Ales

Now that we have examined lagers in a fair amount of detail, it's time to move on to ales. Twenty years ago it could be said that most beers in the United States were lagers, with a few (mostly imported) exceptions like Guinness. The main difference between lagers and ales is the type of yeast and the associated fermentation. Lagers use bottom, or cold fermenting yeast, while ales use top or warm fermenting yeast. The effective difference is that in general a lager will be clear and "crisp" while an ale, due to the heat generated in fermentation, will have a variety of flavors that are present without any addition of flavoring agents. Until recently most small brewers produced ales rather than lagers. The reason for this is that brewing a lager ties up the equipment for longer periods of time due to the necessity for lagering, that is letting the beer age in a cool place for a period of time - sometimes months. A small craft brewery. microbrew or brewpub could not afford to tie up their equipment for that long. In the last decade however, some of what used to be small batch brewers have expanded (sometimes due to being bought out by the beer giants) and have added lagers, especially Märzens to their selection. Ales are by far the older of the two main families of beers, but were nudged aside by the lager in the 1900's, only to gain prominance again in the 21st century.

In this series on ales, we'll be looking at the following main styles:

• Blonde
• Amber Ale
• Pale Ale
• Strong Ale
• Cream Ale
• Red Ale
• Brown Ale
• Extra Special Bitter (ESB)
• Steam Ales (Summer Common)
• Porters
• Stouts
• India Pale Ale (IPA)
• Belgian Beers (including dubbels, trippels, quadrupels)
• Farmhouse/Saisson
• Alternate grains (wheat beers, rye beers)
• Scotch and Scottish Ale
• Rauchbiers (smoked ales)
• Barleywine

That's a lot of different styles! Some styles may be combined into one article if they are similar. We'll also be looking at combination styles like Belgian IPA and descriptors such as "imperial". At the end, perhaps as a separate series, we'll look at the hybrids like Kölsch and Altbier. 

We've got a lot to cover, so let's get going!