All Beer Geek trainings are at the Taphouse (2840 Commercial St SE, Salem). Check our Twitter feed or the Beer Czar Facebook page for upcoming dates.
Basic Beer Styles and Pertinent Beer information
An outline of what we generally have on each tap:
Tap 1) The Deschutes Floater Tap will alternate Deschutes beers.
Tap 2) Ninkasi Tricerahops Double IPA
Tap 3) Light Lagers, Blonde Ales Tap (Low alcohol, light color easy drinking) (Good “gateway to craft beers”)
Tap 4) Light Lager and Blonde Ales (Low alcohol, light color easy drinking) (Good “gateway to craft beers”)
Tap 5) American Pale Ale (Not IPA) and English Bitters (Think of these as light IPAs)
Tap 6) Fruit, Honey and spiced beers. Generally light and easy drinking. (Good “gateway to craft beers”)
Tap 7) Wheat Beers-Includes American and German wheat beers known as Weiss, Hefe, Hefeweizen and Weizen beers, as well as Belgian Witbier. Generally light and drinkable, very cloudy and estery. There are dark wheat beers that will appear on other taps.
Taps 8 and 9) Reserved for the many styles of Amber beers including: Alt, California Common, Amber, Irish Red, Vienna, Marzen, Maibock and Scottish Ales.
Taps 10 and 11) Dark brown to Black beers: Stout, Schwarz, Porter, Doppelbock, Brown, CDA (*see below) and imperial versions of these. Common flavors include roasty, chocolaty and coffee notes.
Taps 12 and 13) Nitro taps (* See description) Any style of beer can appear here.
Tap 14) Seasonal and Catch All tap. This tap is reserved for things that are in season at this moment or are hard to place in other categories. *I’ve run CDAs here.
Tap 15) Wandering Aengus Ciders-Brewed in Salem we rotate four flavors. Apple, Hop (apple), Cherry (apple) and Pear.
Tap 16) Belgian/French Light Tap-Belg. Blonde Ale, Saison, Golden, Belgian Pale Ale, Biere de Garde. Generally light bodied, not necessarily light in alcohol.
Tap 17) Belgian Sours-Beers soured with Brettanomyces yeast or lactobacillus. These beers are tart, acidic, vineous, often fruited and sweet. Read descriptions as they vary widely in strength and sourness.
Tap 18) Belgian Darker and Heavier Tap- Belgian Abbey, Double, Tripel and Quad
Tap 19) Strong Ales: Barleywines and Olde Ales and anything very strong in alcohol can appear here.
Tap 20) Imperial and Double IPA * See Description
Tap 21 and 22) Single Strength IPAs 5-8% ABV
Tap 23 and 24) Cask ales of any type. Hard to get and handle and very expensive so please don’t waste this. Servers may want to ask customers if they’re familiar.
BJCP has 23 styles of Beer – plus up to six sub styles. GABF 83 recognizes styles plus sub styles While many are represented at any given moment and most will ultimately be on at one time or another. If you are asking after a style that is not on right now, keep looking at twitter or Taplister or checking in with your bartender.
Light Lager/Pilsner/Blonde Ales-Both Ales and Lagers, which are generally light in color and body, usually low in alcohol 4-6%.
Wheat/Wit-Beers produced with significant quantities of wheat malt in addition to barley malt. Such beers are cloudy, generally low hopped and usually on the light in alcohol side. 4-9% ABV.
American Amber/Scottish/Irish Reds-Malty, sweet and moderately hopped. Moderate alcohol con
Pale Ale/ English Bitter-Color of Caramel moderate to significant hop presence and medium alcohol content. 4.5-7% ABV
IPA-Light to Caramel color, aggressively hopped, medium bodied with medium to high alcohol content. 5-12% ABV IPAs showcase hop bitterness. **Generally West Coast and NW IPAs are citrus and piney and heavily hopped.
Brown Ales-Light to dark brown and relatively low hop content. Flavors are typically dry, nutty and malty with moderate alcohol. 4.5-6% ABV
Porter-Ruby to dark brown with malty flavors of coffee, dark fruit, chocolate and usually low in hops. Low to high alcohol content. 4-12% ABV depending on sub style.
