At its core, beer is beautifully simple. Four main ingredients do all the heavy lifting: water, malted grain (usually barley), hops, and yeast.

The malt provides sweetness and body, hops bring bitterness and aroma, yeast handles fermentation and creates alcohol, and water ties it all together. Change the balance of any one of these, and you get a completely different result. That’s why beer can range from light and crisp to rich and complex, all from the same basic building blocks.