When a strong, coarse hop is used, a less quantity suffices for the same strength brewed, but the flavour is always inferior.
The water, which should be clear, and free from all traces of decomposing animal and vegetable matter, must be provided in abundance. Of late years hard water has been preferred by many brewers, on the ground that beer brewed with it is self-fining, and hence requires no artificial clarification either in the vat or cask.
Hard water is also much to be preferred to
soft in brewing stock beers; since by its rendering the albuminous matters contained in the mash insoluble, it prevents the fermentation to which these would otherwise give rise, and so assists in the preservation of the beer, and in keeping it free from acidity.
The German brewers, however, who do not brew beverages intended to be kept for any time, on the contrary, employ a soft water, by which means the albuminous substances contained in the malt are rendered soluble, and become diffused throughout the beer, and possibly add in some measure to its nutritive qualities. Hard waters are said to have the property, over soft ones, of enabling the beer to retain more saccharine matter, and hence to improve its flavour and to give it more body. The ales of Burton are pre-eminent for their excellent quality and keeping properties. In the neighbourhood of Burton there are extensive beds of new red sandstone and gypsum, by sinking wells into which the Burton brewers obtain the water from which they make their beers. From the subjoined analyses of Burton well waters it will be seen that this water is a very hard one, and contains, besides other salts, a very large quantity of sulphate of lime.
Analysis of the water used in Messrs Allsopp’s brewery (Dr Böttinger):—
| Amount of ingredients in the imperial gallon, represented in grains. | |
| Chloride of sodium | 10·12 |
| Sulphate of potash | 7·65 |
| Sulphate of lime | 18·96 |
| Sulphate of magnesia | 9·95 |
| Carbonate of lime | 15·51 |
| Carbonate of magnesia | 1·70 |
| Carbonate of iron | 0·60 |
| Silica | 0·79 |
| ——— | |
| 65·28 |
Analysis of water from a well at the brewery of Messrs Bass (Cooper):—
| Carbonate of lime | 9·93 |
| Sulphate of lime | 54·40 |
| Chloride of calcium | 13·38 |
| Sulphate of magnesia | 0·83 |
| ——— | |
| 78·54 |
The whole of the water used in the Burton breweries is obtained from wells, and not from the river Trent, as was at one time erroneously supposed. A factitious Burton water may, it is said, be obtained by adding sulphate of lime and salt to any soft water, in the proportions stated in the above analyses.