| Style |
Description |
Beers |
|
| alt | Altbier is a German term for a top-fermenting brew. This brew is copper in colour, mashed only from barley malt, fermented from a single cell yeast and cold conditioned. | 11 |
| amber ale | Amber Ale is a copper to brown colored ale with a very balanced malt and hop character. Alaskan Amber is an excellent example of this American style. | 59 |
| barley wine | Barley Wine is an English term for an extra-strong ale. Usually more than 6 percent by volume and often closer to 11. These can be a pale to dark brew, classics include: Seirra Nevada Bigfoot and Anchor Old Foghorn. | 31 |
| belgian ale | Any ale brewed in the traditional Belgian style. I have separated trappist, tripel, and wit ales from this category giving them their own style. | 15 |
| belgian wit | Belgium's white beers (Witbier, Biere Blanche) are very pale and cloudy in color. Often having a spicy clove aroma from the yeast. Examples of this style are: Elliot Glacier Belgian White Beer, or my own Jeremy's Belgian Wit. | 9 |
| blonde ale | Blonde Ale is a light colored brew with a mellow hop character. BJ's Blonde, Redhook Blonde Ale and Pete's Strawberry Blonde are excellent examples of this style. | 25 |
| bock | Bock is 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 to dark brown. Bock beers are served in autumn, late winter or spring, depending upon the country. | 34 |
| brown ale | Brown Ale is a reddish-brown to dark-brown ale with a sweet or nutty palate. NewCastle Brown Ale and Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale are good standards for this style. | 44 |
| cask ale | This style of beer has some portion of it's fermentation performed in wooden casks. | 3 |
| cider | Generally fermented from apples though other fruits are used such as pear and peach. Strongbow makes a wonderful dry cider. | 2 |
| cream ale | Cream Ale is very pale mild, light bodied ale that may actually have been blended with a lager. Boddington's or Big Rock Warthog Cream Ale is a fabulous example of this style. | 9 |
| dark | I have used this style for those dark beers that don't fit in the tradition styles like porter or stout. Black lagers are great example of a dark beer. | 7 |
| dubbel | Dubbel's tend to be darker yet are lower in alcholol than their Tripel counterparts. Chimay Dubbel is an example of this bottle conditioned beer. | 1 |
| dunkel | Dunkel is the German word for "dark". There are some fabulous beers in this style. Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier Dunkel is one of the best beers available in the average supermarket. | 10 |
| english bitter | I have used english bitter to describe the traditional English bitter and special bitter styles. This also includes the English pale ales such as Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Pale Ale. | 20 |
| ESB | Extra Special Bitters are in the English Bitter category but generally have a higher alchohol content. They are a bronze to deep copper ale with a medium to high hop rate. | 30 |
| export | Export is a German style pale or Dortmund style bottom-fermented beer. It has a bigger body than a Pilsner and less dry, but not as sweet as a Munich pale beer. | 7 |
| fruit beer | I have used Fruit Beer to classify beers that are brewed with fruit and don't meet the other styles requirments such as a lambic. Pyramid Apricot Ale is an example of a fruit beer. | 21 |
| golden ale | Golden Ale is a very light brew with a unasertive hop character. Rogue Oregon Golden Ale or Tied House Alpine Gold are good examples of this style which is often nearly the same as a blonde ale. | 30 |
| hefe-weizen | Hefe is the German word for yeast. These are wheat beers with distinct banana clove flavor coming from the traditional german yeast. This beer should never be filtered and should always be served with the yeast from the bottle mixed into the beer. (if it is filtered I lumped it into the wheat category) Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier Hell is a wonderful example of this style. | 54 |
| imperial stout | Imperial Stout was originally brewed for sale in the Tsarist Russian Empire. It is medium dry and distinguished by its great strength: anything from 7 to more than 10. North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout typifies this delicious style.
