BrewTALES from the road - How is this made?

Our book, The National Geographic Atlas of Beer is in the final proof stage. It's full of geography, history, and culture of beer, as well as stories told to us by brewers. Here is one interesting story, among many you will find in our book, which will be for sale in mid September, 2017.   

A year ago, we had the chance to travel to South America to visit breweries and learn more about the beer culture. We had tried chicha before in Colombia, but now knowing how it's made, we might have second thoughts.

What would you do with your beer if someone spat in it? Chicha is the original fermented beverage made by the local populations in Latin America before the arrival of the Europeans. It is a corn based beverage, that starts with people chewing kernels of corn and relying on the enzymes in saliva to begin breaking the starch into sugars. People are essentially malting the corn in their mouths! The resulting paste is then spat into bowl. Water is added and then the mixture is boiled and once cooled, yeast settles into the wort and fermentation begins.  Today, chicha is still made in this manner in indigenous villages, but it also made using commercially malted corn, thereby skipping the chewing and spitting steps. Bottoms up!


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