A to Z 0f beer.

Beer is now no longer a low drink that is just attributed to the working classes but it is some thing of a premium drink. No longer just some thing that you swill down but it can be a designer accessory that is a must see label.

But to me beer is as important as wine. You had in food culture the hot wine producing, and the cooler beer producing countries. So how many beers are there in the world . well I have started to make a list of the different styles of beer but not all the different brands. For every style there must be hundreds if not thousands of brands so I will just stick with the styles and try to get most of them . So here we go.

Abby Beers , strong fruity ales from Belgium often associated with a church or monastery.

Barley wine, that is what we Brits call a very strong golden brew that is also some times called Stingo.

Berliner Weisse , a light acid sharp German wheat beer, not so strong and has a slightly cloudy look to it.

Bière de Grade, From north west France it’s a top-fermenting beer , also you can often see them with corks in the bottles .

Bitter, my favoured beer to drink, that is why it is know as best bitter. Normally dry and hoppy found all over England and Wales. The only way to get bitter is draft from the pump.

Black beer (Schwarzbier) A strong tasting bark almost chocolate like larger from eastern Germany, also other black beers from Japan and North Yorkshire England.

Bock, strong and malty normally about 6.5 ABV “Wow” and from lower Saxony in Germany, but also made elsewhere.

Brown Ale, a bottled mild ale from England but also made in Flanders and Belgium.

Chilli Beer, from, where else, Mexico, a speciality beer that is being made more and more in other counters.

Cream Ale, sweet smooth golden ale from the good old US of A. Apparently started to be made when immigrants were trying to copy Pilsner.

Dortmunder, from Dortmund , strong and full boded. Dortmund in Germany is one of the biggest brewing cities in Europe so it is only right it should have a beer named after it.

Dunkel, from Bavaria , soft malty brown beers.

Framboise or Farmbozen . Ether French or Flemish beers , made by adding raspberries some times called the “Pink Champagne” of beers.

Green beer, beer that has not had time to mature. Also organic beer or Biologique in France or Biologisch in Germany

Gueuze, this beer is a blend of young and old brews that start a second fermentation giving it a sparkling fruity sour taste.

Hefe, this is German for yeast, it is s cloudy beer with sediment.

Hell, this beer is hell, means it is pale and it comes from Munich , malty golden larger.

Honey Beer, this is more of a revival of a tradition of putting honey in beer, but I do believe that it has moved from the UK to America now.

Ice beer, a style which the beer is frozen after fermentation, from Canada. Some times the ice crystals are removed to increase the strength of the beer.

IPA or India Pale Ale, developed by the Brits so that you could have a beer that would stand long sea voyages to the far flung corners of the empire.

Irish Ale, Normally reddish in colure and soft and sweet .

Kölsch, a light fruity tasting beer from cologne .

Krek, a cherry tasting beer from Belgium, very delicate with a sharp bitter edge to it.

Kistall , is a crystal cellar filter whet beer or weizenbier.

Light Ale, a low gravity bitter that indicates it is low in alcohol. I am told it comes from small beer that children used to drink before clean drinking water.

Lite beer, means two things, one if it from the USA it means a thin low-calorie beer in Australia it means of low alcohol.

Low alcohol beer, covers every thing from 2.5% to 0.05% alcohol, so beware what you are drinking. Of all of them if I had to drink them, it would be a Becks.

Malt Liquor, when first offerd this I thought I was going to get some kind of spirit. How wrong I was it’s a strong US larger made with a lot of sugar to make a potent 6 to 8% ABV.

Märzen , or March brew , made in march laid down fro the Oktoberfest, red in colour and rather strong , from Munich but I think it originates from Vienna.

Mild, either dark or light it was a workers drink, a low alcohol beer sold on draft and often overlooked.

Old ale, a strong mature ale that is sold normally as a seasonal beer or a bottle special.

Oud Bruin, a low alcohol sweetish larger from the Netherlands , Oud Bruin is dutch for Old Brown.

Plae ale, this is stronger than a light ale usually based on the best bitter of the same brewery .

Pilsner, for the purist Pilsner is a golden hoppy beer from Plzeň in the Czech Republic. But you also have German Pilsner as well Czech pilsner has a more flowery hop aroma to German pilsner but both are a golden light larger.

Porter, a traditional London based brown mild ale matured over moths, almost extinct at one point but now more ready available.

Rauchbier. A intense smoky flavoured beer, the flavoured come from drying the malt over beech wood fires.

Red beer, a sour beer from west Flanders made with Vienna malt, some times called the “Burgundies of Belgium”

Roggen , a Austrian or German Rye beer, not often seen and hard to find.

Saison or Sezuen beer. This could be a topic all of its own. A Belgian beer that is brewed in the winter and laid down like wine. Sold with a cork in the bottle after ageing some have spices in them like ginger.

Scotch Ale, different to it English or Welsh counterpart , they tend to be meatier.

Steam beer, a cross between an ale and a beer with lager yeast, it is from the California gold rush time and is now only brewed by the Anchor steam Brewery , San Francisco.

Steindier , a beer where hot stones are lowered in to the brew . The stones get cover in burnt sugars, then returned to the beer later to create a second fermentation.

Stout, a dark black beer, you have milk, sweet, oatmeal, oyster, Russian and imperial stouts but the best know of them all must be Guinness.

Trappist beer, once more another interesting beer from Belgium, made by Trappist monks and have a strong complex spicy flavours.

Weisse and Weizen beer, or what beer made from 50-60% wheat some are pale some are dark often cloudy and very refreshing. From Bavaria and very popular in the summer.

Witbier or biere blaanche, a white Belgium wheat beer that has orange rind in it to give it some flavour as well as other things like coriander .

Now I am sure that I might have missed more than one or two and that there are to each of these 47 types there are loads of differ recipes and varieties and brands. So next time you here some one say we only had beer to drink, think of this the tip of the iceberg.