Types of beer & styles for all tastes

How are beers categorised?

New Zealand’s craft beer industry has exploded, with more varieties of beer available than ever before. Not sure what the difference is between a hefeweizen and a hazy IPA? Here’s your guide to understanding the different types of beer in your bottle, can or keg.

All beer is made using the same four ingredients:  water, yeast, hops and malt. How you combine them together, how long you brew them for, and whether or not you add anything else into the mix  influences what your beer will taste like. Click here to see how beer is made.

It may help to think of beers like siblings in a family. A Pale Ale and an IPA are both ales. They are two different varieties of beer, and while they share similarities there are also plenty of differences. Each one is unique.

In this New World guide to beer styles we’ll cover all the main types of beer and some of the categories within them.

Ale or lager - what's the difference?

One of the most frequently asked questions in the beer world is “what’s the difference between ale and lager?” To be perfectly honest, these days, not much. But 500 years ago? Quite a lot.

So, what’s the difference between an ale and a lager? The answer is simple: Yeast.
Humans have been making beer for thousands of years, long before we discovered  yeast was a living organism, and caused fermentation around the mid-1800s. People used whatever ingredients they had to hand – from wild yeasts that make sour beers to what was predominantly used – through trial and error, a yeast variety called Saccharomyces cerevisiae which was used to make ale.

This yeast worked away quite happily in open-topped fermenters at temperatures of around 18-24℃. This yeast produced fruity flavours like apple, pear, banana, and strawberry.

But in Germany, mountaintop-dwelling monks wanted to make their beer last a little bit longer and started storing it in chilly caves over the summer. Not only did the beer stayer fresher longer, but a new yeast strain, one which liked chilly temperatures, started to work its own brand of magic on the beer. 

This yeast strain worked slowly but cleanly. It gobbled up more of the malt sugars than ale yeast and didn’t produce as many fruity flavours. The result was a smooth, crisp beer. Liking what they were getting, the monks over time allowed this strain of yeast to dominate. They named the style of beer for the process used to create it: ‘lagern’ which is the German word for “to store”. This of course is where we get the word lager.

Colour has absolutely no influence over whether a beer is an ale or lager. There are brown and black lagers just as there are golden and pale ales. 
Over time, new brewing methods have given brewers greater control over the fermentation process. Now, using temperature and pressure, brewers can make yeasts do what they want, depending on the kind of flavour they want to create. So the difference between an ale or a lager today is less about the kind of yeast used. 

As New World Beer and Cider judge Kelly Ryan says: “The yeast strain doesn’t make the beer. It is how you, as a brewer, manipulate the variables you need to get beer with flavour and aroma you want.”

It sounds complicated, but the bottom line is that any yeast can be used to ferment any style of beer, what really matters is the taste.
A modern lager is pale yellow, clear, smooth with a light hop bitterness. Unlike ales there are no prominent esters (or fruit aromas) on the nose. These days, most lagers are pale in colour but that trend was driven by the creation of pilsner. Traditionally lagers were dark, like most other beers. You can still find traditional darker styled lagers like amber, doppelbock, and schwarzbier, which is black.

Pale lager is the most popular style of beer on the planet – and for good reason: its smooth approachability and tempered bitterness make it one of the most refreshing beers you can find. 

Pale lager is regarded as a simple beer: cold, gold and fizzy. But making a great lager requires patience and technical skill. Long, cold conditioning is needed to create the silky smoothness of the beer, while refining the malt-hop balance is more complex as the brewer doesn’t want anyone flavour to outweigh the other. E Everything should be in check and any flaws are easily exposed. A good lager is clean, refreshing and dry.

Types of Lager

Modern lagers tend to be clear, smooth and crisp with a light hop bitterness, and more malty rather than fruity flavours.

Pilsner

Beer history is full of wondrous stories of madness, invention and good luck.

The madness here was the good folk of Pilsen in the Czech Republic dumping barrels of beer because they didn’t like the taste. The city started its own brewery, known now as Pilsner Urquell, and hired a German brewer to come up with a recipe that worked.

