Beer Styles

Czech Pilsner and the German Helles Lager
It's October 4, 1841 and you're a German brewer happily brewing away your top-fermented, dark, cloudy beer. Sure, there are some people experimenting in caves with bottom-fermenting yeasts, but hey, no big whoop for you; you sleep well. The next day, some Bavarian brewer named Josef Groll, working for the Burgess Brewery in Plzn, Bohemia, using new techniques and new, paler malts, brews a clear, crisp, golden beer. The Plzn style of lager (or Pilsner) is born! Not only is it born, it's a hit! Not only is it a hit, but improved transportation makes it a hit in Central Europe! Tough luck for you. What will you do, Mr. German brewer if Germans start drinking the new beer? Well, don't fret, because in response, you and your buddies will create the Helles Lager to compete.

"In the middle of the nineteenth century, in a land that is now the Czech Republic, the Pilsner beer style was born. The soft local water, the bottom-fermenting Bavarian Yeast, the local hops and the lightly toasted barley made it beloved the world over. Unfortunately, the industrial breweries here in America have spent the better part of a century diluting and bastardizing this beer style to its hardly recognizable current state of existence. Over three quarters of the beer made and consumed in America is sold as Pilsner. But it doesn't have the alcohol content or the crisp, bracing, hop character of the old world standard. In fact, it doesn"t even have the same ingredients. The big breweries have done such an amazing job of telling people what they want to drink through billions of dollars in marketing that they've convinced the world to drink their beer too cold and too light ...  A true Pilsner [is] brewed with 100% Pilsner Barley, and [is] nearly twice as strong as the American, wanna-be pilsners made by the big boys."  - Dogfish Head Brewery

Märzenbier
Back in the olden days beer brewing was a seasonal activity with the end of the brewing season was traditionally March or April. No brewing was done in the summer as the abundance of stray yeast in the air. In Germany, the Märzenbier was brewed (as the name suggests) in March and fermented in caves throughout the summer for drinking in September or October. Consequently, the style traditionally has been the style of Oktoberfest beers. Märzen beers tend to be malty lagers of a range of colors.

Oktoberfest
October 17, 1810 - Louis, crown prince of Bavaria looked out of his castle. Five days now and he was already tiring of this whole marriage thing. State dinners, state parties, state appearances ... what a state he was in. And now that idiot, Napoleon, wanted Louis to come back and serve with him. Oh well, at least there was a horse race later on today. God, did Louis love horse races ...

October 17, 1811 - Louis, crown prince of Bavaria strolled through his stables. One year later, and he still had his wife and the peasants were still doing a horse race. Louis was sure which he preferred as he gave some sugar to his favorite charger. What's more, he'd heard that the peasants were organizing a whole state agricultural festival around the race. Louis despaired how some people couldn't let a good thing be a good thing.

October 17, 1818 - Seven years of fairs, seven years of harvest competitions, seven years of more of everything except the race, and Louis was getting tired of the whole thing. And now, they were bringing food and drink. Louis sighed as he searched for this year's race grounds. Food and drink. What's next ... beer? Nothing good will come of this, he thought.

Almost 200 years later and what started as a horse race has become the biggest beer festival in the world.  

Pumpkin Ale
"Pumpkin ales?" you say. Yes, pumpin ales. The style was originally developed in colonial times when American brewers looked for something to substitute for the then sparce and expensive English barley in their beer making. Today, brewers have revitalized the style, adding roast pumpkin as well as spices like cinnamon and nutmeg to the mash to produce seasonal flavors. These are great beers for cooler nights and dinners of roast fowl. The now defunct (or, actually, bought out) Buffalo Bills Brewery, were the people who brought the pumpkin ale from then to now. One-time owner, Bill Owens, was reading about colonial experiments in pumpkin ales and decided to give them a try.

