I grew up in Belgium and then later lived in Munich, two places pretty famous for their beer. I was never much of a beer drinker, because the beer I was first introduced to didn't taste very good. I'd drink it anyways out of social niceties but never really enjoyed it. Now though, I have found several beers I enjoy. This origin story masks a fairly obvious point that I somehow missed growing up; there is not canonical beer taste, and so if you don't like one beer that doesn't mean you won't like any. Here I hope to demystify some basic different types and allow you to understand what elements you enjoy so you can explore those flavors further.
What is a beer
Let's start with an obligatory brief description of the elements of beer creation, brewing. This will allow us to then discuss what variations exist and how they impact the final flavor. We won't discuss too much technical terminology, only the terms that are important because they are salient to the overall goal.
Malting
At its core, we start with a starch (almost always malted barley) and add water. The water soaking forces the starch to germinate, then we remove the water and allow for germination, before we dry the starch and crush it. We are left with sugars and carbs.
Mashing
We once again add water to our starch, giving us a cereal mash. While in a temperature controlled environment the starches start to break down further into sugars. The liquid is taken out with the remaining cereals left behind. This liquid is called the wort.
Boiling
Next step is one of the most critical for the end result, we add hops and potentially other ingredients to the wort and boil it all together. This process adds flavor, aroma and bitterness to the liquid.
Fermentation
Next the liquid has a good chunk of its solids filtered out and is cooled quickly. A type of yeast is added to the liquid and the sugars are turned into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Conditioning
When fermentation is completed the resulting liquid is placed in a new container to age. This smooths out the flavor.
Finishing
Finally, the beer is filtered, and bottled or put in a cask with other ingredients.
Breaking down our variables
Let's list the variables in this process that we can tune to impact the final result.
- water
- starch
- mashing time
- mashing temperature
- boiling additives
- hops
- boiling time
- yeast
- fermentation temperature
- conditioning time
- cask additives (if any)
This next section is optional but I found it highly informative.
Water
Water used throughout this process is traditionally based on the type of water a brewery had available. It's not simple H2O, but can be categorized as hard or soft water. These mineral additives differed by region and so had subtle impacts on the resulting beer. Hard water is more suitable to making stouts (like in Dublin), soft water is more suited to making pilsners. In Burton, England, the waters containted gypsum and were suitable for pale ales (so much so that Burtonization is common with Pale Ale makers and the add gypsum to their water artificially).
Starch
As described, starch is very often malted barley. Darker malts give darker beer. Other possible starches that have been used are wheat, rice, oats, rye, corn and sorghum. This doesn't need to be an exclusive process though, a pale ale is made of a single type of matled barley, whereas a porter or stout could have a dozen.
Mashing time
Usually mashing takes 1-2 hours. The exact time is dictated by the ingredients used.
Mashing temperature
Like the mashing time, the mashing temperature is a variable largely dictated by the ingredient(s). Generally a higher temperature results in a fuller body/sweeter beer, whereas lower temperatures are generally milder. One interesting note, is that sometimes in this phase a part of the mash is taken out and boiled, caramelizing the sugars for a deeper flavor and color. This is called decoction and leads to a higher malt profile mostly seen with Bock and Doppelbock beers.
Boiling additives
Generally speaking there are no additives to a 'normal' beer, but some options here include cacao, lactose, honey, oak, spices, and citrus.
Hops
The hops added can vary by species and will either make the beer taste more bitter and/or add an aroma. Pale ales have low hop influence, lagers or pilsners have medium, and India Pale Ale have high hop influence. There are a lot of hop varieties, but generally speaking you will hear about 'noble hops', which are European strains that are low in bitterness and high in aroma.
Boiling times
Boiling times are a simple calculation of how much evaporation is desired, leading to a more concentrated liquid going into the fermentation process.
Yeast
The main types of yeast used in brewing beer are ale yeast, lager yeast, lambic yeast (mostly wild yeasts), and Bavarian Weissbier yeast. Lambics is a collection of yeast types generally added through wild or airborne yeasts, nowadays almost all beers are brewed from pure yeast cultures.
Fermentation Temperature
Whether a beer is fermented warm or cool depends on the yeast used. Warm fermented beer are called ales, cool fermented beers are called lagers.
Conditioning time
Conditioning usually is a form of finishing the chemical process and letting the dead yeast and debris settle so it can be filtered so they don't impact the flavor.
Cask conditioning
While some beers can be bottled right after conditioning, it's becoming increasingly common to finish beers in a wooden casks or other container that was used to mature wines or spirits. This has an impact on flavor.