Josef Groll brought a lagering technique from his native Germany, some pale English malt and had the good luck (or knowledge) to understand that Pilsen’s very soft water (low in minerals) suited the making of a light style of beer. Add in some locally-grown spicy Saaz hops and a style was born; Pilsner.

What made pilsner a more popular beer was a combination of science and technology. Just as scientists were understanding yeast in the 1860s, clear glassware was coming into fashion and the advent of refrigeration helped create the cool temperatures needed to create this style of lager in places other than German caves.

Pilsner took the world by a perfect storm. Modern pilsners are some of the best known beers in the world – Stella Artois, Heineken, Becks and of course Pilsner Urquell.

The style arrived in New Zealand at the turn of the 20th century and 100 years later New Zealand breweries are reimagining Pilsner with the generous use of aromatic Kiwi hops which lend tropical fruit notes to the nose rather than the spicier aroma created by traditional “noble” hops. Parrotdog Pandemonium does the trick with Aussie hops. 

Golden Lager

Named for its colour, Golden or American style lagers are very clean, crisp and refreshing. Like most lagers, you’ll find little in the way of hops or fruity flavours.

Golden lagers are normally served chilled for maximum refreshment. Also because, combined with greater carbonation there is usually little depth of flavour.

This is the beer you’ll reach for after mowing the lawns on a hot summer’s day. Golden lager is quenching, just a little sweet, with mild malt flavours.

Amber Lager

Halfway between a golden lager and a doppelbock, Amber Lagers have a dark, reddish brown colour. 

Amber lagers have a medium body. There’s more complexity than a golden lager, but not quite as rich or heavy as a doppelbock. 

A signature flavour from Amber Ale is caramel-malt, with perhaps very subtle levels of hops or bitterness.

Doppelbock

Again, variations of this lager, including Classic Bock, Helles Bock and Eis Bock originate in Germany. Doppelbock is a strong-style of beer, with ABV percentages sometimes as high as 8%.

Doppelbock is very malty in flavour, perhaps with hints of chocolate or caramel. It’s full bodied with a minimal hop bitterness. Traditionally Doppelbock was served as a winter warmer during the colder months, and it’s rich maltiness makes it an ideal dessert beer.

Scharzbier or Dark Lager

The dark colouring can come from the kind of malts used, or by using heavily roasted malts, which makes dark lagers similar to stout.

Scharzbier is famous for coffee and chocolate flavours. Schwarzbier or dark lager can be bitter or sweet depending on how far the brewers take the roasting process.

Types of ale

Once upon a time the only letters you might have seen on a barrel of beer were XX. These days you’ll find IPA, APA, XPA, ESB … and yes, in the case of that famous Aussie beer, XXXX. 

Ales are made at a warmer temperature to lager. The type of yeast used in ales leaves behind a little more sugar, plus fruiter flavours, which opens the door to a lot of experimentation.

Pale Ale

Pale Ale was first brewed in the early 1700s. Until then English ale was all porter and stout, made from malts darkened by roasting in wood-fired kilns. The invention of coke (the non-smoking form of coal) meant better temperature control and no smoke so maltsters were able create a paler malt. Beers brewed with this new malt became known as pale ales as they were pale compared to porter and stout. They were also hoppier and gradually came to be known by their bitter taste.

Modern Pale Ale is almost entirely based on the American craft brewing movement. In 1978 President Jimmy Carter ended the last prohibition era law when he made homebrewing legal. 
Those first home brewers became fledging craft brewers. The leader of the pale ale pack was California’s Sierra Nevada, whose pale ale influenced generations of brewers. Just as with pilsners, New Zealand breweries have been experimenting with the essential oils in our home-grown hops to create a distinct style. So much so there is now a clear difference between English-style pale ale, American pale ale (APA) and New Zealand pale ale, with the term NZPA widely used overseas to show a beer was brewed here.

American Pale Ale is about grapefruit and pine hop characters on a malt base with a hint of balancing sweetness. New Zealand Pale Ale tends towards tropical fruitiness, and now we're seeing more XPA (Extra Pale Ale) where the brewers strip back the sweet malt a little to create a lean, tightly-structured base for the smoothly bitter hops to play on.

