Categories: Dagnija Bramane

 Then, when some festivity is at hand, especially the Summer solstice, then we always ask Dad to make beer. He then says – well, I don’t know, if you help me to carry the water, then I’ll make it. Why does he mention water? Because, when making beer, a lot of water is necessary, both hot and cold. The first thing to do is to prepare malt. Malt is made from barley, but there are also those who make beer from other grains – wheat, oats. As it is said in a Latgalian folksong, beer can be made from oats. But if one has barley, the best malt is made from barley. Barley is left to soak in water. It depends on how much malt we need – more than a half of a sack or more malt is made – so that some malt is left for other times. Barley is left in water for two or three days. Then the barley is strewed out in a warm wet place. We usually leave it in the cellar. Then barley is left to shoot in such a 10 cm thick layer. From time to time you stir barley a little. When barley has sprouted all in one piece, then we, the kids, had to go to the cellar and sort of grate that barley so that barley grains are separate. Thus, barley grains are separated and taken to the bathhouse. At the top of the bathhouse there is like a sieve made, and the barley is scattered on that sieve. Then the black bath is heated and the smoke is let through the sieve and the barley dries out there.

If one wants the beer to have more expressed taste of barley, the bathhouse is heated more so that the barley gets roasted, there are different tricks with that barley. The barley is dried for about a day or two depending on one’s wish and the recipe. Later, when the barley is milled, it is poured over with boiling water; then a lot of water has to be brought in and heated. Traditionally, the water is boiled on live fire. Then all that milled barley is poured into such a tub, which is called slaukts, and boiling water is poured over. That tub has a hole in the middle and there is a filter, which is covered with hey. There then the so-called must is filtered, which is that water that had been poured on barley, as we laugh – barley tea. That barley tea is poured into special beer tubs (kubuls) and left to ferment – for about two days. Before the fermentation one can add something as one wishes, you can add also sugar. And it is obligatory to add hops. Hops are added for bitterness and they also function as preservatives for the beer barley to rise. And if the summer is hot then you should add more hops so that beer could be preserved longer. And then, all that is left to mature and ferment. We don’t usually add sugar, but if somebody wants his beer to be stronger, then sugar is usually added, it makes beer stronger. Then that beer ferments. After some days, the process of beer filtering takes place. The beer is poured into barrels, filtered and tasted. There are some tricks as well, various traditions, how that all process is implemented – throwing crosses, so that beer ferments better. Different things. And then you can drink beer.

Researcher: Dr. philol. Valentīns Lukaševičs, Daugavpils Universitāte