Beer, Chocolate pre-class

Today a local beer expert, Andrew Van Til, came in to class to teach us about beer and the brewing process.

The main important ingredients in beer are the malt, hop, yeast, and water.

The malt comes from a grain, typically barley, but other grains (such as wheat) may also be used. Malts give the beer its sweet flavor, and vary the color of the beer from light to dark. Various roasting processes of the grain also give the malt different characteristics.

Four grain samples were passed around. They tasted like grape nuts, or unsugary cereal in general. The roasted malt tasted similar to roasted coffee beans from yesterday.

Two beers were passed around the room that were brewed with special focus on the malt. The scents were strong, with the first beer being a bit sweeter. The second beer had a smoky, salty, meaty scent, largely due to the malt being smoked during the roasting process.

The next important ingredient in beer is the hops. Hops are the flower of a vine, and are responsible for the bitter flavoring of beer. They work naturally as a preservative for beer. Hops have flavors fairly specific to the regions in which they are grown, and thus are an important part of the flavor of local beers. Hops also convey a number of herbal, fruity, woody, or grassy flavors and scents.

Several varieties of hops were passed around; they possessed grassy and citrus-like scents, which ranged from pleasant to awful. I tried a leaf from one of the hop varieties. At first, there was a strong, not unpleasant citrus flavor. Then, very rapidly, an extremely intense bitter flavor hit my tongue, a flavor which I found extremely repulsive. Thus, I spit out the leaf.

Two more beers were passed around for smelling, these two brewed with an emphasis on the hops. These smelled a little more like citrus, as well as smelling more grassy and woody. I did not like these as much as the malt-emphasized beers.

Yeast is the next important ingredient. Its function is to consume the sugars in the malt, which it then turns in to CO2 and alcohol. To beers were passed around that had been brewed with a focus on the yeast, they had a scent reminiscent of cloves and bananas, and were apparently more sour than the other beers, although we did not get to taste them.

Water is another important ingredient, the specific mineral content and pH changes the outcome of the beer. We did not try any beers that demonstrated a particular type of water.

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Cocoa production:

Tree flowers--> produces pod --> ripens --> pod gets harvested --> pods get opened and the beans get scooped out --> fermentation --> dried --> roasted -->shell is removed from kernel -->the kernel is ground and the chocolate liquor is extracted --> various additions or processing to form particular variety of chocolate.

In order to determine the relevance of the findings, one needs to determine the average amount of flavanols that are normally consumed by an individual. If they already consume enough to receive a health benefit, the findings are relevant. If the individual must increase his or her chocolate consumption to unhealthy levels to receive the benefit, the findings are not relevant.

Other foods might impart this benefit if the specific flavanols include (-)epicatechin. Simply having flavanols is not enough to be helpful.

Supermarket chocolates probably have little benefit.

The flavanols probably come from a long roasting process, as flavanols give a bitter flavor.

Six 190 calorie chocolate bars are excessive for one person per day. The health benefits of flavanols are not that significant, and, with a healthy diet, chocolate is probably an unnecessary - especially because other foods and beverages are sources of flavanols. Chocolate, for the most part, is pretty empty calories, so having nearly half of one's daily calorie needs from chocolate is certainly too much.

For a 25% increase in skin protection the amount of flavanols needed equates to about 100g of chocolate per day.

Some misconceptions about chocolate in regards to health are that nearly any dark chocolate imparts the health benefits of flavanols, and that the heart-healthy aspect of dark chocolate comes from antioxidants.