Reference beers

A full, fruity strong bitter with unusually wide British distribution, and for many drinkers the default "premium bitter".

A dark, strong Suffolk bitter brewed to commemorate a naval battle, and one of the clearer examples of what British strong bitter tastes like.

A pale, citrus-led British golden ale that became one of the most widely stocked cask beers in the country, and one of the few with a credible alcohol-free version.

The de-alcoholised version of a mainstream British pale ale, and one of the more successful examples of the format.

A pale, dry, hop-led ordinary bitter, and one of the clearest surviving examples of what the strength was for.

A West Midlands mild, and one of very few surviving examples of a style that was once the default British pint.

The beer that made Burton pale ale a global category, and whose red triangle was the first trade mark registered in Britain.

A pale, sweetish Black Country bitter with a national reputation and almost no national distribution.

The British-brewed American pale ale that reached supermarket and pub distribution first, and the entry point many British drinkers used into the style.

A session IPA that solved the hardest problem in the category — keeping hop character at a strength you can drink several of.

The most widely exported Scottish ale, and the practical reference for a tradition otherwise met mostly in writing.

An alcohol-free milk stout that solves the category’s body problem with lactose rather than by removing alcohol from a stronger beer.

A Yorkshire bitter fermented in traditional Yorkshire squares, which is the point of the beer rather than a detail of it.

The alcohol-free counterpart to Punk IPA, and a useful test of how much of an IPA survives when the alcohol is taken out.

The beer through which a large share of British drinkers first met modern hop-forward IPA.

An Edinburgh pale ale that carried Scottish cask beer to English bars, and a lesson in what the letters IPA mean in Britain.

A London-brewed Helles that made the case for lager as a craft category in Britain.

A pale, hop-forward Lake District bitter that won the national championship from a brewery behind a pub.

A bottle-conditioned strong ale brewed to mark the brewery’s anniversary, and a clear example of the ground between strong bitter and barley wine.

The beer that gave "ESB" to the world as a style name, marmalade-rich and considerably stronger than the bitters around it.

A widely available modern English porter — chocolate, coffee and soft dark fruit — and a useful direct comparison against Irish dry stout.

The most widely available London bitter, malt-forward and marmalade-tinged, and a reliable reference for what best bitter is meant to be.

A bottle-conditioned English strong ale released once a year and dated, so the vintages can be compared directly.

A Suffolk session bitter sold as an IPA, and the clearest example of how loosely that name has been used in Britain.

A southern English best bitter of unusual depth for its strength, and a frequent answer when British drinkers are asked to name the best cask beer they know.

A dark, toffee-and-chocolate strong bitter that reached national supermarket distribution when the category was contracting.

A strong Oxfordshire bitter from a Victorian tower brewery still partly driven by its original steam engine.

An unfiltered alcohol-free lager that became a common draught option in British pubs, which is a first for the category.

The beer most associated with the Burton union fermentation system, and with the sulphurous "Burton snatch" that high-sulphate water produces.

A single-hopped British golden ale that made Citra familiar to cask drinkers, and a clean demonstration of what one hop tastes like.

A malt-forward strong bitter with heavy toffee character, and a clear case of a beer outliving the brewery that created it.

A dark Scottish ale in continuous national distribution, which is rarer than the number of Scottish styles in a guidebook suggests.

A Stockport strong ale brewed continuously since the nineteenth century, and one of the few English old ales that was never reconstructed.

The reference English brown ale — hazelnut, light caramel, dry finish — and the beer the style is usually described against.

The beer that revived oatmeal stout as a category and remains its most widely cited reference example.

A traditional Yorkshire-fermented English porter, drier and more austere than most modern interpretations.

A Yorkshire imperial stout fermented in stone squares, and one of the most widely available examples of the style.

A strong ale matured in oak casks that have held the brewery’s own beer for decades, and one of the few living examples of how British beer was aged before stainless steel.

A 6% dark mild brewed to a 1920s recipe in a restored Victorian tower brewhouse, and the beer that makes the case for the style.

The best-selling cask ale in Britain by volume, named after a sandbank at the mouth of the Camel estuary.

A strong Kentish bitter, and the clearest single demonstration of what East Kent hops do at the top of the style.

