How To Distinguish Different Types Of Beer

Expand the description and view the text of the steps for this how-to video.

Check out Howcast for other do-it-yourself videos from rsansivero and more videos in the Beer Guides category.

You can contribute too! Create your own DIY guide at http://www.howcast.com/videos/new or produce your own Howcast spots with the Howcast Filmmakers Program at http://www.howcast.com/filmmakers/apply.

Beer has so many traits and flavors that you might have to taste a lot of it to see what you like. Oh darn.

To complete this How-To you will need:

A variety of beer
Crackers or bread

Warning: Don't drink unless you're of legal age. Drink responsibly, and never drink and drive.

Step 1: Consider the many varieties of beer. These include lagers, ales, stouts, porters and wheat beers, each having many sub-categories and variations within variations.

Step 2: Serve lager at cold temperatures -- about 40-45 degrees, Ales, porters and stouts should be served at a temperature between 50 and 55 degrees, and wheat beer at around 48 degrees.

Tip: Serve beer at the same temperature that it ferments.

Step 3: Note the different colors for different styles of beer. Lagers are typically light in color and have more carbonation. Ales range from red to amber to brown to almost black. Porter and stout are heavy, dark beers, and wheat beer is a light amber-orange in color.

Step 4: Smell your beer. Lager should smell yeasty with slight floral notes. Ales typically have a hoppy, fruity aroma, and stout smells slightly sweet, with notes of malt, coffee, and even toffee and chocolate. Wheat beer smells like citrus with hints of banana and cloves.

Step 5: Take a sip of your beer and note the light crispness of pale lager, the medium body of brown or red ales, the richness of stout or porter, and the dense carbonation of wheat beer. Porter will be more bitter than stout.

Tip: When tasting a variety of beers, clean your palate with crackers or bread to clarify each drink and get the full effect.

Step 6: Consider the sweetness of a lager compared to the bitterness of strong ale. Stout has hints of coffee, while porter suggests chocolate. Wheat beers generally taste sweet and fruity.

Step 7: Evaluate the finish by taking in the lingering sensation of the beer, which varies within styles, leaving a bitter or sweet aftertaste or disappearing completely, what's known as a clean finish.

Thanks for watching How To Distinguish Different Types Of Beer! If you enjoyed this video subscribe to the Howcast YouTube channel! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=howcast

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• FoodDrink
• drinking
• alcohol
• Beers
• distinguishing
• types
• knowing
• learning
• different
• Differences

[jyoungrules]

Don't Drink and Drive, You Might Spill the Beer!!!

[Riptor552]

Note: All those differences start to elude you after your 5th or 6th beer

[flksjljdle03903]

its werid every time i have a beer i always watch the beer videos, mmmmm this beer is going down that hatch with ease.....

[idogs5]

I want a beer now

[twoodsak36]

Can you sniff to distinguish variations of cocaine?

[MultiRump]

last comment

[kinkyplunk]

@Riptor552 So true. 

[Danilko100]

1st one: I don't like this one

2nd one: This one's ok, but not my style

3rd one: Uhh...what's the word...oh yeah, cat

4th one: Well *hiccup* I don't know how...uhh...gooood is this one...it jumped from my hand...

5th one: Do ya pay me to...do this? I'd do it all day long...

6th one: Ya do...*hiccup* realize I lost my sense of taste...uhh...like 9 beers ago...

[WaterBarleyHopsYeast]

Anyone who makes a statement like this only thinks they know a lot about beer but doesn't.

[WaterBarleyHopsYeast]

This video is so full of bad information I don't even know where to begin. There are only two kinds of beers at the base of the "beer tree" Ales and Lagers.  Stouts, porters, wheat, pale ales, bitters, lambics, saison, weizen, kolsch... are all ales.

Porters are not more bitter than stouts or visa versa it depends on what type of porter or stout. eg Guiness draft is way more bitter than a Sammy Smith Taddy Porter and a Sierra Nevada Porter is way more bitter than a Mackison XXX stout.

[dalejaking]

Hefeweizen with a lemon? Please!

The only Weizen that should be served with a lemon is a Kristallweizen.

You can trust me, I work in a Bar in Germany, had to learn all the beer rules first when i moved there but after 5 years I'm pretty good in drinking german beer^^

[Cannile]

Anybody who can't distinguish beer styles is a retard.