No matter where it’s brewed a good pale ale should be like an almost-balanced see-saw of hop-malt bitter-sweetness but can tip slightly one way or the other. Find out more about craft beer here.

IPA (India Pale Ale)

Instead everything seems to end in PA – for Pale Ale. IPA is not, as you might hear someone say, “eepa”. It stands for India Pale Ale.

And strangely, for a beer that was born in England and drunk initially in India in the 1780s, the first recorded use of the term “India Pale Ale” came in Sydney in 1829.
IPA’s were created to solve a problem. How can we ship our beer from England to India without it going off on the months long journey? It took a lot of trial and error, but brewers found the beer only survived the journey if it was amped up with hops and alcohol, both of which are known preservatives. It took a number of years to perfect the recipe and an equally long time for India Pale Ale to enter the drinker’s lexicon.

India Pale Ale is the most written about, debated, and divisive style of beer on the planet. So much of its history is shrouded in mystery, marketing and re-imagining of events 400 years ago. There is no doubt that British breweries were exporting beer to India and the West Indies in the 1700s and sometime around 1760 it became common practice for these export beers to be more highly hopped than beer brewed for domestic consumption.

Gradually these beers came to be known, according to historian Martyn Cornell, as “Pale Ale prepared for the East and West India Climate” and were sometimes referred to as pale India ales before brewers landed on ‘India Pale Ale’. Again, it was the adventurous American brewers of the late 20th century who took this hoppy English style and spun the wheel of fortune, gambling on versions bittered with American hops which had more dominant citrus and pine characters than their earthy, herbal English counterparts. 

IPA now comes in every shade imaginable from white to red to black and in styles that vary from country to country. However the basics remain the same – strong character, decent alcohol and a clean yeast profile to showcase the local hops. 

English IPA tends to be sweeter and more caramel malt-driven while the US versions are hop-forward with floral, citrus and pine aromas and a savoury minerality followed by robust bitterness. New Zealand IPAs tend towards more tropical fruit such as passionfruit and lychee and can appear sweeter and more approachable than their aggressive American cousins. A good tasting experiment is to compare Epic Armageddon (US-Style), with Renaissance Voyager (English-style), ParrotDog Bitter Bitch (English-NZ style), Bach Brewing Kingtide IPA (US-NZ, or Pacific-style) and 8-Wired Hopwired (NZ-style).

Double IPA

Also hugely popular are Double IPAs, also known as Imperial IPA. These are juicy, rich, resinous brews around 8-10% abv.

This is a highly American styled beer that takes a passion for hops and runs with it. It’s name comes from, in many cases, doubling the amount of hops and malt required for the recipe. The end result also includes the higher, though not necessarily double ABV.

The ingredient overload means you can expect even hoppier highs and maltier depths than what you would from a normal IPA.

Hazy IPA

The latest craze to hit New Zealand’s craft brewing scene are Hazy IPA’s. Normally, the mark of a good beer is it’s colour and clarity. Usually you can look through your glass and at least see through to the other side. Not with a Hazy IPA.

What makes an IPA a Hazy IPA is that most Hazy IPAs are brewed with some high-protein grains like oats or wheat which creates a softer texture and mouthfeel in the beer, as well as making it cloudy. To take the haziness one step further, some breweries also won’t filter the beer.

Hazy IPA’s, also known as Juicy IPA’s only appeared on the American craft brewing scene in 2015, and their popularity has exploded from there. Because brewers aren’t worried about beer clarity with a Hazy IPA, it’s opened the door to experiment with different ingredients.

While people expect IPA’s to be packed with hops, Hazy IPA’s tone down the strong hoppy flavours and allow some of the fruity flavours of the beer to shine through. With many New Zealand craft brewers adding fruit to their recipe, taking those flavours to the next level.

Like all beers, drinking fresh is best. So if you buy a bottle or can of Hazy IPA, make sure you consume it within three weeks.

APA (American Pale Ale)

APA, in contrast, stands for American Pale Ale – and no, that doesn’t mean someone was shipping beer to the United States, although it’s fair to say the American brewers at the heart of the 1980s craft revolution freely imported ideas.