Imperial Russian Stout
"In the 18th century, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, asked for stout to be sent to her from England. Fearful of spoilage on the long voyage to the Baltic ports, the English brewers made the beer strong, and added more hops as a natural preservative. It arrived in perfect condition, and became known as Russian Imperial Stout, the toast of the Russian aristocracy …" - Brooklyn Brewery

Milk Stout
Contrary to what you might think, milk stout does not have milk in it. Sorry to disappoint. We know you were looking forward to it. No, the milk stout (or "sweet stout" or "cream stout") is a type of stout that has lactose (the sugar in milk) added to it. Why lactose? It just so happens that lactose is unfermentable so that when other sugars have been converted to alcohol in the fermentation process, the lactose remains sweetening the brew. Few people make the milk stout (although once it was given to nursing mothers for its purported nutritious value), Mackeson's is the most notable example.

Belgian Saison Ales
Everyone knows about the Belgian Abbey Ales (everyone who hasn't been hidden under a Milwaukee rock that is), but one of my favorite styles of Belgian beer is the Saison Ale. Brewed in the farmhouses of Flanders, the Saison Ale is a heartier ale than the monks got up to. Try it with salamis or other sausages.

“Imperial” whatever
So you've got the whole Stout/Imperial Stout thing, right? Well, since that distinction has become well-established, brewers have started using the term "Imperial" to describe any beer that's significantly stronger than the norm of that style. Hence an Imperial Porter won't have anything to do with Russian czarinas, but it will have more malt or hops or alcohol or any combination of the three.

French Bieres de Garde
Now it's time to turn to France's proudest alcoholic export ... beer! Wait a minute! Beer? Okay, France may not be famous for its beer; it may not be overly proud of its beer; but the beer made in Northern France is one of the beer world's hidden treasures. This area, called Nord-Pas de Calais (Calais's Northern Pass) borders the Flemish area of Southern Belgium. Elements of Flemish culture can be seen in this area, which is also known as French Flanders. Nowhere are the cultural ties more noticeable than in the Bieres de Garde that the region produces. The Biere de Garde (Beer for Storage) is originally a farmhouse beer made to stored through the summer when wild microflora inhibited successful brewing. In this way, it shares a heritage with the Belgian Saison Ale and the German Märzen Bier.

Sam Smith Brewery
There has probably been brewing in Yorkshire ever since Roman soldiers bundled up and grumbled that you probably couldn't raise a decent grape vine in all of England. In the town of Tadcaster, the brewing tradition is at least as old as their practice of recording such activities. Tadcaster lies on the River Wharfe between Leeds and York. It's the home of three large breweries, two of which hold the name of Smith. Only one, Sam Smith's is still independently owned and makes some of the finest beers in the world. One of Sam Smith's crucial ingredients is the very hard magnesium and limestone water for which Tadcaster is famous. The original well at The Old Brewery, sunk in 1758, is still in use.

English Porter and English Stout
So this is what legend has ... legend has it that back in the latter part of the first half of the 1700s (maybe 1730), a London Brewer named Ralph Harwood in his alehouse, the Bellin Shoreditch, combined three styles of beer (old ale, brown beer, and tuppenny - a strong beer). Calling the mixture "Entire", he served it to the populous, where it became popular with either the local workers who toted and lifted for the local markets, with the railway workers, or with both, causing the beer to be called ... "porter". Maybe because of the rail worker connection or maybe simply because for the first time railroads were stretching over England, the new porter style became the first nationally popular style. As a side a note, a stronger, richer version of porter was made almost a century later called, the "stout porter". Later, the name was, of course, shortened to "stout". Soon after that, the porter, though alive in Ireland (especially at a small brewery named "Guinness") and in the Baltic states, had all but disappeared in England.

Mead
Mead, for those of you who do not know, is many things. Mead is an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey. Mead was first made long before wine was first made. Mead was the favored drink of both gods and heroes in the Classical Norse and Greek religions. Mead is one of the four things that anyone ever remembers from Beowulf. Mead is something we have here at the Market Street Wineshop. Try it when you're looking for an alternate to dessert wines. Try it when you want something sweet for your sweety this Hallmark Inc. Day. Try it with the blood of the dead god Kvasir for wisdom and poetic inspiration.

