Your Beer's Journey through Brewing

Ever wondered how your beer’s appearance may vary throughout the whole brewing process? Every day from day 0 to day 14 of Inner Circle’s recommended times, (OK, we may have missed the odd weekend day…), we took a photo of our beer to see how its appearance changes over time and it yielded some interesting results! 

Obviously, there’s not much going on right after you’ve closed your Pinter up for brewing. Our brew is currently in what’s known as the “lag time” of fermentation (where yeast converts sugars into alcohol) - this is when the yeast is growing as it prepares to have its dinner (the tasty fermentable sugars on offer). As you’d imagine, today’s sample essentially looks like water and a Fresh Press mixed together.

You can instantly tell the difference between Day 0 and even Day 1; first of all, there’s some carbonation - this is indicative of fermentation taking place, with CO2 a natural byproduct of fermentation. Additionally, the beer is slightly hazy - this is due to the millions of microscopic yeast cells that are now in suspension. 

I bet you can guess when fermentation was at its most active? That’s right, it’s the extra foamy picture above (Day 2). It’s unusual enough to pour a sample when the Brewing Dock is still connected to the Pinter but, interestingly, during the peak of fermentation activity there was a notable increase in carbonation when tapping. This is when the rate of fermentation is at its quickest, therefore the production of byproducts (CO2 and alcohol) is also at its peak. For the rest of the brewing stage, you can see the beer starts to get slightly less hazy in the final two pictures, and the foam calms down a lot from the peak.

Now we’re into Conditioning. Day 8 is a Cold Crash and the rest is in the horizontal position with the Brewing Dock detached. In addition to the foamy head at the top of the beer, you can see bubbles start to appear in the liquid as the CO2 is dissolving into the beer at the cold fridge temperatures. Additionally, the clarity has improved and is slowly getting better every day until… 

Well, would you take a look at that? That’s a beautiful glass of your own freshly tapped beer if I can say so myself. It’s crystal clear, full of carbonation and life, and has a lovely head every pour. It’s come a long way from separate ingredients being mixed together inside your Pinter. Not to mention the taste - delicious.