Brewing process
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The most important step in beer brewing, because: “Brewers don’t make beer, we make wort. Yeast makes beer,” says Lagunitas’ Brewmonster Jeremy Marshall.
In short, this step involves adding the yeast to the wort. Yeast is a unicellular living organism (a fungus) that gets its energy from sugars. Yeast eats sugar from the wort and then pees out alcohol, emits winds of CO2 and defecates all kinds of other flavorings. That may sound distasteful, but this is the step where actual beer is formed.
The fermentation is finished when all fermentable sugars have been converted. The duration of this is a few days to weeks, depending on the beer being made.
Lagering
During this phase, the young beer is given time to mature. This often happens at a (very) low temperature. During lagering, all kinds of biochemical processes take place that remove the unwanted flavors. Bottom-fermented beers benefit from a lower lagering time, which is why they are called Lagers.
During this phase, the brewer can add hops one last time, this is called dry hopping. This is only done for the hop roma, IPA is the most famous beer style where this happens. Dry-hopping can also be done during fermentation