German Alt Beer
Alt Beer or Altbier ("old beer") is a copper-colored top fermenting beer that originated in Düsseldorf. (in fact, until 1950 it was also called "Düssel".) It's closest cousin is the English bitter, but even though it tends to have more hops than other German beers, it's less hoppy than a bitter.

German Doppelbock
Though they may look like ales, bock beers are actually heavy-bodied lagers. They're darker than most lagers through the use of high-colored malts. The name "bock" comes from the town "Einbeck" (in the regional accent, the "beck" is pronounced like "bock"), a famous German medieval brewing town. Now, the doppelbock ("double bock") is a bit of a misnomer as they're only a bit stronger than bocks rather than twice as strong. Traditionally, it's a beer brewed to be enjoyed in the late summer/early spring. The style was created by the Italian emigrated monks of St. Francis of Paula (founders of Paulaner Brewery). Required to give up solid food, but not liquid, for Lent, these crafty brothers hit on the idea of brewing a hearty beer with enough food nutrients to see that they could survive the strictures placed on them by their deity.

Hefeweizen
Since hefeweizen are wheat beers they are brewed with malted wheat added to the malted barley, but they have the additional characteristic that they are unfiltered. "Hefe" is German for "yeast," the yeast you can still see floating in the glass. Light, with tastes ranging from fruit sweet to citrus-like, who knows how good things will look through the yeast haze.

Maibock
Maibocks are the lightest of the bocks, brewed in winter to be tapped in spring (thus the name, "May Bock").

Schlekerla Brewery (Just 'cause it's cool.)
If you visit Bamberg, Germany, there's one word you must know ... innovative! No! Schlenkerla! (We'll wait while you figure out how to pronounce it. Trust us, it takes some practice.) At the bottom of Bamberg's great cathedral is the social heart of the city, the Schlenkerla Brewery and Tavern. First mentioned in 1405 and now run by the Trum family in its 6th generation, the name comes from an old franconian term, "Schlenkern," which means walking not straight (like a drunken person would). The story is one of their early brewers "schlenkerned" due to an accident (Yeah, sure it was the accident.) and so was called the "Schlenkerla," and thus was his beer, and thus was its brewery.

English Pale Ale, English India Pale Ale, and American Double IPA
In the beginning, there was England. (Actually there were a lot of other things beginning before England, but in the beginning, England didn't really care about anyone but them.) And England did begat the Pale Ale. It was balanced between malts and hops, not too rich, not too bitter, and flavorful. And the people did drink it and saw that it was good. Then did England start caring about other places like America and South Africa and North Borneo and India, and they did beget the India Pale Ale, adding hops to act as a preservative, making the beer more bitter. Again, the people did drink it and they saw that it was also good. Then (albeit much later) did America say, "Hey, we could do that!", and they did make the IPA as well, and it was again with the drinking and thinking it was good. But America was not like England (nor India nor North Borneo for that matter). It was kind of a "More is bigger / Bigger is better" type of place. And thus did they say, "Hey, we could do that again ... only, like, more so, ya' know?" And they, like, did. And thus did they begat the Double IPA.

Fruit beers
American Beer drinkers are some of the most versatile beer drinkers in the world. Like the culture in general, on one hand they've got a voracious appetite for things that are new and are eager to co-opt and reproduce other cultures' foods and fashions until they seem as commonplace as hot dogs (German) and apple pie (English and Dutch). On the other hand there's this phenomenal fear of something different, a voice that comes up and says, "Don't go there!" For American beer drinkers, that voice usually comes up with fruit beers. They're very popular across the Pond. In England, Shandy (beer mixed with lemonade (mostly)) is a common refresher. Germany calls them "Radlers". In Belgium, fruit is often added to Lambic beers.