A Kentish bitter from the middle of the English hop country, and among the most recognisable British ale brands.

A Cornish IPA that uses American hops over a British pale ale base, sitting deliberately between the English and American readings of the style.

A Cornish golden ale that became one of Britain’s best-selling cask beers, and a good example of the modern pale, citrus-tinged bitter.

The reference English old ale — dark, rich, faintly liquorice-tinged — and named for an ecclesiastical peculiar rather than for being odd.

An English barley wine brewed to be cellared for decades, and the reference case for beer designed to age.

The beer generally credited with showing British brewers what American hops could do, and the hinge between traditional bitter and modern British pale ale.

A Yorkshire best bitter that won Champion Beer of Britain, from the brewery better known for Landlord.

A pale mild — the half of the style that almost disappeared — still in production in West Yorkshire.

The pale, hop-forward Yorkshire bitter most often named by British brewers when asked what a well-made cask beer should taste like.

A fruited English porter that turned a novelty format into a standing cask fixture.

A Scottish strong ale fermented in eighteenth-century oak vessels rediscovered in 1965.

A Wiltshire bitter that has been a fixture of West Country pubs for most of a century.

A bottle-conditioned Burton IPA, and close to the only continuous survivor of the nineteenth-century style.

A London sweet stout with real chocolate added, and the most widely distributed example of the style.

An unsmoked Helles brewed in a smoke brewery, which picks up a faint smokiness from the building itself.

The reference smoked beer, made with malt kilned over the brewery’s own beechwood fire, and unmistakably smoky from the first smell.

A strong smoked bock from Bamberg, released in autumn, where the malt is dried over beechwood fire.

A monastery doppelbock from the Holy Mountain above Lake Ammersee, brewed by Benedictines since the fifteenth century.

A stronger, fuller Munich pale lager in the export tradition, and the beer that shows what the extra gravity is for.

The Munich Helles most often treated as the benchmark: soft, bready, faintly sweet, and almost impossible to fault.

A Munich dunkel built on Munich malt rather than on roast, and one of the most widely exported examples.

A Bavarian village weissbier from a brewery better known for its dark lagers, and the fruit-forward end of the style.

A benchmark doppelbock of dark chocolate, dried fruit and toasted malt, widely used as the style’s reference example outside Germany.

A traditional amber Märzen of the kind the Munich festival no longer serves, kept in production while the festival moved to a paler beer.

The most widely distributed survivor of Berlin’s own beer, and the version most drinkers outside Germany have actually met.

The alcohol-free counterpart to a mainstream German Pils, and one of the clearest demonstrations that the style survives the process better than most.

One of the most widely poured draught pilsners in Germany, and a good middle reference for the style.

The export lager of the city that named the style, from a period when Dortmund was the largest brewing centre in Europe.

The pale spring bock from the town that gave the bock family its name, released alongside the dark Ur-Bock it is the counterpart to.

Brewed in the town whose exported beer gave the bock family its name, through a Bavarian mishearing of "Einbeck".

An alcohol-free wheat beer, and one of the products that established that the category could taste like beer rather than like an apology.

A filtered Bavarian wheat beer, brilliantly clear and noticeably crisper than the same brewery’s hazy version.

The most widely exported Bavarian wheat beer, and for most drinkers outside Germany the first weissbier they meet.

A Cologne Kölsch from one of the largest producers, served traditionally in a small straight glass.

A Cologne Kölsch — pale, delicate, faintly fruity — served traditionally in small 200 ml Stange glasses so it is always fresh.

The Helles of the Bavarian state brewery, and one of the six beers served at Oktoberfest.

The most assertively bitter mainstream German pils, from the North Sea coast.

The reference black lager: as dark as a stout, and as clean, crisp and light-bodied as a Helles.

The Franconian unfiltered lager most widely met outside Bamberg, and the readiest way to taste what filtration removes.

One of the two Bavarian wheat beers a reader outside Germany is most likely to be able to buy, and the more banana-forward of them.

The original doppelbock, descended from the strong beer brewed by Paulaner friars for the Lenten fast.

The alcohol-free version of the brewery’s wheat beer, and an example of the style that de-alcoholises best.

The best-selling Kölsch, and the house most often used as the reference point for what the style should taste like.

