A restaurateur's guide to beer style

For those of you who have a restaurant or food service facility with a bar, getting a handle on beer serving is an essential investment. Not only will it set your level of quality apart from the competition, but it will also help increase your bar profits and open up new horizons. However, before setting off on a beer education, food service professionals should know that there is a lot more that goes into crafting a beer than throwing water and barley into a keg.

In fact, to fully appreciate different beer styles, their flavors and their best food pairings, it is important to understand the brewing process and terminology. To help you jump into the world of beer and food pairing, here is a list of beer and brewing terms:

Core Beer Terminology and Measurements

ABV: Alcohol by Volume

ABV varies throughout the different craft beer styles, ranging from about 3% ABV to more than 20%. In beer styles with higher ABV percentages, the flavor of alcohol may be intentionally more prevalent, and the effect of alcohol will hit a customer faster.

IBU: International Bitterness Units

Beer bitterness is subjective. However, in an attempt to create a more objective measurement, IBU gauges a beer's level of bitter taste based on its hop content. This unit ranges from 0 to over 100. Even so, a number of other factors can affect a beer's perceived bitterness, such as cooler serving temperatures, carbonation, and sugar content.

Brewing Ingredients and Process

Barley: A cereal grain commonly made into malt and used as a base to brew beer and distill certain spirits. The grain is harvested from Hordeum vulgare, grass grown in temperate climates around the world.

Hops: The cone-like strobiles (or flowers) of a perennial climbing vine, also known as Humulus lupulus. While there are male and female hop plants, the ripened, unfertilized female plants are the ones used to flavor beer and stop bacterial growth in the wort. There are currently over a hundred varieties of hops growing around the world, which contribute to the bitterness, zest, and citric flavors in beer styles.

Boiling: The point in the brewing process in which wort is created with malt and hops. Boiling is a crucial step, as it removes unwanted compounds like dimethyl sulfide and the coagulation of unwanted proteins from the brew. Boiling also sterilizes a beer and ends the conversion of proteins to sugars. When it comes to building a recipe, this is the step where a brewer might add extra hops to create a stronger bitterness, or hoppy flavor, and aroma to the beer.

Fermentation: The process in which yeast metabolizes the sugar-filled wort solution to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. There are two methods of fermentation in brewing: top fermentation, produced using ale yeast, and bottom fermentation, using lager yeast.

Understanding Beer Characteristics

Ale

Ales are beer styles fermented at a higher temperature (60°-75°F) with top-fermenting yeast. Because of the higher temperature, this fermentation process is quicker than that of a lager, and ales are also generally served closer to room temperatures. Additionally, ale yeast often has by-products known as esters that have fruity or flowery aromas, often making them excellent dessert beers.

Examples of ale styles:

• Hefeweizens
• Any IPA
• Lambics
• Rye Beers
• Stouts
• Witbiers

Aroma, Body, and Clarity

Aroma: The scent of the beer once it is poured into its proper glass. A glass should always match the beer style to promote the right amount of foam and carbonation, resulting in the intended aroma and flavor. The scent comes from a variety of different sources, including alcohol, hops, malt, esters, phenol and more.

Esters: Common in ale styles of beer, esters are the fruity or flowery flavors and aromas produced by mixing organic acids and alcohol in the fermentation process.

Body: According to CraftBeer.com, it is the consistency, thickness and mouth-filling property of a beer. Palate fullness in the mouth ranges from thin-bodied (like a , a lighter German lager) to full-bodied (like a , a strong German lager).

Clarity: Also known as turbidity, clarity refers to your ability to see through a beer, giving clues to the yeast content or quality. Some beer styles, like a hefeweizen (meaning yeast beer), are made to look cloudy. Others should be served crystal clear. In general, there are four types of judged beer clarity: brilliant, clear, slight haze, and hazy.