Scottish Beers
Where most places use styles to distinguish their national brews, Scotland refuses to mess around. They cut right to the chase and distinguish beer based on alcoholic strength ... or, at least, they used to. Such designations used to be much more fixed than they are now. Alcohol strength used to coincide with shilling designations, and shilling distinctions got attached to names. "Light" was 60 shillings and under 3.5% ABV. "Heavy" was 70 shillings and 3.5% - 4% ABV. "Export" was 80 shillings was 4% - 5.5% ABV. Wee Heavy was 90 shillings and over 6% ABV.

Belgian White Beer (Hoegaarden) and Pierre Celis
All right, kids. Strap yourself in; it's going to be a bumpy ride, and the man taking each bump is Pierre Celis, single-handed savior of the Belgian Wheat Beer. Celis was born in 1926 a little town in Flanders called Hoegaarden, (Yes, that Hoegaarden.) the place where, arguably, Belgian brewing was born. There Pierre was sort of professionally adopted by one of the many beer brewing families that were making the spiced, white, wheat beer for which the area was famous. However, famous or not, by 1955 demand for the Hoegaarden style beer had declined and all its makers shut down. When the owner of Celis's old brewery died, reports say he told Pierre, "Do not forget what you learned about brewing the white beer of our village."

Ten years later, Celis and a friend start brewing the same good old beer in Celis's backyard. Eventually they start the De Kluis Brewery making, you guessed it, Hoegaarden. So popular does it become throughout Belgium that Mega Corp #1, Interbrew-Labatt (Stella Artois) buys them up. But you don't get to be a Mega Corp by acting like a backyard brewer, so I-L changes the Hoegaarden recipe to be mass produced with less expensive ingredients. Consumers say the quality suffers, and a disgusted Celis (at the age of 65) moves to, of all places, Texas. In Texas, he starts a new brewery, where he, his daughter, and his son-in-law start brewing the same good old beer under the name "Celis White." So well does it do that it attracts Mega Corp #2, Miller. Miller buys Celis White, downgrades it, reduces its market presence, and eventually shuts the brewery down in 2000. Dejected, Celis moves back to Belgium, where he makes a deal with De Smelt brewery and starts making the same good old beer ... thus attracting Mega Corp #3, Heineken, which buys up De Smelt, leaving Celis without a brewery again. Finally Celis hooks up with Van Steenberge Brewery and starts brewing the same good old beer. He's there today.

Meanwhile back among the Great Unwashed, a small brewer called Michigan Brewing Company buys the equipment and name of the defunct Celis White from Miller and begins brewing, supposedly with Pierre Celis himself consulting, their version of the same good old beer.

Christmas Ales
Every year people ask me what constitutes a winter ale or a Christmas ale, and the fact is that, other than the fact that they tend to be ales, they tend to have Christmas spices in them (cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.), and tend to have respectable ABV's, as far as American ales go, it's really anything goes. Belgian Christmas beers tend to mean sweetness and spice.

English and American Barley Wine
Most importantly, barley wine is not wine. It is a brewed beverage with barley as a base and with malts and hops added in for fermentation and flavor. In other words, it's a beer. Colored anywhere from amber to dark brown, traditionally featuring "Old" or "Olde" in their names, barley wines are usually bittersweet (on the American side of things at least) and feature a high alcohol content. In fact, it is one of the strongest of the beer styles with ABV levels that rival wine, thus the confusing name. Have some barley wine now or let them age. With its strong alcohol content, it's been ideal for taking away the winter chill. Of course now that we no longer have much of a winter chill, we'll just have to enjoy it (at cellar temperature) as a good, stiff drink. It's originally an English style and, as is typical with English beer, features a mild balance between hops and the barley wine distinctive piercing malt.  American barley wines, as is typical for us, tend to go crazy on the hops, many breweries taking the barley wine malt as an excuse to aggressively hop the brew.