 3 breweries and spend sufficient time in each to tour the brewery and taste 3 of each of the brewery's beers..

To book a visit to the Michigan Breweries on a bus, bicycle or walking tour just click on the website and come and have a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting day.

There are 90 Michigan Breweries all within am easy day trip from Detroit. Book a tour with Motor City Brew Tours.