The formulation of Bitters and Pale Ales is almost identical and in fact the two beers are descended from the same lineage and share more similarities than differences.
India Pale Ale developed out of an imbalance in shipping in the late 1700’s when an English brewery started to take advantage of low freight prices on empty spice ships heading back to India. To overcome the rigours of the passage, the quantity of hops in the ale was increased to take advantage of the preservative qualities, resulting of course in a more bitter tasting beer. The second modification was that the gravity of the beer was reduced to help achieve a greater degree of fermentation thereby leaving less residual sugar that would attract organisms that would potentially alter the flavour.
Subsequently, brewers developed the style into a colour range that was clearly pale by using very light malts with high gravities. The gravity of course refers to the amount of material extracted from the grain in the mash phase of the process.
From the middle of the twentieth century Pale Ales have become lighter and lower gravity.
Fruit Beers
It is said that many brewers would rather give up beer than produce beer with fruit in it. This abhorrence to fruit beers is a consequence of the treatment often given to commercially produced batches of beer that had developed an off-flavour. Rather than waste the product, the off-taste was camouflaged by adding fruit. Thus, many correlate fruit beers with failure. Despite this, fruit beers have become relatively common place in Europe and America. Many craft and microbreweries offer at least one fruit beer.
The words “mild” and “brown” have long been used to describe English beers. This is derived from the fact that early beers in the UK were produced from malt that was brown and had been kilned over fires using oak or other hardwoods. Although the terms are still used today, brown malt is no longer used and certainly it is no longer smoked.
There is suggestion that the early forms of brown ales were forerunners to porter and in fact porter ales were often called ‘brown beer’ in their early days.
Within brown and mild ales there are five subsets; pale mild, dark mild, southern brown, northern brown and in America, brown. The differences between these beers is their gravity and the hopping schedule that is followed.
The difference in pale mild and dark mild is determined based on the addition or omission of dark grains. It should be noted however that the colour distinction is not highly significant. The pale ales frequently have sugar added to help lighten the malt flavours.
By contrast, brown ale recipes lack the sugar content. Beyond this, the malt bills for brown ales are generally very similar to pale ales.
A hallmark of brown and pale ales is that they have low bitterness. It is also common for aroma hops to be added in the final stages of the boil.
It appears that mild and brown ales are not highly popular, mainly due to a public aversion to dark beers with lower alcohol content. However, many microbrewers do offer these styles and if you have not tried them, they are certainly worth a taste.
Pilsner
Unknown to many, Pilsner had it origins in Bohemia and in particular the town of Plzeò in the Czech Republic where wheat and barley beers have been brewed since 1295. The area grew both barley and hops of the finest quality, the barley being two-row Moravian, or Bohemian barley, long regarded and still revered as highly desirable for brewing. The hops belonged to the ‘red’ hop family that was prized for its fine aroma. It is reported that the Bohemian king went as far as creating a law to prevent the hop roots from being smuggled from the country, punishable by death.
A remarkable characteristic of the early Pilsner ales was their pale colour. Where most lagers were given colour ratings between 5-6, Pilsners were lower at between 3.5 and 4.3. By contrast, pale ales and Bavarian beer expressed amber to copper colours. The fact that Pilsners were so light was regarded as remarkable for an all malt ale. Other features that potentially gave the original Pilsner its distinctive characteristics were the water and yeast.
For many people, Pilsner is the first quality beer that they develop a liking for and that set them on the journey to experience other fine craft brews ales.
Porter, its named derived from the English working classes, was the first truly industrialised beer. The product was ‘engineered’ to meet specific consumer needs and was swept up in mass production associated with the industrial revolution. Its life-cycle took the path of economy sacrificing quality through the use of new ingredients, sugars, additives and production processes. An offspring of porter ale was stout that has not only outlived its parent brew, but has become much better known and regarded.
The early porters were produced using 100% brown malt. However by the early 1800’s, it was discovered that the extract from brown malt was quite low and in fact it was more economical to use higher cost pale malt due to its higher extraction. Today, brown malt is no longer used in porter to any extent, other than to retain an honest way to produce the dark colour.
A debate about the grains used in porter is whether or not roasted barley is permitted. While it is more common to use dark grains, some small breweries and indeed commercial brewers are know to use roasted barley to help give their porter the dark malt flavour.
Another distinct characteristic of porter is a somewhat fruity flavour that is derived from the yeast. Overall, a good porter should present a well attenuated style with little residual sweetness.
The revival of the porter is due largely to the efforts of the burgeoning craft brewing industry.
Scottish Ales
Very strong beers called scotch ales are classified separately from the lower gravity Scottish ales, although they are all brewed in much the same way. The Scottish ales include three different subcategories called Scottish –style light, heavy and export ales. The Scotch ales are sometimes called strong Scotch ales to clearly distinguish them from their Scottish brethren. The name “wee heavy” is also often used for these strong ales and should not be confused with the Scottish-style heavy ale. Confused!
Barley that is grown in the north of Scotland is mostly used for whisky production while that grown in the south is mostly consumed for the production of beer.
A characteristic of Scottish-style ale is a lack of hop character. Rather, sweetness and maltiness are hallmarks of the brew.
For anyone that has travelled through the wonderful Bavarian countryside and visited the splendid cities and quaint villages, there is nothing more enjoyable than to relax at the end of the day in a bier garten with a fine wheat beer. My first taste of a genuine weissbier was in the city of Konstanz overlooking the glistening lake by the same name. Ever since wheat beer is a personal favourite.
There are two distinct styles; weissbier from Bavaria in the south of Germany, also known as weizen while the other is called Berliner Weisse.
Wheat beers have also been known as white beers because of their pale colour. Typically, wheat beers are yellow in colour, they are cloudy in appearance and lack a bitter taste.
The Bavarian weisse recipe includes hops and is based on a triple decoction mashes. This involves pulling the mash for decoction and boiling for a time before adding back to the main mash. The process is repeated another two times, each raising the temperature of the mash. In contrast, the wort for the Berliner Weisse is not brought to the boil. However, the hops are boiled in the mash water.
Today, wheat beers can be classified into three styles; Berliner weisse, Bavarian weizen and American wheat. Although there are a number of distinguishing factors between each family, the ultimate defining characteristic is fermentation. Berliner weisse uses normal top fermentation ale yeast as well as lactic acid bacteria and other organisms to create its distinct taste. The Bavarian weizen uses only yeast for fermentation, but it is a unique type of yeast that produces the distinctly clover-like character of the style. The American wheat beers typically use an ale yeast for fermentation.
Without doubt, the Bavarian weizen is the best-known wheat beer and the most popular accounting for almost a quarter of all beer produced in Bavaria.
Reference;
- The work of Ray Daniels ‘Designing Great Beers’ has been used extensively in preparing the discussion of beer styles