Pavones Guide to Beer Styles

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        There is a revolution going on in the American beer industry.  Today we are seeing many old style beers which were made all over the country before prohibition.  American beer is only one type of beer.  The purpose of this guide is to tell you a little about the different types and varieties of beer which are available to you.

    The classic beer styles all originate from the northern part of central and Western Europe, but today those styles are brewed with skill around the world.
    As more breweries open and more beers are introduced or available in new markets, consumers may feel overwhelmed. Understanding beer starts with understanding style.
    The links below will take you to pages giving style definitions.

Ales   Barley Wine    BelgianBitter  IPABrown   CreamFramboise   KolschLambic    PalePorter

Lagers  Bock     DarkDoppelbock   DryExport   FestKolsch   Maibock Malt    Munchner      Pilsner   Porter   Stout   Weisse  White/Wit  Wiesen

Ale   The English-language term for a brew made with a top-fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, which should impart to it a distinctive fruitiness.   These strains perform at warmer temperatures, the ferments are faster and fermentation by products are generally more evident.  Ales are produced to a wide variety of colors, palates and strengths.   Only in some American states is the term determined by law (wrongly) to indicate a brew of more than 4 percent weight (5 by volume).

Barley Wine These ales are copper to medium brown in color.  Malty sweetness, low to high hop bitterness.

Belgian and French Ales There is a range from Flanders Brown which is deep copper to brown, slightly sour and spicy with no hop flavor or aroma.  Then Dubbel which is amber to brown, sweet, malty, nutty, chocolate, low bitterness and medium to full body.  Tripel a light pale color with a light malty/hoppy aroma and a medium to full body.  Belgian Ales are golden to deep amber, hop character subdued and a light to medium body.  Belgian Strong is pale to dark brown and medium bodied.  White is unmalted wheat and barley often spiced with coriander and dried orange peel.  Hop flavor and aroma of the noble type desired.  Low to medium body, dry with low to medium fruit esters.

Bitter English term for a well-hopped ale, most often on draught. Although examples vary widely, the name implies a depth of hop bitterness.  There is usually some acidity in the finish and colour vanes from  bronze to deep copper. Basic bitters usually have an alcohol content of around 3.75-4 percent by volume, "Best" or "Special" bitters come in at 4.4 - 7.5, the odd "Extra Special" at about 5.5.

India Pale Ale (IPA) British pale ales for the Indian Empire were made to a higher than  normal strength, and given more hops, to protect them on the journey. Today, the hoppiest examples of this style are made by the new generation of American brewers. 5.0-plus, sometimes far higher.  Golden to deep amber/copper, medium body, medium maltiness, high hop bitterness.

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Brown Ale In the south of England, a dark-brown ale, sweet in palate, low in alcohol (3-3.5 by volume). In the northeast, a reddish-brown ale, drier, of 4.4-5. The slightly sour, brown brews of Flanders are also ales, though they do not generally use the designation.

Cream Ale An American designation, implying a very pale (usually golden), mild, light bodied ale that may actually have been blended with a  lager. Around 4.75 by volume.

Framboise/frambozen Raspberry beer, usually based on lambic. Alcohol content varies.

Kolsch Cologne's style. Golden top-fermenting, layered. Softly drinkable, with a delicate fruitiness 4.3-5.0 by volume.

Lambic Spontaneously fermenting style of wheat beer unique to Belgium, notably the Senne Valley. About 4.4.

Pale Ale Pale in this instance means bronze or copper-coloured, as opposed to dark brown. Pale ale is a term used by some English brewers to identify their premium bitters.

Porters As you will notice there is also a  Porter in the Lager section.  Porter is black, sharp bitterness medium to full body, malty sweet, a brown Porter has low to medium malt sweetness.
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Lager     Any beer made by bottom-fermentation with Saccaromyces Carlsbergenis yeast and colder fermentation temperature than ales.  This colder fermentation process inhibits the production of esters, creating a cleaner taste. In Britain, lagers are usually golden in color, but in continental Europe they can also be dark. In the German-speaking world and The Netherlands, the term may be used to indicate the most basic beer of the house, the biere ordinaire.

Bok, Bock The German term for a strong beer. If unqualified, it indicates a bottom-fermenting brew from barley malt. In Germany, bock usually has more than 6.25 percent alcohol by volume, and may be golden, tawny or dark brown. Outside Germany, strengths vary, and a bock is usually dark. Bock beers are served in autumn, late winter or spring, depending upon the country. See also Maibock, Doppelbock, Weizenbock.

Dark beer  There are many, quite unrelated, styles of dark brew. If this vague term is used without qualification, it usually means a dark lager of the Munich type.

Doppelbock "Double" bock. German extra-strong bottom-fermenting beer, tawny or dark brown.  Around 7.5 by volume or stronger.  Southern speciality, seasonal to March and April. Names usually end in -ator.

