Beers :-)

How many types of Beer are available to drink?
Here are the different styles you may come across at our stores or your favourite local brew pub.

Ale - originally liquor made from an infusion of malt by fermentation, as opposed to beer, which was made by the same process but flavoured with hops. Today ale is used for all beers other than stout.

Alt - means "old". A top fermented ale, rich, copper-coloured and full-bodied, with a very firm, tannic palate, and usually well-hopped and dry.

Amber Beer - ale with a depth of hue halfway between pale and dark.

Barley Wine - dark, rich, usually bittersweet, heavy ales with high alcohol content, made for sipping, not quaffing.

Bitter - the driest and one of the most heavily hopped beers served on draft. The nose is generally aromatic, the hue amber and the alcoholic content moderate.

Bock - a strong dark German lager, ranging from pale to dark brown in colour, with a minimum alcoholic content of about 6 percent.

Brown Ale - malty beers, dark in colour and they may be quite sweet.

Burton - Strong ale, dark in colour, made with a proportion of highly dried or roasted malts.

Christmas/Holiday Beer - these special season beers are amber to dark brown, richly flavoured with a sweetish palate. Some are flavoured with special spices and/or herbs.

Dopplebock - "double bock." A stronger version of bock beer, decidedly malty, with an alcoholic content ranging from 8 percent to 13 percent by volume.

Hefe-Weizen - a wheat beer, lighter in body, flavour and alcohol strength.

Ice Beer - a high-alcohol beer made by cooling the beer during the process to below the freezing point of water (32 degrees Fahrenheit) but above that of alcohol (-173 degrees Fahrenheit). . When the formed ice is removed and discarded, the beer ends up with a higher alcohol-to-water ratio.

India Pale Ale (IPA) - a generously hopped pale ale.

Kolsch - West German ale, very pale (brassy gold) in hue, with a mild malt flavour and some lactic tartness.

Malt Liquor - most malt liquors are lagers that are too alcoholic to be labeled lagers or beers.

Muncheners - a malty, pale lager distinguished from the darker, heavier Munich Dark beers by the term "dunkel".

Oktoberfest/ Maerzen/Vienna - a copper-coloured, malty beer brewed at the end of the winter brewing season in March.

Pale Ale - made of the highest quality malts, the driest and most highly hopped beer. Sold as light ale or pale ale in bottle or on draft as bitter.

Pilsner - delicately dry and aromatic beers.

Porter - a darker (medium to dark reddish brown) ale style beer, full-bodied, a bit on the bitter side. The barley (or barley-malt) is well roasted, giving the brew a characteristic chocolaty, bittersweet flavour.

Stout - beer brewed from roasted, full-flavoured malts, often with an addition of caramel sugar and a slightly higher proportion of hops. Stouts have a richer, slightly burnt flavour and are dark in colour.

Sweet Stout - also known as milk stout because some brewers use lactose (milk sugar) as an ingredient.

Wheat Beer - a beer in which wheat malt is substituted for barley malt. Usually medium-bodied, with a bit of tartness on the palate

Enjoy... now you know what you are drinking... hic... hic