Lager or Ale
Lager
First we differentiate by ale or lager. There are a few hybrids, like sessions, kellerbiers, and weissbiers, but most differentiate by yeast. German beers are generally lagers, with the exception of wheat based beers (like weissbier). The commercially successful beers are all lagers (Budweiser, Coors, Carlsberg, Heineken, Corona), most being a pilsner which is a pale lager. Other styles of lagers are Helles, Bock, Dunkel and schwartzbier.
Where a pilsner is a pale, lightly hoppy lager, a helles is a pale, lighlty malty lager. Bocks are a dark beer that is not hoppy at all, prefering another type of additive to flavor the beer in the boiling process. Dunkels are dark lagers, brewed with Munich malt instead of barley malt. Finally, the Schwartzbier is a dark lager, similar to a stout in taste, made from roasted malts. They're also often seen with additives like chocolate or coffeee in the boiling phase.
That covers the lagers, they are the commercially successful beers, but it is the ales that have the widest variation in their finished tastes.
Ales
There are two easy ways to segment the ales. The easiest but not as useful in the final result is by the origin; British, North America, Belgian, Irish, and German are the main ones. A few others exist among them the Dutch, Scandinavian, and Australian.
A more pragmatic approach would be to segmented by pale, India pale, dark ale, wheat, and Belgian.
Pale Ales
Are made primarily with pale malts, subcategories of pale ales can be created by commonalities of brewing practices and hop levels.
Amber Ale
These are made with a proportion of amber malts. Some also include crystal malt. These ales have an amber color and are generally not hoppy.
American Pale Ale
These are typically made with American hops. The American pale ale can be placed between an Amber Ale and an American IPA.
Blonde Ale
These are light colored and crisp ales. They're pretty similar tasting to pale lagers. Low malt taste and somewhat spicy or citrus hop flavor
India Pale Ale (IPA)
IPAs are known for their strong hoppy flavor.
Black IPA
Made with roasted malts to give it the dark color and malty flavor, it still retains the bitter hoppy flavor typical of an IPA.
Double IPA
Also known as the Imperial IPA, have a stronger, more hoppy, taste as well as higher alcohol content.
New England IPA
This has many variations, but generally there are slighlty more juicy or floral hoppy notes, with less bitterness. This is done by using a particular yeast strain or adjusting the hop timing and water chemistry.
West Coast IPA
Typified by their low malt content and dry flavor almost entirely based on the hops used.
Dark Ales
Brown Ale
Was made from 100% brown malt. There are very few other commonalities between brown ales, variations in the other brewing processes lead to wide varieties. They can be sweet and low alcohol content to very hoppy, almost IPA like flavors.
Porter/Stout
Porter and stout are used interchangeably. They're made from brown malt, frequently roasted. They're generally dark and strong beers, with a roast or chocolate flavor. Imperial stouts are generally higher in alcohol content, and American Imperial stouts are commonly seen with extra flavors like vanilla, maple syrup, coffee, marshmellows, or chili. They're also commonly aged in bourbon barrels for an extra depth of flavor.
Wheat Beer
Wheat beer, or sometimes referred to as weissbier, are beers typically made from mostly wheat malt as the starch, or unmalted barley. This gives it the distinct lighter look and taste. Generally speaking these beers fall in two categories, the German style weissbier and the Belgian style witbier.
Belgian beer
Belgian beer tradition is a world unto itself. While you have some pale Beglian ales, most common Belgian ales fall into the Flanders, Lambic, and Trappist/Abbey categories.
Flanders Ale
Typically made with a yeast and bacteria mix that resulted in a more sour beer. A lot of their flavor is developed in the bottle, generally gently malty and no hop bitterness. It has a reddish to dark brown color.
Lambic
Characterized by the use of wild yeast, it is dry, wine or cider-like taste. Very tart aftertaste.
Trappist & Abbey
Common types of trappist beers are the single, dubbel, tripel and even sometimes quadrupels. These labels indicate the factor of ingredients typically started with. They're genereally golden to dark brown ales, with strong fruity and spice flavors. This is the result of the addition of highly caramelized beet sugar added in the boiling process.
The trappist breweries are descendents of the 14 monasteries of Trappist monks that brewed beer. Abbey beer refers to beer brewed by a monastic order not the Trappists.
Conclusion
While there is no easy way to experiment with different beer types to find what you enjoy. However you can hopefully start to identify the traits you enjoy or don't, and then explore around.