Pioneering San Francisco brewer Anchor, under the direction of Fritz Maytag, set about brewing a classic English pale ale in the late 1970s but changed out the subdued British hops for American varieties that were more in your face. Anchor Liberty Ale set a benchmark for what a pale ale could taste like. Others like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale followed suit and soon everyone in America was making their own interpretation of a pale ale, a style that came to be known, eventually, as American pale ale (APA) and separated from its British roots by those resinous American hops with their notes of citrus and pine.

To further complicate things, in the race between emerging microbreweries to get noticed, these APAs gradually became hoppier and higher in alcohol and thus the American-style IPA was born. Where a British-style IPA is malty, even buttery, with fruity esters and a hop character that delivers herbal and blackcurrant notes, the American-style IPA had a cleaner, leaner malt base and used the brash citrus and pine characters of native hops to create a bolder drinking experience.

Both APA and modern US-style IPA sit on a hard-to-define sliding scale. It’s often accepted that an IPA must be over 5.8 per cent but lots of APAs, such as the popular Panhead Supercharger sit on this border.

The key is the balance. An APA should exhibit a good malt-hop balance while an IPA will be tipped towards hops. As Mike Neilson from Panhead says: “You shouldn’t finish an IPA saying `that was a well-balanced beer’ you should finish saying `those hops were delicious’.”

As more brewers play with styles, the lines between pale ale, APA and IPA continue to blur. In fact, New Zealand-style pale ales made with our delectable hops are widely recognised overseas by the abbreviation NZPA.

American-style beer is a broad church but the bottom line is hops. Take a classic beer style, transport it to California and turn up the volume. And if there’s one beer style above all others that really benefits from being overhauled by Americans, it’s Brown Ale. The humble brown in its British habitat is a malty, sweet, tame creature with notes of toffee, nuts, chocolate, coffee, liquorice, molasses, plum or raisin. Sweet trumps bitter easily. But take that style to the US and add hops – particularly citrus-focused varieties – and the result is a pleasingly complex beast that’s both familiar and exciting. The lush chocolate and toffee malts are still there but the beer finishes dry and clean with a tangy twist. Think punchy amber ales, red IPA, black IPA.

Another example is Amber Ale - in another setting, it's a sessionable, malt-driven beer designed for easy drinking. But ramp up the hops and alcohol in the style of the northwest USA brewers and you have a punchy, hoppy beer that retains its drinkability but becomes pleasingly complex.

XPA (Extra Pale Ale)

But lately drinkers are seeing another beer on the alphabet horizon – XPA.

It’s widely accepted XPA stands for extra pale ale.  The question is then: extra what? Is it extra-pale ale, or a pale ale with something extra?

Naturally, it’s a bit of both.

The common view is that it’s a pale ale where the sweeter, caramel malts are stripped out to create a body that’s got more in common with a pilsner – lean, pale and crisp – but with a hopping regimen similar to an APA. The design is around easier drinking than a big IPA but with the same vibrant hoppiness.

Looking for an award winning XPA?

Epic Shotgun XPA From a brewery famed for their hoppy beers, this is lemon bright with a hint of sweetness.

British-style ale

Think British, think bitter – you know how it goes, a character in Coronation Street walks into the Rover’s Return and asks for a pint of bitter. The thing is no one in this part of the world slaps the term “bitter” on a bottle if they can avoid it (unless it’s preceded by the words “extra special” which somehow diminishes the intent of the word “bitter”). The humble English bitter with its calm restraint, earthy hops and naturally low alcohol is slowly making inroads against the brash hop-heavyweights muscling in from America and there are some fine examples being made in New Zealand. While it’s not actually Britain, near neighbour Ireland and its famous red ales also fall under this umbrella.

In short – if you can call an old-fashioned bitter by another name there’s a good chance you can sell more of it. Which is why Amber Ale is such a nice catch-all term. It’s not a style unto itself – more a description of colour and it does justice to the fact that a traditional English bitter is often not really all that bitter (at least not by today’s standards) and rather finishes firm and dry.

