This is Part 9 of The Story of Beer, our journey through the people, ingredients, discoveries, and traditions that put beer in our glass.

Walk into a brewery today and the beer board can look like its own language.

IPA. Stout. Porter. Wheat beer. Pilsner. Mild.

Fortunately, most beers begin in one of two broad families.

Ale or lager.

The biggest difference comes down to yeast and fermentation.

The Ale Family

Ales are traditionally fermented using yeast associated with warmer fermentation temperatures.

These yeasts can produce fruity and aromatic characteristics in addition to alcohol and carbonation.

The ale family includes a remarkably wide range of beers.

Pale Ale and IPA

Pale ale developed around the use of lighter colored malt and became one of the world’s major beer families.

India pale ale, better known as IPA, eventually became one of its most recognizable variations.

Mild Ale

Mild ales traditionally emphasize malt character and often have relatively modest alcohol levels.

Despite the name, “mild” historically referred more to the beer’s condition and character than simply its strength.

Wheat Beer

Wheat beers use a significant amount of wheat alongside other grains, often malted barley.

Their flavors vary widely depending on brewing tradition and yeast.

Porter and Stout

Porter emerged in London and became associated with the city’s working population, including street and river porters.

Stout and porter share intertwined histories.

Over time, stout developed into its own recognizable family of dark beers, often associated with roasted flavors.

The Lager Family

Lagers ferment differently.

Lager yeast works at cooler temperatures, followed traditionally by a period of cold storage.

The word lager comes from the German lagern, meaning “to store.”

Bavarian brewers stored beer in cool cellars and caves, where they discovered that it continued to ferment and clarify.

The cooler conditions helped create the clean, crisp character associated with many lagers.

The Rise of Pilsner

One of the most influential lager styles emerged in 1842 in Pilsen, now Plzeň in the Czech Republic.

Pilsner was pale, bright, and refreshing.

Its influence was enormous.

Pale lagers eventually became some of the most widely consumed beers in the world.

Putting Names to Styles

For centuries, beer styles mostly developed through local brewing traditions.

In 1977, British beer writer Michael Jackson helped organize the way people thought about beer styles with his book The World Guide to Beer.

Fred Eckhardt expanded on beer style classification in 1989 with The Essentials of Beer Style.

Today there are countless named styles and variations.

Fortunately, you don’t need to memorize them to enjoy them.

Sometimes “I’ll have another one of those” works perfectly well.

Next Pour

Beer isn’t just divided by style.

We also describe it by color, bitterness, alcohol strength, and temperature.

Next we’ll look at why one beer can be pale and crisp while another is dark, strong, and best enjoyed slowly.

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