Beer – Characterization and Special Features
Known to man since ancient times, beer has always been a refreshing drink bearing the distinctive aroma and taste of the hop plant. Passing through the olden days of the Sumerians and the Babylonians, to the ancient world of the Egyptians and the Europeans, the beer beverage comes to the world of today with a fortune in history and diversity. This is the begining of the home brewing.
In present days are known an enormous variety of beer, each of which is distinctive with something original, characteristic and unique. There are many reasons for the existence of considerable differences in taste, color and aroma even amongst the same types of beer. Some of them are distinguished by their light or dark color, smoked, caramelized or fruit tones in the taste and aroma, with their specific components caused by the use of barley or wheat malt, the presence of beer yeast, high alcoholic content and many more. Such an example would be that light beers are characterized by a hay-yellow and amber color, which slightly differs between these and special beers, while the rest of the types can change their nuances, and color properties that vary from caramel, morello, even to dense coffee color. The pure hop and malt aroma of light beers stand out. These own an unmatched freshness and balance. A characteristic is the light and pleasant bitterness, which normally increases toward the special and more high-extractive beers.
Dark beers combine a part of these characteristics, but with their own present, slightly caramel sweetness, dense and clearly expressed malt taste. In this case the bitterness is subtly masked by the dominating coffee tones, and this is quite natural, bearing in mind the special dark malts used. A characteristic trait of these is the underlying malt sweetness and the taste of over baked malt.
Beers with the definition of “Live Beer” are gaining popularity among the fans of the frothy drink. These unfiltered beers, distinguished by the presence of beer yeasts, are exceptionally rich in aroma, freshness, unrivaled and memorable taste. Assortments produced with wheat have made their too. On the other hand, they are differentiated with their individuality, coming forth with particular and intensive fruit aroma, dense body and harmony.
Wine – Characterization and Distinctive Features
White wines are usually produced from white grapes, but can also be made from red grapes, if their juice is uncolored. The Classic white wines, fermented in an oak barrel, have a saturated pale yellow color; the aroma and taste reveal delicate touches of ripened and over ripened fruits, and nuts that are well incorporated into the common setting of gentle oak sawdust. The New World wines have a golden-yellow color with playful and fresh green hues woven in. The aroma and taste are intensively highlighted by the incredibly ornate burst of the fresh and ripened tropical fruits’ and fruit-colored tones’ pageant.
Rose wines are a fascinating section of a rich tonality of categories, sorts and types of wine. Their color is to a large extent reminiscent of the color of Red wines, but they are vinified in accordance with the white wine technology, by means of the accelerated or decelerated (in correspondence with the desired outcomes) filtering out of the grape juice from the solid bits of the grapes. This fashion allows the nuances to vary in a wide diapason of red – from the classic French rosé, that has the characteristic color of onion skins, to the fresh tones of wild strawberries and raspberries.
Red wines are made only from red grapes with either colored or uncolored juice. They leave the winemaker with unlimited possibilities for highlighting and exhibiting intricate complexes of tastes and scents, coming from the actual grapes and the fermentation and maturing processes that take place in oak barrels. And so, for the different types of wine, the color varies from a saturated, dense, grenade colored, purplish red with violet touches for young wines, through an elegant ruby-red for the ones that have aged in oak barrels, to a fine brick red for the bottle-aged wines. The fragrance complexes also vary depending on the wine’s age, the sort of grapes, the terroir (Fr. The growing environment) of the micro region, and others. Often there are juicy, over ripened or thermally processed red and black forest fruits incorporated in young wines, accompanied by spicy seasoning, and even chocolate as is the case with the aristocratic Syrah. During the aging process in the oak barrels the fruit nuances are refined with the aroma and taste of noble oak (or other kind of) bark from these barrels, that is a red wine’s most faithful and irreplaceable friend and companion, even more so if that bark has a controlled degree of cauterization. In the case of the bottle-aged wines all of these aromas and flavors are interwoven into a communal bouquet, and not only that, but from this process we get refined resin tones, eucalyptus, and often a taste of animal meat and skin, truffles, and others.
