The beer is a fermented alcoholic drink whose basic ingredients are malted barley (germinated barley), water (beer contains 95 % of it), hop and yeasts.

The production of beer is made of three big steps: malting, mashing and fermentation.

These three steps are divided in many operations. We will particularly describe the following ones :

1. Malting 
2. Mashing 
3. Boiling and hopping 
4. Fermentation
5. Maturation and bottling

 1 - Malting

Barley, which is the fundamental raw material of beer, does not give, just as it is, a fermentescible extract by yeast. By mashing it in hot water we could only get a bad use of it. We have to let it go through a beginning of germination. Enzymes, which attack the grain and dissolve it in water, are produced during the mashing. Especially starch is broken down to fermentable sugar by the action of the enzymes during the mashing.
This beginning of germination is called “malting”. This preliminary step of the production often constitutes an industry on its own: the malt-house. The Brewery “Grain d’Orge” buys directly the malt in a malt-house.

Malting consists first of a soaking in water during about three days. Then it is spread in layers to let it germinate during eight days and finally we stop germination by the desiccation on a kiln or kilning. After this operation, the colour of the malt varies between yellow and brown going through every golden hue. According to his will of making of lager or brown beer, the brewer chooses one or the other malt.