Barley wine

Another standout English-style beer is what's known as barley wine. To be clear, this is a beer, not a wine. But barley wine has plenty of wine-like characters, notably the high alcohol content. Usually dark, but not necessarily so, barley wines are perfect for cellaring because of the complex flavours and high alcohol. English barley wines are decadently malty with a rich fruitiness - think plums, dates, raisins - and lots of caramel, toffee and molasses.

Draught Beer

This is quite possibly the most Kiwi beer term ever. Talk to anyone outside of New Zealand and draught beer means that it was pulled from a keg rather than served from a bottle or glass. So how come we can get ‘Draught beer’ or ‘Draft beer’ in a can?

Draught beer has an unfortunate reputation as a cheap mass-marketed commercial beer, but in developing its own style, craft breweries are now producing draught beer too.

The ‘Draught’ style of beer is an immigrant story. Early settlers to New Zealand tried to make English beers using local ingredients and German strains of hops. New Zealand’s warmer temperatures compared to England gave the beer a fruitier flavour. People adopted the term ‘Draught’ so they could tell the difference between this beer and the maltier, more crisp lagers that were being brewed.
According to the BrewNZ style guidelines for judging beer, a draught beer should be “amber, reddish brown, or copper coloured", including tastes of caramel malt, with low levels of hops.

European-style ale

Germans and Belgians, with their rich beer history have a raft of styles that can change from town to town or can depend on which order of monks made a certain style – Trappist or other (Abbey). Berliner Weisse, Rachbier, Tripel, Saison … each is worthy of a chapter on its own. And then there’s the range sour styles, gueuze, gose (salty-sour) and Lambic, which are starting to make quite an impact with Kiwi brewers. In New Zealand many breweries tackle Saisons (or Farmhouse Ales), which were traditionally seasonal beers made with whatever was available at the end of summer, stored over the winter and served after hot work in the fields the following summer.

There’s a huge variety of styles in Belgium, but the bigger beers – the strong dark ales and Quadrupels – are the ones that capture the imagination. Strong dark ales and quads are essentially siblings and overlap stylistically. Belgian Tripels, with their high alcohol, fruity sweetness and spice are popular. Quadrupels tend to have a bit more body and sweetness, with the strong darks more delicate and drier.

Gose (pronounced go-zah) originated in the town of Goslar on the Gose river in central Germany in the 16th Century. Production of Gose almost stopped during World War II, and the cleaving of Germany in the east and west was almost the death knell for the style. One brewery kept alive a family recipe, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall modern brewers brought Gose back to life. Brewed with salt, coriander and lactic acid on a wheat base, it's a stunningly refreshing and versatile style.

Wheat beer and other grain beer

Wheat beers are among the most confusing to those not deeply embedded in beer subculture. There’s two main forks in the family: the German wheat (Weiss or Weizen; white or wheat), which must feature at least 50 per cent wheat and are dominated by banana and clove yeast aromas; and Belgian (wit) where the citrus-spice aspect is enhanced by the addition of coriander seed and orange peel.

This is where wheat beers are different to lagers. Lagers are made using little to no wheat, while in wheat beer it’s one of the main ingredients.
Witbiers tend to be cloudy, but the Germans can go cloudy (Hefewiezen) or clear (Kristall). You can add colour to the mix with dark wheats (Dunkel) or bock styles (Weizenbock). To add to the confusion, the Germans have kettle-soured wheat beers (Berliner Weiss) and a salted, sometimes fruited, version (Gose). And, of course, once you let the Americans and Kiwis loose on the whole project you get hoppy wheats.

In all wheat beers, the commonality is a dominance of the yeast flavours – with banana, clove, spice or bubblegum – wafting out of the glass. The body is creamy and the head frothy (that’s the wheat with its added protein). They are often tart and sometimes come with added fruit. Whatever wheat beer you prefer it should be tart and refreshing with a nice spritzy carbonation reminiscent of sherbet.

Hefeweizen

A common German style wheat beer, light and cloudy in colour. The yeast makes the beer taste like banana and cloves.

