Other Styles

Beer style is a term used to differentiate and categorize beers by various factors such as colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin. more...

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The modern theory of beer style is largely based on the work done by Michael Jackson in his 1977 book The World Guide To Beer in which Jackson categorised a variety of beers from around the world in local style groups suggested by local customs and names.

However, there has been differentiation of beer since around 2000 BCE, which has continued throughout history and within many different cultures. While the systematic study of beer styles is a modern phenomenon, the act of beer differentiation itself is ancient and widespread.

The study of what constitutes a beer's style can be broken down into various elements. These may include the amount of bitterness imparted to a beer from bittering agents such as hops, roasted barley, or herbs; the amount of sweetness from the sugar present in the beer; the strength of the beer from the amount of fermentable material converted into alcohol; the smoothness or viscosity of the beer in the mouth, commonly described as mouthfeel; and the appearance of the beer, including the colour.

History of beer style

The history of beer style would be the history of beer itself. The Alulu Tablet - a receipt for "best" ale found in Ur - shows that even in 2050 BCE there was a differentiation between at least two different types or qualities of ale. While the work of Bedrich Hrozny on translating Assyrian merchants' tablets found in Hattusa, revealed that approximately 500 years later the Hittites had over 15 different types of beer.

Documents in various countries over the years reveal comments on different local brewing methods or ingredients. Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia wrote about Celts brewing ale "in Gaul and Spain in a number of different ways, and under a number of different names; although the principle is the same." Anglo-Saxon laws reveal they identified three different ales. While the Normans mention cervisae (ale) and plena cervisia (full bodied ale) in the Domesday Book.

By the 1400s brewers in Germany and the Low Countries were using hops to flavour and preserve their ale - this new style of ale was called beer. When this trend came to Britain and brewers of beer in Southwark, London started to take sales away from the traditional brewers of unhopped ale, there were complaints and protests. Various laws were passed favouring either beer or ale for a number of years, until hopped beer became the standard style throughout Europe.

Also in the 1400s, brewers in Bavaria were storing beer in cool caves during the summer months in order to stop it spoiling. The ale yeast mutated into a slow fermenting lager yeast which allowed the beer to drop bright and remain stable. The beer became known as lager from the German name for store: lagern. This clean, light-bodied and stable lager style of beer initially became popular with brewers and drinkers in Germany and the Czech lands, then gradually spread over the globe.

Read more at Wikipedia.org