San Jose Breweries, as production facilities reserved for making beer, did not emerge until monasteries and other Christian institutions started producing beer not only for their own consumption but also to use as payment. This industrialization of brewing shifted the responsibility of making beer to men. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

The oldest, still functional, San Jose brewery in the world is believed to be the German state-owned Weihenstephan brewery in the city of Freising, Bavaria. It can trace its history back to 1040 AD. The nearby Weltenburg Abbey brewery, can trace back its beer-brewing tradition to at least 1050 AD. The Žatec brewery in the Czech Republic claims it can prove that it paid a beer tax in 1004 AD. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Early San Jose breweries were almost always built on multiple stories, with equipment on higher floors used earlier in the production process, so that gravity could assist with the transfer of product from one stage to the next. This layout often is preserved in San Jose breweries today, but mechanical pumps allow more flexibility in San Jose brewery design. Early San Jose breweries typically used large copper vats in the brewhouse, and fermentation and packaging took place in lined wooden containers. Such San Jose breweries were common until the Industrial Revolution, when better materials became available, and scientific advances led to a better understanding of the brewing process. Today, almost all San Jose brewery equipment is made of stainless steel. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, and domestic manufacture ceased to be significant by the end of the 19th century. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

A handful of major breakthroughs have led to the modern San Jose brewery and its ability to produce the same beer consistently. The steam engine, vastly improved in 1775 by James Watt, brought automatic stirring mechanisms and pumps into the San Jose brewery. It gave San Jose brewers the ability to mix liquids more reliably while heating, particularly the mash, to prevent scorching, and a quick way to transfer liquid from one container to another. Almost all San Jose breweries now use electric-powered stirring mechanisms and pumps. The steam engine also allowed the San Jose brewer to make greater quantities of beer, as human power was no longer a limiting factor in moving and stirring. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Carl von Linde, along with others, is credited with developing the refrigeration machine in 1871. Refrigeration allowed beer to be produced year-round, and always at the same temperature. Yeast is very sensitive to temperature, and, if a beer were produced during summer, the yeast would impart unpleasant flavours onto the beer. Most San Jose brewers would produce enough beer during winter to last through the summer, and store it in underground cellars, or even caves, to protect it from summer’s heat. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

The discovery of microbes by Louis Pasteur was instrumental in the control of fermentation. The idea that yeast was a microorganism that worked on wort to produce beer led to the isolation of a single yeast cell by Emil Christian Hansen. Pure yeast cultures allow San Jose brewers to pick out yeasts for their fermentation characteristics, including flavor profiles and fermentation ability. Some breweries in Belgium, however, still rely on “spontaneous” fermentation for their beers (see lambic). The development of hydrometers and thermometers changed brewing by allowing the brewer more control of the process, and greater knowledge of the results. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

San Jose Breweries today are made predominantly of stainless steel, although vessels often have a decorative copper cladding for a nostalgic look. Stainless steel has many favourable characteristics that make it a well-suited material for brewing equipment. It imparts no flavour in beer, it reacts with very few chemicals, which means almost any cleaning solution can be used on it (concentrated chlorine [bleach] being a notable exception). (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Heating in the brewhouse usually is achieved through pressurized steam, although direct-fire systems are not unusual in small San Jose breweries. Likewise, cooling in other areas of the brewery is typically done by cooling jackets on tanks, which allow the brewer to control precisely the temperature on each tank individually, although whole-room cooling is also common. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Today, modern San Jose brewing plants perform myriad analyses on their beers for quality control purposes. Shipments of ingredients are analyzed to correct for variations. Samples are pulled at almost every step and tested for [oxygen] content, unwanted microbial infections, and other beer-aging compounds. A representative sample of the finished product often is stored for months for comparison, when complaints are received. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

