A-Z Of Beer Styles: Gueuze

Many brewers are incredibly exacting about the ingredients they use and the way they make their beer. Specific varieties of hops are imported, strains of yeast are taken from famous breweries and clear local spring water is used. Lambic beers have a more random and chaotic approach. They use stale hops and instead of using a specific strain of yeast to trigger fermentation, they are left exposed in large shallow vats. Here wild yeasts in the air settle on the beer to trigger “spontaneous fermentation”. The beers are then left to ferment over a number of years giving range of different flavours. There are only a handful of lambic brewers, all of whom are based in the Senne valley in Belgium near Brussels.

Lambic beers are presented with an old world charm. Their brewers talk about cobwebs hanging off the ceiling and proudly claim that health and safety officers would have a seizure if they were allowed in. An excellent example of the lambic brewers craft can be found at the Cantillon brewery in the outskirts of Brussels. Now more a working museum than a commercial brewery you can guide yourself around and see the cooling trays, the rows of barrels and the piles of green glass bottles.

Gueuze is the traditional way that you will find lambic served. It is made by blending older lambic that has been ageing in barrels for many years with a livelier, younger lambic. The old lambic has a complexity and depth of flavour but is usually flat while the young lambic gives the beer its fizz. A key part of the skill of making gueuze is selecting the different barrels to blend together. Each will add slightly different flavours that the brewer must select from in order to achieve quality and consistency. The combination leads to an additional round of fermentation for the older beer which generally continues in the bottle. You will often find both a cork and a cap on top of these beers to make sure they don’t try to escape.

You can expect the beers to be dry, sour and somewhat fruity with a complex range of flavours and each brewer has its own distinct taste. Cantillon has an acidic grapefruit flavour with a hint of sweetness whilst Drie Fonteinen has lemons and apples to it. Girardin has a more rounded sourness to it, and Lindemanns showpiece Cuvée Rene beer is simply filthy in a way that will either delight or disgust. Mort Subite feels like a refreshing cider whilst Oud Beersel feels like a light blonde Belgian ale when the sediment is poured from the bottle.

The traditional versions are usually called oude gueuze and come in at around 5% abv, whilst the smooth Mariage Parfait from Boon clocks in at a very robust 8%. On an initial tasting you are likely to find gueuze strange or off-putting, making you think of cider gone weird. If you adjust to the taste it will be able to savour what is thought of as the champagne of beers.

Five to Try -
1. Girardin Gueuze 1882
2. Cantillon Gueuze
3. Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueuze
4. Lindemans Cuvée Rene
5. Boon Geuze Mariage Parfait

A-Z Of Beer Styles: Fruit Beer

The origin of fruit beers is not clear, but it may be a marriage of convenience. If a farmer had some fruit that had seen better days, then juicing it and mixing it with alcohol would leave you with something you could preserve. The fruit would help to add flavour before the use of hops was widespread, and its sugar content would create additional fermentation. Therefore the brewer and the farmer both win. These days the better fruit beers are usually based on fresh cherries or raspberries. Some beers even use gourmet fruit such as Schaerbeek cherries – however the price of the fruit means these are hard to come by.

Belgium shows the best and the worst of fruit beers. Some of the best are from Liefmans, a 300 year-old brewery who still wrap their beer bottles on tissue paper. Their Cuvée Brut is a blend of an oak-aged dark, sour ale with cherries that is left to mature for over a year. The inherent sourness of the beer matches wonderfully with the cherry flavours. Their Gluhkriek is another winner. It’s a cherry beer that is designed to be served warm like German gluhwein and it goes superbly with mince pies.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Hoegaarden fruit beers. Some bright brand manager at InBev decided that since Belgian Witbiers have a hint of orange, why not substitute other flavours by adding syrup and watering the beer down. Hence we have Hoegaarden Citron which tastes like supermarket own brand Sprite and Hoegaarden Rosé which smells like a processed raspberry dessert. Much better are the Huyghe Cherry Wheat Beer and the Invercargill Boysenberry Wheat Beer. In England the Melbourn Bros brewery makes fruit beers the old fashioned way with no hops and using wild yeast akin to lambics. Their beers are so good Sam Smith’s use them as the basis for their fruit beers.

Five to Try -
1. Liefmans Cuvée Brut
2. Melbourne Bros Apricot
3. Lancelot Bonnets Rouge
4. Invercargill Boysenberry
5. Red Oak Blackberry Wheat Beer

A-Z Of Beer Styles: ESB

What goes up must come down. But that doesn’t mean it stays down. Ales used to be brewed at higher alcoholic strengths before the 20th century. A combination of the temperance movement and wartime restrictions watered the beers down leaving bitter weighing in at around 4% abv rather than 6%. In 1971 the Fuller’s introduced their 5.5% abv Extra Special Bitter with great success, so much so that stronger “premium” bitters are often referred to as ESB after this London based beer. Fullers ESB is dark, woody and tangy with hints of nuts and fruit. It was originally just produced as a winter beer and Fullers have continued to make dark seasonal premium bitters such as Jack Frost, which contains blackberries.

