Specialty beers are more popular than ever. How many different types of beer are there actually? Brewers and beer connoisseurs speak of beer styles, each of which has its own distinct characteristics. It is also possible to classify beer according to the way it is brewed: top fermentation, bottom fermentation, spontaneous fermentation. But a simple classification by color and name also quickly leads to more insight. This provides guidance in finding beers that match your personal taste.
Well-known are of course lager, bock beer, wheat beer and Trappist beer, which are for sale in almost every supermarket. Nowadays you will find a fairly extensive range at the liquor store, including Trappist beers and the offer of various Dutch breweries. And at the beer specialty store you will find hundreds of different specialty beers. By dividing the beers into styles, an overview is created. If a certain style fits well with your personal taste, it will be easier to try something new from the same style. There is a good chance that that beer will be appreciated.
Beer styles
The American Brewers Association (BA) has published a list defining no fewer than 140 different beer styles. For each beer style, the exact color, aroma, bitterness and taste are indicated. This is a very useful format for beer festivals and competitions where the quality of beers is assessed. But for an ordinary beer lover it remains difficult to classify beers in this way.
A much more useful tool is the periodic table of beers developed by M. Schutte. Based on the color and the name, you can quickly find out which beer style we are dealing with.
Example Trappist
As an example we use a beer that can be ordered on many terraces and is often only referred to as “Trappist beer”. Usually it is a dark brown beer and the bottle is marked “double”. Dubbel can be found in the third column of the periodic table of beers and falls under the Belgian Ales. This group also includes the triple and quadrupel, often also known as ?? Trappist beer ?? as well as the blonde and the strong blonde.
example wheat beer
Another example, a wheat beer that is ordered on the terrace. This we find in the first column and falls under the “wheat beers”. The light beers from this beer style, Weizen and to a lesser extent Berliner Weisse, are also offered as an alternative to white beer in the catering industry and provided carelessly when a white beer is requested. The other beers in this beer style are darker in color, but share the fresh thirst-quenching taste of the lighter wheat beers.
Fermentation method
Yeasts convert the sugars in the wort (the beer in preparation) into alcohol. Three different ways can be distinguished here.
Top fermented
This process takes place at temperatures between approximately 15-25 degrees Celsius. The yeast used, belonging to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae, floats on top of the wort, hence the name top-fermenting. A disadvantage of top fermentation is that at this relative temperature bacteria also multiply easily and can spoil the beer. Trappist, for example, is a top-fermented beer. This process is used with most specialty beers.
Bottom fermented
Bottom fermentation, also called general fermentation, takes place at temperatures between 4 and 12 degrees Celsius. The yeast used belongs to the Saccharomyces carlsbergensis or Saccharomyces uvarum. Bottom fermentation takes longer than top fermentation, but the chance of bacterial infection is much smaller. Pilsener is a bottom-fermented beer.
Spontaneous fermentation
Spontaneous fermentation is the oldest way to ferment beer. Yeasts in the air are used which precipitate in the wort and initiate a fermentation process. The amount and type of yeasts can hardly be checked and the efficiency of the yeasts is often unknown. Lambic is a type of beer that is still brewed on the basis of spontaneous fermentation.
Take notes
In order to gain a good insight into which beers suit your taste well, i.e. which beer you like, it is important to make notes so that you can look back at a later time how you rated a beer before. This can be done with a simple notepad, but it is easier to use special apps such as Untappd or Ratebeer.
Conclusion
By categorizing and classifying beers into beer styles, it becomes easy to find comparable beers that match personal preferences.