Stout-Dark (Usually Black) and full bodied, moderately hopped, commonly with flavors of coffee, roast, chocolate and malty character. These beers can range from very low alcohol and dry to very high alcohol and sweet. 4-12% ABV
Sour Beers-Beers brewed with wild yeasts such as brettanomyces yeast have a flavor more like champagne than beer. Many Belgian styles are sours. Common sours include Lambic and Geuze. Many of the Russian Rivers are sours, but not their IPAs. 5-12% ABV
Belgian Styles-Come in many styles, colors and strengths , but generally Belgian beers are identified by unique ale yeasts which are fermented at higher temperatures and thus often have estery flavors of banana, clove, citrus fruits and bubble gum and often contain yeast sediment thus producing clouded beers. 4-12% ABV We divide all Belgians into three categories and run them on Taps 16, 17 and 18.
Spiced/Fruit Beers/Wood Aged-Any base style of beer can be infused/brewed with spices. Belgian Lambics are often fruited. Imperial Stouts and IPAs are often aged in used wine and whiskey barrels. Winter and Fall beers often include spices. Color and ABV vary according to style
CDA- Cascadian Dark Ale-An up and coming style which is essentially an IPA with black malt added. Somewhere between IPA and Stout. It doesn’t make much sense to say “BLACK” india “PALE” ale as this is oxymoronic.
Lager vs. Ales-All Beers Are Either Ales or Lagers or beers produced with Ale yeast or lager yeast.
Lagers: Ferment Cold (refrigerator temp) at the bottom of a fermenter, are served at colder temperatures, are generally are less hazy and are often, but not always light bodied and lighter colored. Since lager yeasts ferment a greater variety of sugars their fermentations tend to leave less sugar in beers creating drier beers. Lagers also need more time to ferment and settle. The work lager is German for “store”. Although much lager beer is light in color and flavor much is actually dark. All Bocks, Oktoberfest, Schwarzbiers and some porters are Lagers. Most German and Czech beers are lagers.
Ales: Are top fermenting yeasts, fermented at warmer temperatures, (room temperature) are better served at higher temperatures, (somewhere between fridge and room works best). Tend to be slightly more hazy, are often darker, and due to less efficient yeast fermentation, ales tend to be sweeter beers with more sugar and body. More craft style beers are ales.
Malted Barley or Malts-Grains that have been partially germinated to activate enzymes and then kiln dried to various colors and roast levels to produce a wide variety of flavors in finished beers including: bread, biscuit, toast, cereal, caramel, honey, coffee, chocolate, roast and many other shades of flavor. To make beer these grains are Mashed
SRM-Standard Reference Method. A system used to quantify the color of the beer from light to dark. A score of 2 is light whereas 25 is black.
IBU-International Bitterness Units. A system used to measure of the hop alpha acids content of the beer giving an indication of the bitterness. The higher the number the more bitter the beer.
Fun Beer Facts:
**Beer is one of the oldest beverages consumed by man. It may date back to as early as 6000 BC. Some Historians speculate that prehistoric nomads may have made beer from grain & water before learning to make bread.
**4300 BC, Babylonian clay tablets detail recipes for beer.
**Beer was a vital part of civilization and the Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, and Inca cultures.
Interesting history of beer-Beer contributed to the beginning of society: It diminished disease, while people didn’t know about microorganisms, they knew if they drank beer instead of water they were more likely to stay healthy. It was a way to preserve calories in grains from spoilage and rodents, everyone, even children drank beer! At one time wine was the drink of poor people, beer was for nobility.
A wider variety of flavors than wine-The palate of beer flavors and aromas can be likened to a painter’s palate-many, many colors can be mixed to make lots of shades of flavors. Compared to wine beer has more ingredients and can be cooked in complicated ways yielding many more different flavors. There are simply less variables in wine: Grapes, barrels, harvest, soil, weather. Whereas in beer: Varied mash temps, boil schedules, different grains, different hops, hops added at different times, yeasts, adjuncts, spices, flavorings, water PH, barrel aging. Results=many more possible flavors. Just to name a few flavors absent in wine-roasty, chocolate, caramel, toast, toffee, creamy.
Lager-The word lager means to store in German and Dutch. Relative to beer Lager refers to beers brewed with lager yeast, which are cold fermented and stored for long period of time to clarify and mature the beer. Lager yeasts eat a wider variety of sugars, resulting in more complete fermentations and drier beers. Lagers are typically served very cold.