Yeast makes beer.  Brewers make wort (pronounced "wert").  Wort is the sugary liquid made from malt that yeast ferments to make beer.  This is a photo of Matt "striking the "mash," where cracked malt grains are mixed with warm water in the tank on the left.  Once the sugars in the malt have dissolved into the water, the water/grain mix is pumped to the tank on the right, called the lauter tun.  The sugary liquid is drained out of the lauter tun and collected back into the tank on the left, leaving the "spent grains" behind.  We recycle the spent grains by feeding them to cattle, which is cool.

Once the proper amount of liquid has been extracted and collected, hops are added to contrast the sweetness and the wort is boiled.  The boiling process breaks down the sugars to a digestible size for the yeast.  The wort is then ready to be transferred to special tanks for fermentation.

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"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

 Benjamin Franklin
Patriot, Statesman,
and Brewer