BEER PLANT

The world of today is changing fast. India is no exception. Especially after the opening up of the economy, the pace of change that India and its people are experiencing in their socio-cultural milieu is mind-boggling. India, with its wide diversity, offers a fascinating scope to study the host of changes which developmental activities have brought about in its social and economic fabric1. While it is possible to get any accurate measure of the subjective experiences that precede, accompany or follow such changes. However, the fact remains that the profile of the Indian market is vastly different from what it was five years ago. Although these changes are difficult to measure at the micro level, nevertheless, they have been of great significance to markets. Any market is keen to closely monitor the changes in terms of numbers and specially to keep regular track of the changing pattern of consumer’s aspirations and competitive actions.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods usually refer to non-durable products. Examples include soft drinks, toiletries, grocery items, etc. A customer usually spends a minimum of effort to procure them. However, much of astute marketing activities have evolved from this class of products, where consumers show low involvement, put wider choice and allured by a host of inducements.

Beer is an alcoholic beverage with low alcoholic content (2 to 7 % by volume) produced by the saccharification of starch and fermentation of the resulting sugar. Starch and enzymes used for saccharification are derived from cereal grains most commonly barley, malted to develop essential enzymes and produce the desired flavor, and adjuncts such as rice, sugar, cassava, and corn. Other basic raw materials include hops, which is used mainly to impart a more or less bitter taste to the beer; water, which comprises 90-95% of the product; and yeast, which is used in fermentation to produce ethanol and CO2.

All beers are brewed using a process based on a simple formula. Key to the beer making process is malted grain, depending on the region traditionally barley, wheat or sometimes rye. The beer production consist of 9 steps: Grinding, Mashing, Lautering, Wort boiling, Cooling, Fermentation, Storage, Filtration, Filling.

The basic ingredients of beer are water; a starch source, such as malted barley, able to be saccharified (converted to sugars) then fermented (converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide); a brewer’s yeast to produce the fermentation; and a flavouring such as hops. Traditionally there are two styles of beer: ale and lager. Most types of beer will either fall into one category or the other.

History of Beer

History of Beer – Beer has been brewed prior to written history. But ironically, the oldest known recipe set down by man appears to be one for brewing beer, found on stone tablets in Sumer, in southernMesopotamia, the “fertile crescent” or “cradle of civilization” between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that includes modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and southwestern Iran.

Beer is the most frequently-consumed beverage in the world, after water and tea! Some scholars believe that it has been brewed since the sixth millennium B.C.E. By 4000 B.C.E., the Babylonians were brewing at least sixteen varieties of beer (when you see all of the different styles in this glossary, you won’t be surprised at that number). The Pharaohs of Egypt paid their workers with jugs of beer (later, the Romans would pay their legions in salt, leaving us with the phrase, “worth his salt” rather than “worth his beer”).

For those of you who have never been exactly clear on the difference between all the beer types—ale, pale ale, bock, pilsner, and lager.

The histories of bread and ale are interlinked as they use much the same raw materials and the English poet John Taylor called beer ‘ a loaf out of a brewer’s basket.’ And although methods of brewing have changed over the years the essential process remains the same even today.

In Europe, monks were the principal brewers of ale, then a sweet and glutinous drink. Not only was ale food but because it was boiled it was considerably safer to drink than water. Beer needed something extra and that was hops which not only added extra flavor but also acted as a preservative.