Dunkelweizen

Similar to a Hefeweizen, but it uses more roasted malts which give their beer a darker colour. Adding malts also adds a depth of caramel flavours to the beer.\

Weizenbock

A stronger hefeweizen that’s higher in alcohol. The texture is sometimes a bit creamer and flavours are usually maltier and fruitier.

Witbier

A Belgian style wheat beer that has the banana and clove flavours of a hefeweizen, but also tastes of orange peel and coriander.

Gose

Also known as a ‘Sour Beer’ because many brewers add salt to the recipe. Common flavours are a lemon sourness, and a herbal, grassy aroma.

Stout, porter and black beer

After asking, “What is the difference between Lager and Ale?” The second most popular beer question is “What is the difference between Porter and Stout?” 

Some people use those terms interchangeably. Back in the day, it was a question of alcohol. Stouts were originally known as ‘stout porters’ because they had a higher ABV content. Today, brewers will make porters with a higher alcohol content and stouts with a lower alcohol content, so the lines can seem a little blurry. There are subtle differences that most brewers agree on.

Porters are made using malted barley. The barley grains have been soaked in water, allowed to germinate and take the first step in the fermentation process.

Stouts are made using roasted, unmalted barley. Instead of using water to break down the hard barley shell, brewers roast them in a kiln or oven which gives porters those dark chocolate, bitter and coffee flavours.

Porter is a style of beer that dates back to the 1700s when it was the most popular form of beer throughout Britain. In those days, because all sources of heating and cooking involved a lot of smoke, it was impossible to make pale malt. The smokiness of the fires involved in the brewing process added to the dark brown colour of the beer. 

Porters and stouts can range from 4% ABV right up to Baltic porters of 10% ABV. They tend towards a caramel and dairy milk chocolate and can range from dry to sweet and modern interpretations can handle strong hop regimes, as well as the addition of fruit, spice and coffee.

Because of the strong malt profile these styles can handle the addition of cacao, coffee beans, vanilla or chilli. Contrary to popular opinion, just because a beer is dark, doesn't mean it's heavy.

Sweet beer

Want to enjoy a beer, without the classic beer taste? Perhaps you have more of a sweet tooth? A sweet beer is a beer without too much of the beer taste.
Sweet beer is a very large category, taking in some pale ales all the way up to heavy porters. A good sweet beer has a lot to do with your own personal preferences. If you’re not sure where to start, ask the liquor manager at your local New World for some pointers.

Corona with a Lime

It’s refreshingly light, and the addition of the lime gives this beer a citrus, fruity punch. Served chilled, this is a sweet beer you can enjoy right through summer.

Hoegaarden Original White Ale

This Belgian sweet beer is brewed with orange peel, coriander and spices. It’s light, sweet, and just a little sour with the hints of citrus coming through. Great for a sweet beer lover.

Duncan’s Brewing Company Maple Pancake Pastry Stout

This little brewery out of Paraparaumu is doing big things with flavour. Just imagine the texture of fluffy pancakes all covered with maple syrup with hints of coffee and caramel. Dessert in a bottle.

Dry beer

The question, “What is dry beer” has everything to do with the brewing process. While beer is being brewed, the live yeast cultures east sugar to create alcohol. Any sugars not broken down during the process give the beer it’s sweet taste.

Brewers can play around with this process to adjust the levels of sugar or alcohol in their beer.

A dry beer is one where the yeast has eaten up all of the sugar. A simple way of looking at it, is a ‘Dry beer’ is the opposite of a ‘Sweet beer.’ Even in ‘regular’ beers you’ll still find some sugar, but in a dry beer you won’t find any.

Because of the lack of sugar, dry beers normally have little to no aftertaste and are considered quite crisp and refreshing. With no sugary taste, dry beers allow you to focus more on the flavours of the other ingredients, like roasted malt.

Asahi Super Dry

Possibly Japan’s most favourite beer. It’s a lager without the typical sweetness or heavier malt flavours. The result is a beer that is crisp, refreshing beer that’s very easy to drink.

Carlton Dry

A popular beer from Australia, Carlton Dry is a golden lager that bills itself as “smooth and uncomplicated. Low in carbs, and just a little fruity aroma, Carlton Dry aims to be a refreshing, thirst quenching beer.