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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from worldwide

Ale (top-fermented barley beer)

Barley is malted, mashed in hot water so its own enzymes turn starch into sugar, then boiled with hops. Ale yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) ferments the cooled wort at about 20 °C, which is warmer and faster than a lager. Made in 10 steps over 28 days – 31 days. The longest step, bottle-condition, takes 14 days (Thesseling F.A 2019) and runs at 20 °C (Thesseling F.A 2019). Saccharomyces cerevisiae does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step14 daysSet[thesseling2019]Bottle-condition
Temperature20 °CSet[thesseling2019]Bottle-condition
AciditypH 5.5Reported[bokulich2013]Primary fermentation

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe tested laboratory recipe of Thesseling et al. (2019) at KU Leuven, a generic ale of about 25 IBU. It makes about 20 L of 12 °P wort, of which 12 L is fermented. Malting is done by a maltster, so the recipe starts from pale ale malt.
4.2 kgPale ale malt · Milled with the roller set to 0.7 mm[thesseling2019]
12 LMash water · Heated to a strike temperature of 71 °C[thesseling2019]
16 LSparge water · Heated to 78 °C to rinse the grain bed[thesseling2019]
12 gBittering hops (15 % alpha acids) · Added at the start of a 60-minute boil[thesseling2019]
0.75 × 10⁶ cells per mL per °PAle yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) · 108 billion cells for 12 L of 12 °P wort[thesseling2019]
2.37 g per 330 mL bottleGlucose for priming · Gives about 0.5 g CO₂ per 100 g beer[thesseling2019]
Starterdefined-culture (Saccharomyces cerevisiae ale yeast; historically yeast skimmed from the last batch)

Total time across the recorded steps: 28 days – 31 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a grain13–20 °C

What changes: Water soaks into the barley until the grain holds 40–45 % moisture

Step 1 of 10
Steep the barley
Time
36 h – 2 days
Reported
Temperature
13–20 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Yeasts

Output: wet grain ready to sprout.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Ale is the warm, top-fermented branch of beer. Its yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, works at about 20 °C and is done in about a week, and the warmth gives fruity esters. Lager uses a cold-tolerant hybrid yeast at 14 °C or less and then matures close to 0 °C.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Ale styles (pale ale, bitter, porter, stout, wheat beers)The same flow with different malts, hops and yeast strains.

Made the ale way

Safety

Boiling sanitises the wort, and alcohol, hops, low pH and CO₂ keep finished beer stable. Fusarium mould on barley can carry mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol into beer, so malting barley is tested for it. WHO says no level of alcohol use is safe for health.

Hazards the sources name: Fusarium on barley, whose mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol survive brewing; Enterobacteria in cooled wort before the yeast takes over.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

  1. [thesseling2019] Thesseling F.A., Bircham P.W., Mertens S., Voordeckers K., Verstrepen K.J. 2019, A hands-on guide to brewing and analyzing beer in the laboratory, Current Protocols in Microbiology 54:e91 (KU Leuven and VIB)paper
  2. [chen2022] Chen W., Cheung H.Y.K., McMillan M., Turkington T.K., Izydorczyk M.S., Gräfenhan T. 2022, The dynamics of indigenous epiphytic bacterial and fungal communities of barley grains through the commercial malting process in Western Canada, Current Research in Food Science 5:1352–1364paper
  3. [jevcsak2026] Jevcsák S., Diósi G., Törős G., Fülep Á., Máthé E. 2026, The role of malting and brewer's spent grain in sustainable cereal utilization, Foods 15(2):287paper
  4. [bokulich2013] Bokulich N.A., Bamforth C.W. 2013, The microbiology of malting and brewing, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 77(2):157–172 (University of California, Davis)paper
  5. [who2023] WHO Regional Office for Europe 2023, No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health (statement published in The Lancet Public Health; news release, 4 January 2023)gov