Beer - So much to choose from

Beer styles

Top restaurants in the UK are becoming increasingly interested in the pairing of beer and food, with chefs such as Michel Roux Jr at London's Michelin-rated Le Gavroche leading the way.

Thousands of beers are produced around the world but they can mostly be categorised into one of five classic brewing styles.

Lambic

Lambic beers come from the Zenne valley area of Brussels, Belgium, where brewers have traditionally produced beers made with wild, airborne yeasts and fermented in oak tuns. Bacteria that are encouraged to live in these vessels and in the brewery buildings also play their part in imparting lambic beers with their sour, wine-like aroma and taste. Lambic beers are made with a combination of barley malt, unmalted wheat and hops.

Pure lambic beers are rarely served these days but they form the base for other beers such as the foaming gueze, a blend of young and old lambics, or faro, a sweetened version made with the addition of dark candy sugar. Lambics are also used to make many classic Belgian fruit beers, such as kriek (made with cherries) or frambozen (raspberries). Not all fruit beers are based on lambics, though.

Wheat beer

Known in Germany as "Weisse " (white) or "Weizen" (wheat) and in Belgium as "witbier" or "biere blanche", beers made with wheat have been around since ancient times. Traditional wheat beers are top-fermenting, meaning that the yeast rises to the top during the fermentation process, producing a foamy head.

Classic Bavarian wheat beers have a refreshing spicy taste and an aroma reminiscent of cloves or banana. They typically come in either cloudy ("Hefe") or clear ("Kristall") versions, while wheat beers made with dark malts are known as "Dunkel-Weizen".

Berlin's version of wheat beer - "Berliner Weisse" - is lower in alcohol with a tart, acidic taste and is traditionally served with a shot of fruit syrup. Belgian wheat beers are often flavoured with coriander seeds or curaçao orange peel during the brewing process.

Ale

The term ale, while usually associated with traditional British brews, in fact covers beers from various countries. It signifies beer made with top-fermenting yeasts produced through warm fermentation. This process imparts ales with their distinctive, often fruity, palate and aroma. They come in a variety of strengths, colours and flavours. The most significant varieties include:

Mild - a lightly hopped ale with a lower-than-usual alcohol content (around 3%) designed as a thirst-quenching drink to be consumed in larger quantities. Has gradually fallen out of favour since the 1960s. Mostly tawny or dark brown in colour, milds tend to have a sweetish, gently hoppy character with a rich malt finish.

Bitter - the most common form of ale found in Britain, bitters range in colour from straw-coloured to deep reddish-brown. There are wide variations in character but this style typically combines a strong hoppy bitterness with rich, fruity flavours and aromas.

Pale ale - ranging in colour from bronze to dark amber, pale ale is a British style of beer characterised by a nutty maltiness that balances the bitterness of the hops. The term India Pale Ale should indicate a stronger, hoppier version (it was originally invented as a way of preserving beer that was shipped out to India in the days of the British Empire).

Brown ale - the most famous version of this is Newcastle Brown Ale, a reddish-brown ale with a malty, nutty flavour. It is made from a blend of two ales: a stronger, dark ale and a lower-gravity amber beer. The south-east of England boasts a darker, sweeter version of the style, typified by Mann's Original Brown Ale.

Old ale - as the name implies, is a beer that derives its smooth, ripe flavour from ageing. It is typically dark, rich, sweet, full-bodied and often strong. Theakston's Old Peculier is a prime example.

Barley wine - rich, fruity beers, often with a caramel aroma, ranging in colour from dark gold to deep reddish-brown.

Scottish ale - fuller-bodied, warming beers that come in three main designations: light (or 60 Shilling), heavy (70 Shilling) and export (80 Shilling). The flavour is generally malt-dominated with a slight toasty or chocolate-like character.

Belgian pale ale - while all of Belgium's speciality beers are technically ales (as they use top-fermenting yeasts) only some are actually labelled as such in their own country. These are fruity, spicy ales with a soft and smooth malt character, golden to copper in colour and often labelled "speciale". Examples include Palm and De Koninck.

Belgian golden ale - typified by the strong, fruity, hoppy golden ale known as Duvel, this style could be mistaken in appearance for a lager and, like a lager, is often served very cold.

