Beer Terms

Alcohol by volume (ABV)- Amount of alcohol in beer in terms of percentage volume of alcohol per volume of beer.

IBUs - International Bitterness units. A system of indicating the hop bitterness in finished beer.

Original gravity - A measurement of the density of fermentable sugars in a mixture of malt and water with which a brewer begins a given batch.

Final Gravity - Specific gravity of a beer when fermentation is complete (that is, all fermentable sugars have been fermented).

Hops - Herb added to boiling wort or fermenting beer to impart a bitter aroma and flavor.

Malt Extract - The condensed wort from a mash, consisting of maltose, dextrins and, other dissolved solids. Either as a syrup or powdered sugar, it is used by brewers, in solutions of water and extract, to reconstitute wort for fermentation.

Wort - The solution of grain sugars strained from the mash tun. At this stage, regarded as "sweet wort", later as brewed wort, fermenting wort and finally beer.

Mash - (Verb) To release malt sugars by soaking the grains in water. (Noun) The resultant mixture.

Yeast - A micro-organism of the fungus family. Genus Saccharomyces.