These days premium bitters are many brewers’ answer to the continental style of premium lager that dominates drinking habits today, offering a more potent brew (and a chance to get drunk quicker). Wychwood’s Hobgoblin is one of the most successful – a full bodied mix of caramel and prune flavours that has more of a kick bottled than on draught. Jennings’ Sneck Lifter has such dominant coffee and chocolate flavours you could mistake it for a stout. Some premium bitters such as Ridgeway Ivanhoe have a pale amber colour and have very similar flavours to traditional bitters.

Most premium bitters are brewed in the UK but American microbrewers appear quite keen to play around with this style. Rogue’s Brutal Bitter is so hoppy that it is in danger of turning into an IPA. Australian microbrewers 4 Pines do a fine ESB that tastes of pine wood, cherry and caramel – it even stands up to being served ice cold. Norway’s Sma Vesen KvernKnurr could almost be mistaken for a Belgian Dubbel. In short, ESB has come a long way from its origins as a winter special in the early 1970s.

Five to Try -
1. Fullers ESB
2. Dorset Durdle Door
3. Wychwood Hobgoblin (bottle)
4. Jennings Sneck Lifter
5. Ridgeway Ivanhoe

A-Z Of Beer Styles: Dubbel

Abbey dubbels are dark, malty ales that get their name from being twice as strong as regular beers – clocking in at 7 or 8%. The original dubbel was made by the Westmalle monastery and has a gentle mix of stewed fruits and spices with a heavy, creamy mouthfeel. The beer is generally found in bottles, however you should look out for Belgian bars that have it on tap. This seems to give the beer an extra vibrancy. Most of the Trappist beers stick to this formula with varying amounts of spice and yeast in the flavour. The Rochefort 8 and Westvleteren 8 add bitter coffee and liquorice flavours making a more intense brew.

On the secular side the Maredsous 8 plays up the fruitiness of the beer and is one of the finest dubbels around. Elsewhere the Dupont Moinette Brune has a caramel sweetness to it, the St Bernardus Grottenbier has a surprisingly heavy dash of coriander, Grimbergen Dubbel has a twist of orange and the Ciney Cuvée Brune has a port like edge. Dubbels will always deliver a dark fruitiness, but you may find a few surprises too.

You will also find dubbels in surprising places. In the South island of New Zealand there is a town founded by Scottish Presbyterians. In the winter of 2010 the local microbrewery produced a superb beer called Dubbel Happy that had an explosion of white chocolate, allspice, nuts and liquorice. It had incredible depth of flavour yet was balanced and easily drinkable. It was also produced as a limited run which the brewery has no plans to repeat, though they are trying out some other abbey style ales. You’ll find these one off brews all around the world – American brewers especially seem to have got the knack – and they are well worth taking a punt on.

Five to Try -
1. Westmalle Dubbel
2. Westvleteren 8
3. Moortgat Maredsous 8 Bruin
4. Rochefort 6
5. Dupont Moinette Brune

A-Z Of Beer Styles: Coffee & Chocolate Beer

If you walk into a branch of Starbucks you will see coffee mixed with a whole range of things - chocolate, caramel, bananas - even strawberries & cream. Therefore it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that some people have tried to see what a fusion of coffee and beer would be like. The link between the two can be quite close as dark beers such as stouts and porters often have the flavour of coffee grounds. This is because when you roast malted barley seeds you get similar flavours to roasted coffee beans. So much so that there is a type of roasted barley called coffee malt and some beers made using this malt are called Coffee Stout. That wasn't enough for UK based brewers Dark Star. They took one of their beers and added freshly ground Arabica coffee beans that had blended specially. This created their Espresso Stout which won best specialty beer at the 2009 world beer awards. It lives up to it's name with a strong espresso taste however there is also a hint of chocolate in there.

Much as chocolate and coffee go together well in a mocha, dark beer and chocolate combine well. There is a type of barley called chocolate malt because the flavour it's acquires during the roasting process. This is used in stouts such as Tunnel's superb Shadow-weaver. Trying to mix actual chocolate into the beer can be a risky business. JW Lees Chocoholic was made for a JD Wetherspoon's beer festival and tasted like watery cocoa - I'm not sure the brewery has tried making it again. Better attempts are the Manchester Marble Chocolate Marble and Robinson's Chocolate Tom, both of which get the balance of roasted barley and cocoa flavours right, blending the bitterness of both to give something much finer than a novelty. All three of these breweries are based near Manchester, however this isn't solely a North of England phenomena. The London based Meantime brewery also makes a similar bitter chocolate beer that is very nice.

Over in Belgium the Huyghe brewery are best known for their potent Delerium Tremens beer. However they also make a range of sweet flavoured beers called Floris. The chocolate version avoids the sweetness of the English versions and tastes like Jaffa Cakes. In fact it tastes more like a watery Kahlua and Cointreau cocktail than a beer - but for some people that might be quite appealing.