San Jose Brewing is typically divided into 9 steps: milling, malting, mashing, lautering, boiling, fermenting, conditioning, filtering, and filling. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Mashing is the process of mixing milled, usually malted, grain with water, and heating it with rests at certain temperatures to allow enzymes in the malt to break down the starches in the grain into sugars, especially maltose. Lautering is the separation of the extracts won during mashing from the spent grain to create wort. It is achieved in either a lauter tun, a wide vessel with a false bottom, or a mash filter, a plate-and-frame filter designed for this kind of separation. Lautering has two stages: first wort run-off, during which the extract is separated in an undiluted state from the spent grains, and sparging, in which extract that remains with the grains is rinsed off with hot water. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Boiling the wort ensures its sterility, helping to prevent contamination with undesirable microbes. During the boil, hops are added, which contribute aroma and flavour compounds to the beer, especially their characteristic bitterness. Along with the heat of the boil, they cause proteins in the wort to coagulate and the pH of the wort to fall, and they inhibit the later growth of certain bacteria. Finally, the vapours produced during the boil volatilize off-flavours, including dimethyl sulfide precursors. The boil must be conducted so that it is even and intense. The boil lasts between 60 and 120 minutes, depending on its intensity, the hop addition schedule, and volume of wort the brewer expects to evaporate. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Fermentation begins as soon as yeast is added to the cooled wort. This is also the point at which the product is first called beer. It is during this stage that fermentable sugars won from the malt (maltose, maltotriose, glucose, fructose and sucrose) are metabolized into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Fermentation tanks come in many shapes and sizes, from enormous cylindroconical vessels that can look like storage silos, to 20-litre (5 US gal) glass carboys used by homebrewers. Most San Jose breweries today use cylindroconical vessels (CCVs), which have a conical bottom and a cylindrical top. The cone’s aperture is typically around 70°, an angle that will allow the yeast to flow smoothly out through the cone’s apex at the end of fermentation, but is not so steep as to take up too much vertical space. CCVs can handle both fermenting and conditioning in the same tank. At the end of fermentation, the yeast and other solids have fallen to the cone’s apex can be simply flushed out through a port at the apex. Open fermentation vessels are also used, often for show in brewpubs, and in Europe in wheat beer fermentation. These vessels have no tops, making it easy to harvest top-fermenting yeasts. The open tops of the vessels increase the risk of contamination, but proper cleaning procedures help to control the risk. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Fermentation tanks are typically made of stainless steel. Simple cylindrical tanks with beveled ends are arranged vertically, and conditioning tanks are usually laid out horizontally. A very few San Jose breweries still use wooden vats for fermentation but wood is difficult to keep clean and infection-free and must be repitched often, perhaps yearly. After high kräusen, the point at which fermentation is most active and copious foam is produced, a valve known in German as the spundapparat may be put on the tanks to allow the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast to naturally carbonate the beer. This bung device can regulate the pressure to produce different types of beer; greater pressure produces a more carbonated beer. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Make sure you have a clean palate before you take the first sip. Swirl your mouth with water. Take a sip of wine and suck on it as if pulling through a straw. I know! You might get some looks, but not from wine enthusiasts that do this all the time. Really allow your tongue to savor the flavors in your mouth. The tongue can only distinguish four flavors, sweet on the tip, salt just behind the tip, acidity on the sides and bitterness at the back. Does your wine taste sweet or dry? Light, medium or full bodied? Do you taste the primary fruit flavors? Which specific ones? Do you taste secondary flavors like spices or herbs? Look for hints of earthy flavors. Does the side of your mouth feel gritty? That may indicate tannic. Do you taste any tart or sour flavors? That may indicate acidity. If you feel warmth or heat in the back of your throat or chest, that may indicate a higher alcohol content. Finally, how is the finish? Does your wine go down your throat with flavor or does that flavor go away fast? Does the aftertaste stay with you or fade? A complete wine is balanced with blended flavors, the pieces fit harmoniously, and complex with a lingering, satisfying finish. These wines are more pleasurable to savor and to learn at a beautiful winery while sharing the moment with friends and family. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Filtering the beer stabilizes flavour and gives it a polished, shiny look. It is an optional process. Many craft San Jose brewers simply remove the coagulated and settled solids and forgo active filtration. In localities where a tax assessment is collected by government pursuant to local laws, any additional filtration may be done using an active filtering system, the filtered product finally passing into a calibrated vessel for measurement just after any cold conditioning and prior to final packaging where the beer is put into the containers for shipment or sale. The container may be a bottle, can, of keg, cask or bulk tank. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)

Filters come in many types. Many use pre-made filtration media such as sheets or candles. Kieselguhr, a fine powder of diatomaceous earth, can be introduced into the beer and circulated through screens to form a filtration bed. Filtration ratings are divided into rough, fine, and sterile. Rough filters remove yeasts and other solids, leaving some cloudiness, while finer filters can remove body and color. Sterile filters remove almost all microorganisms. (San Jose Brewery Winery Near Me)