Dry Beer Originally a milder adaptation of the German Diat Pils, renamed Dry Beer by the Japanese. After its great marketing success in Japan, the term Dry Beer was taken up in North America. There, the style was made milder still. American Dry Beer has a conventional alcohol and calorie content but is notable for having scarcely any taste, and no finish.

Export In Germany, a pale, Dortmund style bottom-fermented beer, bigger bodied than a Pilsner and less dry, but not as sweet as a Munich pale beer. At 5.25-5.5 by volume, stronger than either. Elsewhere: usually indicates a premium beer.

Festbier  In Germany, any beer made for a festival. Styles vary, but they tend to be above average strength, often 5.5 - 6 volume.

Hefe- The German word for yeast, indicating that a beer is bottle-conditioned and sedimented.

Kolsch Pale gold, low hop flavor and aroma, medium bitterness, slightly dry palate.  Lager or ale yeast or a combination of yeasts.  No fruitiness.

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Maibock Celebratory springtime or "May" Bock, often released in April or even late March, Often pale.

Malt Liquor Not malty, and sometimes containing substantial amounts of cheaper sugars. Not a liquor, either, but usually a strongish variation on a regular American lager. Intended for a cheap "high". Some states require the term malt liquor to be applied to all beers of more than 5.0 percent by volume.

Munchener/Munchner  Means "Munich-style".  In international brewing terminology, this indicates a dark-brown lager, a style developed in Munich (although another Bavarian town, Kulmbach, also has a long tradition of dark lagers). In Munich, such a brew is clearly identified by the word Dunkel ("dark"), and classic examples have an alcohol content of around 5 percent by volume. Bavarian brewers in general also impart their own distinctively malty accent to their everyday, lower-gravity (alcohol content around 3.7) pale beers. These are sometimes identified as Munchner Hell, to distinguish them from the same brewers' Pilsener-style product.

Pilsener/Pilsner/Pils  Loosely, any golden-coloured, dry, bottom fermenting beer of conventional strength might be described as such (in its various spellings abbreviations) though this most famous designation properly belongs only to a product of "super-premium" quality. Too many brewers take it lightly, in more senses than one. In their all-round interpretation, German brewers take the style most seriously inspired by the Urquell (original) brew from the town of Pilsen, in the Czech province of Bohemia. A classic Pilsener, has a gravity of around 12 Balling and is characterized by the hoppiness of its flowery aroma and dry finish.

Porter A London style that became extinct, though it has recently been revived. It was a lighter-bodied companion to stout, and the most accurate revivals are probably the porters made by American micro-brewers like Sierra Nevada. Around 5 percent by volume. In some countries, the porter tradition remains in roasty-tasting dark brews that are bottom-fermented, and often of a greater strength.

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Stout  An extra-dark, almost black, top-fermenting brew, made with highly roasted malts. Sweet stout, an English style, is typified by Mackeson, which has only about 3.75 percent alcohol by volume in its domestic market but more than 5 in the Americas. Sweet stout usually contains milk sugars (lactose), and is a soothing restorative.  Dry stout, the Irish style, is typified by Guinness, which comes in at around 4 percent in the British Isles, a little more in North America and as much as 8 in tropical countries. Dry stouts sometimes contain roasted unmalted barley. Imperial Stout, originally brewed as a winter warmer, for sale in the Tsarist Russian Empire, is medium dry and distinguished by its great strength: anything from 7 to more than 10.

Weisse/Weissbier, Weizenbier The German term for "white" beer, implying a pale brew made from wheat. In the north, a special renown is enjoyed by Berliner Weisse, a style in its own right. A different style of Weissbier is made in the south, with a more conventional alcohol content (usually a little over
5 percent by volume), a higher proportion of wheat (at least 50 percent) and a yeast (again top-fermenting) that produces a tart, fruity, spicy palate, sometimes with notes of cooking apples and cloves. Often, instead of Weissbier, the southerners prefer the term Weizen (a similar-sounding word but it means, quite simply "wheat"). If the beer is sedimented with yeast, it may be prefixed.   Hefe-. Southern wheat beers are also produced in dark versions (these Dunkel Weizen brews have a delicious complex of fruitiness and maltiness), and in Export and Bock strengths. Weizenbock is sometimes served as a Christmas beer.

White A term once used to describe wheat beers. Apart from those of German-speaking countries, Belgium's white beers (Witbier, Biere Blanche) are of considerable interest.

Wiesen/Wies'n Among several words that are confusingly similar to the non-German speaker, this one means "meadow". It implies a beer brewed for a carnival or festival (an Oktoberfest beer may be described as a Wies'n Marzen) or a rustic speciality (such as Kuppers' unfiltered Wiess).

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