Beer Types

brief explanation

Ale
Any beer made with a top fermenting yeast, can be made to a huge variety of styles including Bitter, Brown ale, Indian pale ale, light ales, old ales, scotch ales

Stout
An extra dark top fermented brew made with highly roasted malts, Irish Stouts are essentially dry often containing unmalted barley

Lager
Any beer made frrom bottom fermentation. Usually associated with being golden in color. Pilsner Urquell was the first golden lager in the world (1842) until then lager was dark. The term lager in German speaking countries and the Netherlands usually denotes the most basic of beer


Porter
A London style that derives from Convent Garden, very similar to stout. Stout ales are stronger, heavier and were originally called stout porter


WeissBier/WeizenBier/Weiss
It is top fermenting, so therefore an ale/ Often a fruity, tart taste with a hint of cloves or bubblegum

Trappist
This appellation is only available to the Trappist order of monks, there are six breweries in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. All the beers are strong in alcohol or flavor (6-12%) top fermenting using candy sugar and are bottle conditioned.

Abby, Abbaye, Abdij
Imitating the Trappist style often made under license from an abbey.

Altbier
A top fermenting beer from Germany. Generally found around Dusseldorf, classically copper in colour, only barley malt and cold matured. Alcohol 4.5-4.7% ABV.