Belgian brown ale - the "oud bruin" beers of Belgium's Flemish provinces have a fruit-and-sour character, with notes of raisin, chocolate and peppery hops. The classic beer for use in "carbonade flamande" beef-and-onion stew. The best known producer is Liefmans, which also produces cherry and raspberry beers based on one of its brown ales.

Belgian sour red - fruity, oaky, tart, refreshing beers typified by the classic deep-red ales of the Rodenbach brewery.

Saison - crisp, complex, fruity, hoppy spicy brews produced in Belgian's French-speaking provinces. Amber in colour and often presented in corked Champagne bottles.

Biere de garde - similar to saisons, but produced in Northern France, bieres de garde were originally brewed in February or March to be stored until the summer. Usually copper-coloured with a malt aroma and hints of toffee in the flavour.

Trappist beer - not strictly a style, this appellation refers to a variety of strong bottle-conditioned beers brewed at one of six Trappist monasteries, five in Belgium and one in the Netherlands: Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Schaapskooi (La Trappe), Westmalle and Westvleteren. Their ales end to be dark in colour, fruity, with malty aromas, and chocolate and coffee notes in the darker versions. Stronger ales are labelled "Dubbel" (double) and "Tripel" (triple).

Abbey beer - although only the monks are allowed to label their beers as "Trappist", imitators of the style are permitted to use the term abbey ("abbaye" in French or "abdij" in Flemish). Leffe is the best-known exponent.

Altbier - bittersweet dark beer, especially from the Düsseldorf region of Germany. Also known simply as "Alt", its hoppy bitterness is balanced by its malt character. Colour ranges from orange-copper to brown.

Kölsch - a unique style of ale produced in Cologne, Germany, this soft, delicate, lightly fruity golden beer could be mistaken for a Pilsner in appearance. Traditionally served in small (20cl), narrow glasses.

Porter and Stout

Very dark, often black, beers with a roasted, coffee-bean edge to them. The style was born in England but is today more often associated with Ireland. Traditionally brewed using top-fermenting yeasts and dark malts. Porter is the lighter-bodied incarnation of the style, while the term stout originally designated heavier versions.

Subcategories include dry stout, of which Guinness is the prime example, milk stout (eg Mackeson's), and the very strong imperial stout, originally brewed for export to Russia.

Lager

Essentially, lagers are the opposite of ales in that they are brewed using bottom-fermenting yeasts, which settle to the bottom of the brewing tanks rather than rising to the top. Lager yeasts also work at lower temperatures and the beer is cooled to close to zero degrees Celsius while it matures in tanks at the brewery.

Like ale, lager has a number of distinct sub-categories:

Pilsner - golden lagers in the style of those originally brewed in the city of Pilsen in what is now the Czech Republic. Often abbreviated to "Pils". Should have a flowery, Saaz-hop bouquet with a touch of malt on the palate and a dry finish. The original Pilsners were the first clear, golden beers.

Helles - a basic golden lager that is pale in colour ("hell" is German for "pale"). Compared with Pils, it is slightly fuller-bodied, more malty, less hoppy, and lower in alcohol. The style is particularly prevalent in Bavaria and Munich.

Vienna-style/Märzen/Oktoberfest - amber-red lagers originally produced in Vienna. A halfway house between the old-style dark lagers and the more modern, clear Pilsners. Malty and sweetish but fairly light-bodied. Munich brewer Josef Sedlmayr adapted the style to produce a beer brewed in March (März) for the Oktoberfest beer festival.

Dark lagers - before the advent of new brewing techniques that allowed the production of golden lagers, all of them were dark brown. Known as "Dunkel" in German and primarily associated with the city of Munich, this style has a spicy malt aroma. The taste too is malty, maybe slightly sweet, with low bitterness.

Black beers - the classic example of this style is Köstritzer Schwarzbier. Balances rich dark malt flavours with a distinct chocolate-like bitterness from the hops and roasted malts. Drier on the palate than Munich-style dark lagers.

Dortmunder Export - well-balanced beer from the city of Dortmund in Germany's Ruhr valley. Burnished gold in colour with a clean, white head. Fuller in body than a Pils, and not as dry.

Bock - strong (more than 6.4% ABV), smooth, malty, dark German lagers with a hint of sweetness. These are traditionally seasonal beers served in the winter or late spring. Variations include the stronger Doppelbock, Maibock - usually released in April - and Eisbock. "Eis" means "ice" and refers to the freezing technique used to achieve even higher alcohol content.

Online resources:

Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter