Hello there
I always liked to drink beer and always been the one explaining
to all in the table about one or other beer; saying excuses like this is not
beer, is just a barley juice fermented and coming up with a whole explanation
why the beer is so natural and healthy and why it is worthy to keep drinking.
So all my friends started saying I should become a professional in that since I
like it so much, so here I am.
So, who am I? My name is Nathalia, I graduated as a
veterinarian many years ago but wasn’t really happy with that, so I became a
flight attendant and after 6 years working, flying and partying around the
world I am an officially Doemens Beer
Sommelier.
Now I decided to put together two things I like: travel and
beer. I am particularly lucky because not only I am paid for traveling, but
also because I can drink the beers in the place they are made, what makes a
difference when you want freshly brewed beer with less preservative or without
environmental contamination! (I will
explain all that in the future posts!)
After all, what does a beer sommelier do? I will try to
explain a bit of it with my small essay from my evaluation of beer sommelier
course.
What a beer
sommelier should be?
Many people
think that a sommelier is that person who is all the time well dressed, talking
about a drink with so many words and descriptions that half of the people can’t
understand, and the other half can’t understand how this person can smell,
taste and see so many things in a small glass.
In the case of
beer sommelier, when you say this at first, many people believe you are joking
and when they actually realize you are serious about it, they think you are a
drunk person that is paid to drink beer the whole day.
Well, that
sometimes can be the case, but a beer sommelier is a truly professional person
who just not only drinks, or better tastes beer for living, but is also a
person who educates others in this vast world and can bring new curious ones
into it.
Beer sommeliers
are like guides in a world that is becoming more professional and more
differentiated every day, even though this world already existed for a long
time.
Beer sommeliers
are just changing the way people look to the “old friend” – THE BEER, making it
not just an instrument of friendship among people, but bringing a bit of
sophistication to a day-by-day drink too.
After all,
nobody makes friends drinking milk!
Nevertheless,
let’s get to the point and talk about what we are here for: BEER! Let’s start
from the beginning. What is Beer?
This is the
definition from Wikipedia!
“Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the saccharification of
starch and fermentation of the resulting sugar. The starch and
saccharification enzymes are often derived from malted cereal grains, most
commonly malted barley and malted wheat. Most beer is also flavoured with hops, which add bitterness and act as a natural preservative, though other flavourings such as herbs or fruit may occasionally be
included. The preparation of beer is called brewing.
Beer is the world's most widely
consumed alcoholic beverage, and is the third-most popular drink
overall, after water and tea. It is thought
by some to be the oldest fermented beverage.
Some of humanity's earliest known
writings refer to the production and distribution of beer: the Code of Hammurabi included laws regulating beer and beer parlours, and
"The Hymn to Ninkasi", a prayer to the Mesopotamian goddess of
beer, served as both a prayer and as a method of remembering the recipe for
beer in a culture with few literate people. Today, the brewing industry is a
global business, consisting of several dominant multinational
companies and many
thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries.
The strength of beer is usually
around 4% to 6% alcohol by volume (abv)
although it may vary between 0.5% (de-alcoholized) and 20%, with some breweries
creating examples of 40% abv and above in recent years.
Beer forms part of the culture of
beer-drinking nations and is associated with social traditions such as beer festivals, as well as a rich pub culture involving activities like pub crawling and pub games such as bar billiards.”
Making the things easier: beer really is a
barley fermented drink!
What are all
those ingredients and what they change in beer? I will slowly explain that,
post after post and I will try to post here as often as I can about my trips
and the beer I tasted. Because there is so much to talk about in the beer
world!!
So, see you
soon!!
Spéciale Flag 
