Late last year, the Brewers Association released its Beer & Food Course. Free to download at CraftBeer.com, the five-day “school” covers the basics of brewing, beer styles, pairing beer with food, and pouring and presenting beer at the table.
It’s a great resource for almost anyone who enjoys beer, or wants to learn more about it, especially from a culinary point of view.
Now, CraftBeer.com has launched the new digital interactive U.S. Beer Styles Guide that should prove even more valuable as both a quick reference and a tool to dig deeper into the art and science of brewing.
On the site, each beer can be accessed in a variety of ways, beginning with an overview of all the styles.
Clicking the Beer Style Finder to “on” allows you to sort styles by color, bitterness and alcohol, and select flavor characteristics like hoppy, spicy, earthy and fruity to suit your own palate.
The interactive grouping of style families, such as bock, pale ale or stout, is broken down further into sub categories, such as German-style maibock.
Once you get to the page for a particular style, there’s a description of its appearance, aroma/flavor, sensations and ingredients, along with recommended food pairings, proper glassware, serving temperature and commercial examples of the style, plus other styles you might enjoy.
Beyond that, you’ll find a text guide that uses an alphabetical list of triggers — from alcohol to yeast variety — to help describe possible characteristics of a specific beer style. On another page, you’ll find a tasting sheet to fill out and make notes while evaluating a particular beer.
According to the CraftBeer.com site, the Beer Styles Guides are the result of a two-year review of the top beer styles being made in the U.S., cross referenced with both Brewers Association and the Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines. The list was pared down to 77 common U.S. beer styles inside of 15 style families.
Giving it a test run, I found it to be as interactive as advertised, and quite entertaining in its own way. In fact, most beer geeks could easily get lost for an hour or so of clicking and searching.
Of course, there will be those who will quibble with some of the Guide’s explanations and suggestions. And those who have used the tried-and-true Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines at tastings and beer judging events may not see it as a quantum leap forward. But it puts a lot of information in an easy-to-access format that’s geared to our current laptop and smartphone world.
One improvement I’d like see is some way to cross-reference food pairings. I’d guess that would be a fairly complicated tweak. But to be able to type in “pork” or “fish” and come up with a few good matches would be helpful for many people who still aren’t sure how beer works with most dishes.
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