Photo by Rob ShenkI’m sure most of you can recall taking a Psychology 101 class. If you went to a state school like me, you most likely remember it as 400 people crammed into a 350-person capacity lecture hall. All of us trying to not fall asleep, picking out key topics so you don’t have to read the textbook and seeing if that cute girl in the front is sitting next to her friend…or her boyfriend.
However, I’m also sure you remember everyone’s favorite coca plant advocate and dream analyzer: Dr. Sigmund Freud. While he originally developed his theoretical construct model of the psyche — id, ego, and super-ego — to explain the fundamental driving behaviors of the human mind, his model also gives us a little insight in to how the ingredients in beer interact with each other.
Hops are the true id of the formula. They have no concerns other than pleasing our taste buds with unabashed, oily satisfaction. They want to fulfill desires of refreshing bitterness with a devil-may-care attitude to all other flavors in our adult beverage.
Water and yeast control the workflow, or ego, on the beer. They consciously dictate a direction in which the beer develops character, working with the id and super-ego to delegate fermenting style and create alcohol to blur the line between conscious and subconscious.
Finally, malts provide the restraining flavors that are needed to balance the brutish id. Malts leash the unruly hops and provide the super-ego balance that our beer psyche wants. As we have already talked about the hops and malts areas of the brain brewing process, put on your best nerd outfit (lab coat preferred), and strap in for a discussion of the underappreciated workhorses of our beers: water and yeast.
