A Guide to Beer Styles

Beer styles exist because brewers, over centuries, developed recognisable patterns of ingredients and process that produce a consistent kind of beer. Knowing the main families helps you predict roughly what you are getting before you even take a sip, and it gives you a vocabulary for comparing one beer to another.

Lagers

Lager is brewed with bottom-fermenting yeast at cooler temperatures and typically conditioned, or lagered, for a longer period than ale. This process produces a cleaner, crisper flavour with less fruitiness from the yeast itself.

Pilsner: A pale, hoppy lager with a crisp, slightly bitter finish, originally developed in Bohemia.
Helles: A malt-forward German lager, softer and less bitter than a pilsner.
Dunkel: A darker German lager with toasty, bready malt character.

Ales

Ales use top-fermenting yeast at warmer temperatures, which tends to produce more pronounced fruity and sometimes spicy flavours from the fermentation itself.

Pale ale: A balanced style with noticeable hop character, ranging from mild to quite bitter depending on the recipe.
India pale ale (IPA): A hop-forward style, often with strong citrus, pine or tropical fruit aromas depending on the hop varieties used.
Brown ale: A malt-focused style with nutty, caramel or chocolate notes and usually modest bitterness.
Belgian ale: A broad category covering everything from light, spicy tripels to dark, fruity dubbels, often fermented with distinctive Belgian yeast strains that add fruity esters and peppery phenols.

Dark and roasted styles

Some beers get their character mainly from dark, roasted malts rather than from hops or yeast.

Porter: A dark ale with roasted malt character, often showing chocolate or coffee notes.
Stout: A close relative of porter, generally fuller bodied, with styles ranging from dry Irish stouts to rich, sweet milk stouts and strong imperial stouts.

Wheat beers

Brewed with a significant proportion of wheat alongside barley malt, these beers tend to have a soft, sometimes hazy body.

Weissbier: A German wheat beer known for banana and clove aromas from its distinctive yeast.
Witbier: A Belgian style often spiced with coriander and orange peel, pale and refreshing.

Sour and wild beers

Sour beers are deliberately fermented with wild yeast or bacteria, such as lactobacillus, to produce tart, sometimes funky flavours. Styles in this category range from lightly tart, easy-drinking beers to intensely sour, barrel-aged creations that can take years to produce.

Strength and body

Beyond flavour families, beers also vary widely in alcohol strength and body, from light session beers designed for easy drinking over an evening to strong, warming styles meant to be sipped slowly. Reading the label or asking what the alcohol percentage is can help you choose something appropriate for the occasion.

Using style knowledge at the bar

You do not need to memorise every style to benefit from this knowledge. Knowing roughly where a beer sits, pale or dark, malty or hoppy, light or strong, gives you a reasonable idea of what to expect, and it makes it easier to describe what you like to a bartender or brewer so they can point you toward something similar.