Beer style

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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.^[1] In 1989, Fred Eckhardt furthered Jackson's work publishing The Essentials of Beer Style.^[2] 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,^[3] local tradition,^[4] ingredients,^[5] 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.

Types

Many beer styles are classified as one of two main types,

Barrel-aged beer is aged in wood barrels. Sour beer is made with additional microorganisms (alongside yeast) such as Brettanomyces or Lactobacillus.

History of beer styles

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.

Documents reveal comments on different local brewing methods or ingredients.

By the 15th century brewers in Germany and the Low Countries were using hops to flavour and preserve their ale; this new style of ale was called beer. When this trend came to Britain and brewers of beer in Southwark, London, started to take sales away from the traditional brewers of unhopped ale, there were complaints and protests. Laws were passed favouring either beer or ale for a number of years, until hopped beer became the standard style throughout Europe. At the same time, brewers in Bavaria were storing beer in cool caves during the summer months in order to stop it spoiling. The type of beer they stored in this manner became known as lager from the German word lagern, meaning "to store".

Although beers using naturally dried malt would have been pale-coloured, by the 17th century most malts in Europe would have been dried over a fire, resulting in a dark coloured beer. When coke started to be used for roasting malt in 1642, the resulting lighter coloured beers became very popular. By 1703 the term pale ale was starting to be used, though the beer it described was a lightly hopped ale, very different from more bitter modern versions.

However, despite an awareness by commentators, law-makers, and brewers that there were different styles of beer, it was not until Michael Jackson's World Guide To Beer was published in 1977 that there was an attempt to group together and compare beers from around the world.^[1] Jackson's book had a particular influence in North America where the writer Fred Eckhardt was also starting to explore the nature of beer styles. The wine importing company Merchant du Vin switched to importing beers mentioned in Jackson's book. Small brewers started up, producing copies and interpretations of the beer styles Jackson described.

While North America developed beer styles into a serious study with fixed parameters of

The aroma in a beer may be formed from the malt and other fermentables, the strength and type of hops, the alcohol, esters, and various other aromatic components that can be contributed by the yeast strain, and other elements that may derive from the water and the brewing process.

Flavour

The taste characteristics of a beer may come from the type and amount of

Mouthfeel

The feel of a beer in the mouth, both from thickness of the liquid and from carbonation, may also be considered as part of a beer's style. A more dextrinous beer feels thicker in the mouth. The level of carbonation (or nitrogen, in "smooth" beers) varies from one beer style to another. For some beers it may give the beer a thick and creamy feel, while for others it contributes a prickly sensation.

Strength

The strength of beer is a general term for the amount of alcohol present. It can be quantified either indirectly by measurement of specific gravity, or more directly by other methods.

Gravity

Measurement of the

The original gravity of a beer was the basis for determining taxation in both the UK and Ireland from 1880 until the late 20th century, and a legacy of that system remains in the largely arbitrary division of bitter into "bitter", "best bitter", and "special bitter" substyles. In continental Europe, the density of a beer in degrees Plato is sometimes used by a brewery to distinguish a particular beer produced in a line. For example, Rochefort Brewery produces three beers, all dissimilar in colour, flavour, and aroma; and sells them as Rochefort 6, Rochefort 8, and Rochefort 10, the numbers referring to the original gravities of the beers. Westvleteren Brewery, meanwhile, produces three beers, and calls them Blonde, 8, and 12.

Alcohol concentration

Modern classification of the strength of alcoholic beverages for the purposes of taxation and regulation typically discriminates according to the percentage of

A variety of yeasts are used in making beer, most of which are strains of either

The specific grains used in a particular beer is called the "grain bill". While just about any grain can be used, most beers use

The inclusion of some grains such as corn and rice is often viewed as making less of a flavour contribution and more of an added source of fermentable sugars. Rice in particular "is considered by many [craft] brewers what the nasty industrial brewers use to water down their beer".^[12]

This is due in large part to the use of rice by large scale American breweries. While it is commonly held that these breweries introduced these grains to their formulas during war shortages, author Maureen Ogle states "The mythology is that these giant beer makers began adding rice and corn to their beer after World War II to water it down, but that's simply not true. The American brewing industry was built in the late 19th century by first-generation German American immigrants such as Adolphus Busch, Adolph Coors and Frederick Miller. Although these men, craft brewers themselves, initially re-created the full-bodied beers of their homeland, many Americans had not developed a taste for the malt-heavy style. They needed a domestic ingredient that would make the beers more effervescent, bubbly and lighter. Rice and corn did that – it was a desired flavor, not inexpensive filler."^[12]

Bittering agents

Throughout history, a wide variety of flavoring agents have been added to beer to impart complexity and bitterness to the final product. Historically, these spice adjuncts were known as gruit. Most modern beer is flavored with hops, the immature flowers of a specific species of hemp plant, to contribute bitterness, flavour and aroma to a beer. How much hop bitterness and aroma is appropriate varies between beer styles. There are many varieties of hops, some of which are associated with beers from specific regions. For example, Saaz hops are associated with Czech Pilsners; Hallertau and Tettnanger are two of the "noble" hop varieties one expects to find in German beers, and Kent Goldings are an English variety.

Water

Water is the main ingredient in beer, and, though water itself is flavourless, the

Fruits and spices are key ingredients in some beer styles. While fruit beers and herb beers are often listed as style categories unto themselves, fruits and spices are sometimes used to contribute to the flavour and aroma profile of other styles. Vegetables have also been used in beers. Honey, molasses, candy sugar, or other fermentable sugars may be added to impart their distinct flavours to a beer. While not an ingredient per se, some brewers have experimented with ageing their beer in barrels previously used for bourbon or other distilled spirits, imparting the flavour of both the wood and the spirit to the beer.

Alcoholic beverages made from the fermentation of sugars derived from non-grain sources are generally not called "beer," despite being produced by the same yeast-based biochemical reaction. Fermented honey is called mead, fermented apple juice is called cider, fermented pear juice is called perry (sometimes, pear cider), fermented plum juice is called plum jerkum, and fermented grape juice is called wine. Chinese jiu and Japanese sake are made using much the same process as beer with one additional step in the fermentation as well as using rice instead of primarily barley malt.

Beer styles

Most beer styles fall into types roughly according to the time and temperature of the primary fermentation and the variety of yeast used during fermentation. As the terminology of brewing arose before the advent of the science of microbiology, "yeast" in this context may refer not only to

• Altbier and Kölsch, both of which are top fermented before being cold conditioned, i.e. lagered.
• Steam beers were invented by German immigrants living in California and are made with a type of bottom-fermenting yeast that can ferment at warmer temperatures. The name "steam beer" is a trademark of the Anchor Brewing Company, though other brewers brew this beer under the designation "California common".
• adjunct
  during the fermentation process, providing obvious yet harmonious qualities.
• Herb and spiced beers include herbs or spices derived from roots, seeds, fruits, vegetables or flowers instead of, or in addition to hops
  .
• spirit or other alcoholic beverage; bourbon, scotch and sherry
  are common.
• Scotch ale
  and other styles.
• Champagne-style beers are finished "à la méthode originale", mainly in Belgium
  , and include Grottenbier, Deus and Malheur Bière Brut.

• Boza
• Cauim
• Chhaang
• Chicha
• Gruit
• Kvass
• Oshikundu
• Pulque
• Sahti
• Sato (rice wine)
  , also called lao hai (jug alcohol) when home-brewed in jugs
• Sulima, made by the Mosuo people in the Lijiang region of Yunnan, China^[14]

See also

• Beer sommelier

References