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Beer style
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Beer style
Beer styles differentiate and categorise beers by colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin.
The modern concept of beer styles is largely based on the work of writer Michael Jackson in his 1977 book The World Guide To Beer. In 1989, Fred Eckhardt furthered Jackson's work publishing The Essentials of Beer Style. Although the systematic study of beer styles is a modern phenomenon, the practice of distinguishing between different varieties of beer is ancient, dating to at least 2000 BC.
What constitutes a beer style may involve provenance, local tradition, ingredients, aroma, appearance, flavour and mouthfeel. The flavour may include the degree of bitterness of a beer due to bittering agents such as hops, roasted barley, or herbs; and the sweetness from the sugar present in the beer.
Many beer styles are classified as one of two main types, ales and lagers, though certain styles may not be easily sorted into either category. Beers classified as ales are typically made with yeasts that ferment at warmer temperatures, usually between 15.5 and 24 °C (60 and 75 °F), and form a layer of foam on the surface of the fermenting beer. Thus, they are called top-fermenting yeasts. Lagers utilise yeasts that ferment at considerably lower temperatures, around 10 °C (50 °F), and can process raffinose, a complex sugar created during fermentation. These yeasts collect at the bottom of the fermenting beer and are therefore referred to as bottom-fermenting yeasts. Lagers constitute the majority of beers in production today.
Some beers are spontaneously fermented from wild yeasts, for example the lambic beers of Belgium.
Additional markers are applied across styles. The terms "imperial" or "double" are used interchangeably for a higher-alcohol version of a particular style. Originally applied to imperial stouts, a high-alcohol style of stout brewed in England for export to Imperial Russia, the term “imperial” can now be applied to any style name to indicate a higher alcohol content. "Double", meaning the same thing, originated with the dubbel style of Trappist beers in the 19th century. Even higher alcohol-content beers can be labeled "triple" (from the Trappist tripel style) or even "quad". Lower-than-standard alcohol content is often indicated by the term "session". For example, while India pale ales often have alcohol content around 6–7% abv, a "session India pale ale" will often have alcohol content below 5%.
Barrel-aged beer is aged in wood barrels. Sour beer is made with additional microorganisms (alongside yeast) such as Brettanomyces or Lactobacillus.
Styles of beer go back at least to Mesopotamia. The Alulu Tablet, a Sumerian receipt for "best" ale written in Cuneiform found in Ur, suggests that even in 2050 BC there was a differentiation between at least two different types or qualities of ale. The work of Bedřich Hrozný on translating Assyrian merchants' tablets found in Hattusa revealed that approximately 500 years later the Hittites had over 15 different types of beer.
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Beer style
Beer styles differentiate and categorise beers by colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin.
The modern concept of beer styles is largely based on the work of writer Michael Jackson in his 1977 book The World Guide To Beer. In 1989, Fred Eckhardt furthered Jackson's work publishing The Essentials of Beer Style. Although the systematic study of beer styles is a modern phenomenon, the practice of distinguishing between different varieties of beer is ancient, dating to at least 2000 BC.
What constitutes a beer style may involve provenance, local tradition, ingredients, aroma, appearance, flavour and mouthfeel. The flavour may include the degree of bitterness of a beer due to bittering agents such as hops, roasted barley, or herbs; and the sweetness from the sugar present in the beer.
Many beer styles are classified as one of two main types, ales and lagers, though certain styles may not be easily sorted into either category. Beers classified as ales are typically made with yeasts that ferment at warmer temperatures, usually between 15.5 and 24 °C (60 and 75 °F), and form a layer of foam on the surface of the fermenting beer. Thus, they are called top-fermenting yeasts. Lagers utilise yeasts that ferment at considerably lower temperatures, around 10 °C (50 °F), and can process raffinose, a complex sugar created during fermentation. These yeasts collect at the bottom of the fermenting beer and are therefore referred to as bottom-fermenting yeasts. Lagers constitute the majority of beers in production today.
Some beers are spontaneously fermented from wild yeasts, for example the lambic beers of Belgium.
Additional markers are applied across styles. The terms "imperial" or "double" are used interchangeably for a higher-alcohol version of a particular style. Originally applied to imperial stouts, a high-alcohol style of stout brewed in England for export to Imperial Russia, the term “imperial” can now be applied to any style name to indicate a higher alcohol content. "Double", meaning the same thing, originated with the dubbel style of Trappist beers in the 19th century. Even higher alcohol-content beers can be labeled "triple" (from the Trappist tripel style) or even "quad". Lower-than-standard alcohol content is often indicated by the term "session". For example, while India pale ales often have alcohol content around 6–7% abv, a "session India pale ale" will often have alcohol content below 5%.
Barrel-aged beer is aged in wood barrels. Sour beer is made with additional microorganisms (alongside yeast) such as Brettanomyces or Lactobacillus.
Styles of beer go back at least to Mesopotamia. The Alulu Tablet, a Sumerian receipt for "best" ale written in Cuneiform found in Ur, suggests that even in 2050 BC there was a differentiation between at least two different types or qualities of ale. The work of Bedřich Hrozný on translating Assyrian merchants' tablets found in Hattusa revealed that approximately 500 years later the Hittites had over 15 different types of beer.
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