THE BEERS
Beers fall under 2 categories: Ales and Lagers. Ales are classified as top fermentaion yeasts and lagers are classified as bottom fermentaion yeasts. Ales By far the oldest of the two types of beer, ale production can be traced back more than 5000 years, yielding more intense flavor profiles. Depending on the brewing style, they can be their best when very young (a couple of weeks) to very old (several years). Lagers have only been around for several hundred of years and were not even fully understood until after the invention of the microscope. The yeast strains that make them were orginally propagated on accident. Like white wines, they are fermented and served at cooler (cellar) temperatures. This limits the formation of esters and other fermentation by-products, producing a clean flavor.
India Pale Ale (IPA)
England: The stars of the hop world. As with a number of brewing styles, IPA was born out of necessity. When the British were colonizing India, the beers they sent down to their troops kept spoiling during the long sea voyage. With an extra healthy dose of hops and alcohol, both having great preservative value, their problems were solved, and the world had another distinctive beer style. Today, American craft brewers do more than emulate the style. They continue to push the envelope with strength and bitterness. Curiously, it's much harder to find a true IPA from England these days, with a few notable exceptions, which we will feature.
Pale Ale
Traditionally golden to copper in color, pale ales have low to medium maltiness, with English hop varieties providing flavor and bitterness. Pale ales are not really "pale". The term was originally used to distinguish these ales from porters and stouts. They tend to have a bit more assertive flavors than most beers in the "Bitters" category.
Porter
Porters were the first beer style in the world to achieve national distribution, due to the industrial revolution. The style can be dated to the early 1700's. It has been argued that porter takes its name from the train porters who used to sell their beer throughout the early British rail system. Another notion is that porter was first produced on a commercial scale in London on the River Thames, where it was sent out on ships bound for other port towns. The darkness of the beer covered up cloudiness and the roasty full flavor helped mask flavor defects. These were helpful beer style characteristics during a period when problems with consistency in brewing were commonplace.
Extra Special Bitter (ESB)
Characterized by medium to strong hop aroma, bitterness, and a richer maltiness than special bitter. The combination of both the stronger malt and the higher hop value make ESBs the most complex and full-flavored bitter style.
Strong Ale
Often referred to as old ales due to a long aging process that smooths the alcohol flavors and maltiness. Strong ales range from amber to brown in color, and can reach potencies of 11% ABV.
Cream Stout
A style which has only about 3.75% ABV in its domestic market but more than 5% in the Americas. Sweet stout usually contains milk sugars (lactose), and is a soothing restorative. Very low hops.
Hefeweizen
"Hefe" means "unfiltered" or "with yeast". Clove and banana-like esters produced by particular strains of brewing yeast are signatures of this style. German style wheat beers are highly carbonated, have low hop character and are brewed using at least 50% malted wheat. Sometimes they are called "Weissbiers", or white beer. This is a reference to the light color of the beer and head.
Bocks
These breweries produce them: Westvleteren, Rochefort, Orval, Westmalle, Achel, Chimay, La Trappe Weizen Bock. All bocks were ales in the beginning. Weizenbock is the only member of the family that is still an ale, although it is usually lagered... yet not a lager. Weizenbocks are amazingly complex beers, with cloves, bananas, raisons, and caramel in the flavor, and often over 6% ABV. As wheat beers go, they are stronger than most in alcohol. They range from buckwheat to toffee in color.
Dopplebocks
Originally top-fermented wheat beers, today they are primarily barley-based lagers. Doppelbocks were brewed with more grain than used for bocks, but not fermented as thoroughly. This left a sweet finish. The "noble" hops used in doppelbocks are for balance and slight aroma, nothing more. Despite their strength, they are a study in subtlety.
Pilsners
Higher hop bitterness, moderate hop flavor and aroma, and lighter in color (straw/golden) than the Czech. Hallertau Hops are the German bittering signature, somewhere between 30-40 IBU.