| 18 |
| india pale ale | India Pale Ale was made with a higher than normal strength, and given more hops, to protect it on the journey during the olden days. Today many brewers in America make this style and try to out-do each other with over the top hop bitterness and aroma. Just try Stone Ruination IPA if you don't believe me. | 86 |
| kolsch | Kolsch is Cologne's style. Golden top-fermenting, very drinkable with a delicate fruitiness. Usually served in a tall narrow glass. | 13 |
| labmic | Lambic is a spontaneously fermenting style beer unique to Belgium. Often brewed with fruit, Lindemans has many classic examples of a lambic, framboise (raspberry) being my favorite. | 5 |
| lager | Any beer made by bottom-fermentation. I have lumped most lagers into this style, though some deserve to be here: Pete's Pub Lager, Truckee Dark Lager others like: Coors or Miller Genuine Draft really belong in their own category "Pish". | 58 |
| light | In America, a beer labelled with Lite or Light has a low calorie count. In Canada and Australia, "Light" means lower in alcohol, while In Scotland, "Light" indicates the lowest gravity draught beer. | 16 |
| marzen | Marzen comes from the German word for "March" Marzenbier has a malty aroma, and is a medium-strong version of the amber-red Vienna style. This style is lagered for no more than 2 months, where by it becomes an Oktoberfest by default. | 7 |
| mild | Mild is an English term indicating an ale that is only lightly hopped. These beers were devised to be drunk in large quantities by manual workers and often come in around 3% alchohol by volume. | 4 |
| non-alcoholic | Beer without Alchohol. Though I don't drink beer just for the alchohol, there wouldn't be much reason to if you could have a Pepsi instead! | 1 |
| oktoberfest | This is similiar to Marzen with a malty aroma and is a medium-strong version of the amber-red Vienna style. This style is lagered for more than 2 months and was traditionally drunk during a huge end of the summer party called Oktoberfest. This was to finish the last supplies and get the brewing/storage vessels ready for the next years batch. | 25 |
| old ale | Old Ale in Britain is most commonly used to indicate a medium-strong dark ale like Marin 10 Year Old Ale. | 4 |
| other | Anything I couldn't classify in one of the other styles. Either because of too little information, it just didn't fit or I'm not bright enough to figure it out. | 24 |
| pale ale | Ah... Sierra Nevada the classic "good" or "small brewery" beer of choice. This is an American brew with a high hop rate and should not be confused with the English Pale Ales which are actually better classified in the English Bitter category. | 98 |
| pilsner | Pilsner is a golden-coloured, dry, bottom fermenting beer. German brewers take the style most seriously inspired by the Urquell brew from the town of Pilsen, in the Czech province of Bohemia. A classic Pilsener is characterized by the hoppiness of its flowery aroma and dry finish. | 37 |
| porter | Porter is a London style that nearly became extinct, though has gained much popularity with the increase of local small breweries. Sierra Nevada, Stoddard's and Deschutes have absolutely fabulous porters. | 71 |
| red ale | Red Ale usually thought of as Irish Red is similiar in style to the Brown Ale. Anything from Seabright Resolution Red to George Killian's are fine examples of red ales. | 60 |
| scotch ale | In Scotland they designate their beers in order of strength as: Light, Heavy (wee heavey), Export and Strong. The term "Scotch ale" is used to identify a very strong, and often extremely dark, malt-accented speciality from Scotland. | 19 |
| smoked | Smoked beers actually have the taste of a smokey fire. They are made from a variety of ways including: addition of smoke extract, burnt wood chips or cooking of wort over a "camp fire". Alaskan Smoked Porter is an example of this brew. | 7 |
| spiced ale | I have used this style to describe beers brewed with spices like: Bison Brew Coriander Rye or Portsmouth Pumpkin Ale. | 11 |
| steam beer | The traditional steam beer is Anchor Steam Beer from the San Francisco brewery. This brewery's principal product is made by a distinctive method of bottom-fermentation at high temperatures and in unusually wide, shallow vessels. This technique produces a beer with elements of both lager and ale in its character. | 3 |
| stout | Stout is my favorite style of beer. It is an extra-dark, almost black, top-fermenting brew, made with highly roasted malts. There are many styles of stouts from Sweet to Dry to Imperial. Some of my favorites are: Bison Brew Chocolate Stout, Stoddard's Stout, Guinness and Seabright Oatmeal Stout. There is no style in the world that can compare to a stout! | 96 |
| strong ale | Stong Ale has high alchohol mixed with a high hop rate. I think of this as somewhere between a Scotch Ale and a Barley Wine. | 15 |
| trappist | Trappist ales are strong top-fermenting brews with a high alchohol content. Very few beers can actually be called Trappist. There are six Trappist breweries in the world, most in Belgium. They are Westmalle, Westvleteren, Chimay, Rochefort, Orval and Achel. No other breweries are entitled by law to apply that name to their product. | 14 |
| tripel | Tripel is from the Dutch-language and usually applied to the strongest beer of the house. Chimay Triple or Unibroue Trois Pistoles are fine examples of this bottle conditioned beer. | 10 |
| wheat | Any beer brewed with wheat malt that doesn't fit into the Hefe-Weizen, Dunkel or Belgian Wit categories. Most commonly because of the terrible practice of filtering or using non-German/Belgian yeast. | 60 |
| winter ale | I use Winter Ale to describe beers brewed specially for the occasion of the winter holidays. Alaskan Winter Ale, Gordon Biersch Winter Bock or Pete's Winter Brew are all fine examples of this style. | 39 |
