What are the Different Kinds of Beers?

Now, it’s perfectly reasonable to join a beer club to learn more about beer, the different kinds, the different brews, but you’ll want to have a working knowledge of some of the most general types, otherwise being exposed to the thousands of craft beers that are out there, you might get a little overwhelmed. In this post I want to go over just four of the main types of beer that you’ll see out there in your search for a beer club.

Wheat Beer

A wheat beer is a beer that is brewed with a high concentration of wheat compared to the malted barley amount. Wheat beers are among the oldest of brewed beers and have a cloudy type appearance. Wheat beers are heavily in contrast to IPAs and have almost no hops whatsoever. Oftentimes if a wheat beer has hops, it’ll be extremely low. Instead of a strong hops taste, a wheat beer typically has a distinct yeast taste and flavor. The yeast that is used gives the beer a very aromatic quality that is unique to the wheat beers.

Ale

The ale is another type of beer that is brewed from malted barely and uses a warm fermentation process. In contrast to the wheat beers, most ale utilize hops in their productions. This serves to preserve the beer but also contrasts the sweet flavor that comes from the malt with a bitter herbal taste. Ale has proven over the years to be a widely popular beer and has a number of different types.

Brown Ale

Brown ale, like its name suggests, has a light brown, sort of amber hue to it.  Most brown ale has a small amount of hops and a somewhat mild taste.

Pale Ale

Pale ale is probably the world’s most popular type of beer. This beer uses pale malt in its brewing and can have a strong malty and woody flavor, sometimes even a spicy taste.

IPA

IPA stands for Indian Pale Ale and has an interesting history. During the early British occupation of India the conventional pale ale of the time would go bad before most of the British could even drink it.

Their solution was to double (and sometimes triple) the amount of hops that was added to the beers. The hops allowed the shelf life of the beer to be increased drastically and also gave the beer more of a bitter flavor than it otherwise would have. Today, IPAs are quite popular both in England and America.

Porter

A Porter beer is a very dark beer with its origin dating back to 18th century London. It is believed that “Stout” beers owe themselves to the Porter beers, where the strongest or “stoutest” of porter beers simply taking the name “stout.” In that respect, stouts and porters have many of the same characteristics and are made in much the same way. Porters commonly have a very roasted or coffee/chocolate like taste to them and usually have higher alcohol contents than other beers.

There you go. A brief introduction to some of the most common beer types. Now when you go to look for a beer club of the month to join, you won’t be overwhelmed by terms and categories that you don’t know what they are.