Five to try:
1. Robinsons Chocolate Tom
2. Meantime Chocolate
3. Manchester Marble Chocolate Marble
4. Dark Star Espresso
5. Tunnel Shadow-weaver

A-Z Of Beer Styles: Biere de Garde

When you think of France you think of chateaus and vineyards. Of stories of 80 year-old estate Burgundy with a price tag bigger than your house being drunk at lunchtime by an investment banker. You don’t think of beers, and if you do you think of cheap supermarket lager or Kronenbourg – difficult to tell the difference really. However in farmhouse breweries there is a secret worth discovering.

In Northern France there are a range of “keeping beers” known as bière de garde. Like märzens these are brewed during the winter or spring and are then traditionally kept in cool conditions over the summer to preserve them. They can be light or dark but will display a prominent hoppy flavour that gives them a rural farmyard feel. Castelain’s Ch’ti range is named after a regional dialect, comes in corked 75cl bottles and covers every colour you could wish for. A sour apricot Blonde, a bitter malty Ambrée and a caramel- edged Brune. The best of the range is the hoppy, spicy Blanche that combines the best of bières de garde and witbiers. Also coming in 75cl bottles is the potent 3 Monts that has spirit like alcoholic intensity combined with a smooth hoppy, yeasty flavour.

One of the most widely available bières de garde is the Jenlain range from Duyck. The Ambrée is made with 3 types of Alsace hops and tastes like a Czech dark lager. The beers from the Thiriez brewery are much harder to find but have a superb rustic hoppiness that typifies the best bière de garde. There are also a few examples in other countries. The Flying Dog Garde Dog adds US IPA-style intense dry hoppiness and bitter porter roasted malts. You won’t see people investing fortunes in classic vintage bottles of bière de garde to lay down for years like they do with French wine – but the beer is better opened up and drunk anyway.

Five to Try -
1. Thiriez Ambrée du Esquelbecq
2. Duyck Jenlain Ambrée
3. Gayant Goudale
4. St Sylvestre 3 Monts
5. Flying Dog Garde Dog

A-Z Of Beer Styles: Amber Ale

Judging food by its colour can be a mistake. Red fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, cherries and apples don’t taste similar just because they have a rosy hue. The same applies to beer. Upon being served an amber coloured beer you can discern that you don’t have a stout or a pale lager on front of you (however much Fosters claims to be the amber nectar). But that still leaves a wide range of options: it could be a märzen lager, a pale coloured bitter or a Belgian ale. There are also beers that define themselves by their reddish colour.

English amber ales are usually a type of bitter that has been made with relatively few hops and which often have a slight sweetness to them. The Irish red ales usually add a caramel note to this mix. The main Irish brands are Murphy’s Red, Kilkenny, Smithwick’s and Caffrey’s (the later now brewed at 4% as it was found to produce a disproportionate number of hangovers at 5% abv). The style is also popular in places with large immigrant Irish communities such as America and New Zealand. Some of these have surprising flavours. The Monteith’s Celtic Red ale has the feel of a sherry cask whisky, Porter’s Rye Ale tastes like a Manhattan cocktail whilst the Prickly Moses Red Ale has leather, cherries and smoke amongst its flavours.

The continental European amber beers are called ambrées. Like the Irish reds the defining feature is usually a caramel flavour. This can be married to a spicy, bitter, strong beer like the Ellezelloise Quintine Ambrée, have a robust hoppy flavour like the Pelforth Ambrée or have a sweet, toffee apple flavour like the Chevreuse Volcelest Ambrée. There are also a number of Australian amber ales that are darker, sweeter siblings of the pale ales available down under. The James Squire Amber Ale is a mix of carrot cake and caramel whilst Pepperjack is a beer mixed with Shiraz wine.

Five to Try -
1. Monteith’s Celtic Red Beer
2. Pelforth Ambrée
3. Chevreuse Volcelest Ambrée
4. Mountain Goat Hightail Ale
5. Ellezelloise Quintine Ambrée

A-Z Of Beer Styles

If you go into a Chinese restaurant and end up being served a curry then you’ll be a bit disappointed, even if you like curry. The same goes for getting served a cup of tea if you are expecting coffee. Our expectations for food and drink usually define our initial reaction. Most beers will tell you what style they are somewhere on the label to avoid any unfortunate surprises. Therefore to understand beer you need to understand what these styles mean.

Trying to categorize beer by type is a thankless task, though. Distinguishing the grey areas between porter and stout or mild and bitter is a fool’s errand. A similar task on wines would use the type of grape whilst Scotch whisky is also classed by the geographical location of the distillery. Beers with similar ingredients from the same brewery can be widely different. This is why the world of beer usual refers to names and styles that have evolved out of historical precedent rather than any cold considered notions. So a beer that describes itself as an abbey dubbel is notionally something in the traditional of a beer brewed by the Westmalle Trappist abbey. However it could easily be any strong brown ale that a commercial brewery has paid to have their beer associated with an abbey.

More than anything else the style of beer should be taken as part of the brewer’s intentions. These may be to brew a classic pilsner in the style of Czech beers of old or to come up with an IPA unlike any you’ve tasted before. Over time beers styles have splintered into subcategories like sects of particularly troubled religions. To these ends you could list hundreds of styles of beer. This series lists 26 of the main styles