How History Defined the Beer Styles We Drink Today - Delishtory

Pilsners, stouts, IPAs, sours, if you walk into a local brewery or a tap room, you are bound to find an array of beer styles to choose from. In fact, there are around 100 distinct styles of beer, each with their own flavor profile, aroma, color, strength, and place of origin. So how did these different styles come to be? And how do the beer trends of today connect us to the past? Let's crack open the fascinating history of beer. Beer is one of humanity's oldest alcoholic drinks, with evidence for its existence dating back to almost 13,000 years ago. At its broadest definition, beer refers to any fermented drink made from cereal grains. Today, that usually means malted barley, especially for commercial beer. But historically, beers were brewed from all sorts of grains around the world, and many can still be found today. In Western and Southern Africa, there is a long history of beer made from sorghum, a practice that spread thanks to the migration of Bantu peoples thousands of years ago. In China, evidence points to the brewing of rice beer almost 10,000 years ago. And in South America, pre-Hispanic civilizations made beer from fermented maize, which you can still find under the name chicha de jora, especially in Peru. Today, most beer, but not all, starts with the same four ingredients, water, hops, yeast, and malted barley. But how exactly these ingredients are introduced and which versions of them are used can go on to create a huge variety of different beer styles. When it comes to style, beer is divided into two categories, ales and lagers. The common conception is that ales are made with top-fermenting yeast that ferment at warmer temperatures, and lagers are made with bottom-fermenting yeast that ferment at cooler temperatures. The names of those yeasts refer to whether they rise or settle during fermentation. Ales are often described as having more complex flavor profiles, and lagers as more crisp and refreshing. That sounds simple enough, but the truth is a bit more complicated. There are beer styles that don't fall neatly into either of these categories. Kohl's beer from Germany, for example, is fermented with top-fermenting ale yeast, but finished at cold temperatures and conditioned like a lager, making it more of a hybrid. Lambic beer, a sour beer style from Belgium, is spontaneously fermented using wild yeast and falls outside of either category. Still, generally speaking, most beer styles on the market today can be categorized as either an ale or a lager. But within those two broad categories, there are a myriad of styles to choose from, offering a range of options for brewers and consumers alike. How styles are defined has evolved over time, and there is no definitive, universally agreed-upon list. In fact, the word ale has not always referred to top-fermented beers. Before the 16th century, brewers in England used the word ale to refer to brews made without hops, and the word beer to those made with hops. It wasn't until the end of the 17th century that people even knew yeast existed, and it wasn't until the 19th century that we understood its role in the fermentation process. Then, in 1883, the mycologist Emil Christian Hansen discovered how to isolate yeast strains while working at the research labs of Carlsberg Brewery in Denmark. This discovery set the stage for the ability to create distinct and truly consistent beer styles without worrying about other yeast strains taking over. Our current understanding of beer styles is even more recent. Most credit the English writer and journalist Michael Jackson and his 1977 book, The World Guide to Beer, with popularizing the idea that beer can be organized into styles. That's not to say that there were no established beer styles at the time. Beer traditions, with rules shaped by monasteries and local laws, go back centuries, especially in the region of the once Holy Roman Empire. But Jackson's work compiling these beers into one centralized publication brought newfound attention to the diversity of brewing traditions around the world at a time when those traditions were mostly known only in their local places of origin. Today, there are over 100 commonly recognized beer styles and sub-styles, but lagers make up between 80 to 90% of the global market. Many of the big global brand name beers are pilsners, or pale lagers that imitate pilsners. The pilsner originated in Bohemia in present-day Czechia and revolutionized the world of beer with its pale golden color and crisp, refreshing taste. History's first pilsner, pilsner Urquell, is still available for sale today and uses the original recipe from 1842. There are two main variants of pilsner, Czech and German. Czech pilsners are more golden in color and are malt-forward with a balanced bitterness and use Saaz hops known for their mild flavor. German pilsners, also referred to just as pils, are paler in color and tend to be more bitter thanks to the blend of hops used. Speaking of hops, the IPA, or India Pale Ale, is a type of ale known for having a hop-forward flavor profile and a high ABV. You might think of the IPA as the trendy beer of the 21st century, but IPAs were super popular in the British Empire during the 19th century. At the time, India was under colonial rule by the East India Company and the British Crown. Brewers knew that high alcohol content and large amounts of hops helped preserve beer over long sea voyages, so heavily hopped beer was shipped from Great Britain to colonial outposts. Over time, they became known as India Pale Ales. Porters were another style of heavily hopped beer that were also shipped to colonies, but they were darker, maltier, and less refreshing than IPAs, and consequently, less popular in the tropical climate of India. By the 20th century, both IPAs and porters had lost popularity as modern refrigeration and brewing techniques made it easy to brew clean, refreshing lagers in all sorts of climates. But trends are cyclical, and in the 1990s, the IPA renaissance was born. The revival of these and other beer styles can be credited to the rise of the craft brewing movement. In 1971, a group of friends in the UK founded a consumer organization called the Campaign for Real Ale, which opposed the monopoly of mass-produced beer and is credited with saving traditional British brewing practices. Then, in 1978, the United States legalized home brewing, allowing an entire generation of brewers to experiment with recipes and flavors, many of whom went on to open their own microbreweries. Combined with consumer demand for more variety, these changes helped kickstart the modern craft brewing movement, and its transformation of the beer scene cannot be understated. In the 1970s, there were only 89 breweries operating in the US. Today, that number is over 9,000, and new microbreweries are popping up all over the world. Just search brewery near me, and you'll see what I mean. There are countless other beer styles that we don't have time to get into today, but I want to touch on one last brewing tradition that's made a comeback, sour beer. Before modern sanitation and refrigeration, sourness in beer was pretty common. The presence of bacteria and wild yeast could quickly turn beer acidic within days of brewing, especially in warm weather. In many ways, the origin of sour beer is purely accidental, but there are some classic beer styles that tout sourness, like the mildly tart Berliner Weisse, a regional wheat ale from Germany that is soured with lactic acid bacteria, and Guus, a blended lambic beer that is bottle-fermented for many months before being sold. Many craft brewers have taken inspiration from these styles when experimenting with new brews, and many of these new beers have not yet been classified under consistent style guidelines. And that leads me to my parting message. It's important to remember that trends come and go. You might think that IPAs are the inescapable beer that has come to dominate your local brewery, but maybe the next big beer is something you haven't even heard of yet. So what's your favorite style of beer, and do you have any predictions for the future of beer styles and trends? Let us know in the comments.