Styles Of Home Brewed Beer

"Hi, I'm Mark Emiley on behalf of Expert Village. In this next segment, we are going to talk about styles in general, and what makes a different beer style. If you go to the grocery store, you'll see potentially hundreds of different beers there. Today we are going to talk about what makes each one of them different. The Brewer's Association and the BJCP (The Beer Judge Certification Program) have developed some basic style guidelines for all the different beers that are available. They've broken them down into what type of ingredients they have, what the aromas are like, what the flavor is, how the mouth feel is, what the appearance is and tried to characterize them so that you can actually say that "I've picked up a Miller Light, and this is going to be an American Light lager." Now there are two major families of beers. First, there are lagers which are distinguished by the yeast strain that they are used from. They are usually fermented cold; they are going to have nice crisp flavors. Most beers that you'll find sold in America are lagers. The other beers are ales. And this yeast strain ferments a little warmer and produces some more fruity esters. And these are responsible for making your pale ales, your stouts, your porters, and a whole bunch of different other ones. So now, let's actually go through a beer and kind of look at all the aspects that may define its style. First, you are going to have its color. And the color is going to come through from the base malts as well as the specialty malts. This one is obviously a nice golden color; it's also a little hazy too...it's also a little fogged up, but it's got a nice carbonation going for it. And that can be driven from your priming sugar. Next, we can actually look at the aroma. So your aroma is going to come also from your base malts, your specialty malts, and then also the hops that you add. And with our hops, the later that we add the hops, the more aroma components they are going to be adding to it. So, you are also going to get some of the fermentation products from the yeast. So if the yeast has some nice fruity esters to it, they are going to come through in the aroma. Next, you can actually try the flavor. Now, starting again, the base malts are going to give you kind of the underlying malty sweetness, and then you are going to top it off with kind of maybe a bready or biscuity effect from your specialty grains. If you add hops kind of in the middle of your boil or maybe ten to fifteen minutes out, they can also contribute some flavors. And certain hops, maybe an American hop will actually add some citrus flavors to your beer. Finally, any of the yeast characteristics...once again, the esters may become evident in the flavor. And finally, you can go for your just overall impression of the beer. The balancing of the hops...Ok...this one is a very clean beer. It's going to actually have a fair amount of malt sweetness. It's a little less bitter, so overall, it's pretty good. So, the bitterness also comes from the hops that you add back in the beginning. Now, in our next segment, we are going to get into the details coming up with our recipe."