The Leipzig Gose that kept going while the style was otherwise extinct, and the reference most revivals were built against.

A Black Forest pils from a state-owned brewery, sold in a distinctive stubby bottle and followed well beyond its region.

The reference weizenbock: a strong dark wheat beer of banana, dried fruit and clove that reads far more like a Belgian dark ale than most drinkers expect.

The same brewery’s weizenbock concentrated by freezing, and the most widely available demonstration of what freeze concentration actually does.

A Bavarian wheat beer from the brewery that kept the style alive when it was out of fashion, and darker than most modern examples.

From the brewery that produced the first Munich Helles in 1894, in response to Bohemian pale lager taking its market.

One of the six beers served at the Munich Oktoberfest, and an example of how the festival beer shifted from amber Märzen to pale Festbier.

The reference Düsseldorf Altbier: copper, firmly bitter, cold-conditioned, and a direct counterpoint to Cologne’s Kölsch fifty kilometres away.

The reference Bavarian Hefeweizen, with the banana and clove balance the style is defined by.

The dark counterpart to the same brewery’s pale Hefeweissbier, and the clearest available demonstration of what Munich malt does underneath weissbier yeast.

A Helles from the brewery attached to the university faculty that trains much of the world’s brewing industry.

A pale weizenbock from the world’s oldest continuously operating brewery, and the clearest example of how strength amplifies wheat beer yeast.

A Bavarian dark lager from a Danube monastery brewery claiming the longest continuous brewing history in the world.

The beer that made witbier an ordinary American order.

A 1975 San Francisco ale that was dry-hopped with Cascade before American craft brewing existed as a category, and which ceased production when Anchor closed in 2023.

The 1972 beer that brought porter back, at a point when the style had effectively stopped existing anywhere.

The beer that was California Common — lager yeast fermented warm in shallow open vessels — and effectively the only example of the style.

The best-known American alcohol-free IPA, from a brewery that makes nothing else.

A summer-seasonal American wheat beer whose annual release is treated as a marker of the season in the American Midwest.

A single-hop American IPA repeatedly named by American drinkers as their favourite beer.

The beer that started commercial bourbon-barrel ageing, and the origin of an entire global category of barrel-aged stout.

One of the beers that defined American brown ale: an English brown rebuilt with a substantial American hop charge.

An amber lager dry-hopped in the pre-Prohibition American manner, caramel-toned and more aromatic than most lagers.

The beer most arguments about mass-market lager are actually about, and a more deliberately engineered product than its reputation suggests.

One of the longest-running American craft dark beers, and a large part of why porter survived there as a year-round style.

A citrus-forward American IPA that shows what Citra and Mosaic do without the haze that usually accompanies them.

An American IPA hopped continually across the whole boil rather than at discrete additions.

A widely available Californian blonde ale, and the clearest example of what the style is actually for.

The beer that established session IPA as an American category, and the clearest statement of what the format is trying to do.

A coffee and chocolate oatmeal stout that established the American breakfast stout format.

A rich, chocolate-forward American porter, and a useful demonstration of where the style sits against stout.

The surviving reference for cream ale, an American answer to lager competition that consolidation nearly erased.

The beer the entire hazy IPA category traces back to, sold in a can instructing the drinker not to pour it.

The reference India pale lager: an IPA hop load over a lager fermentation, from a brewery that makes nothing else.

One of the highest-volume American craft IPAs, and evidence that a hop-forward beer could be a mainstream flagship.

The bottled nitrogenated stout that worked without a widget, and the American reference for a style that is otherwise British.

The beer that made amber ale a national American category.

The best-selling American craft IPA family, from the brewery whose amber ale defined the previous era.

The American imperial stout most drinkers calibrate the style against, brewed continuously since 1995.

The first craft beer canned by a craft brewery, hand-filled in 2002 when the format meant cheap beer.

The beer that defined the American double IPA: enormously hoppy, startlingly dry and drinkable for its strength.

A barrel-aged American sour ale with cherries, and one of the beers that established that the category is a method rather than a recipe.

A Vienna-style amber lager that introduced a great many American drinkers to a beer with malt character, and a useful bridge out of mass-market lager.

A vintage-dated American barley wine, released annually and explicitly intended to be cellared and compared across years.

A fresh-hop winter IPA brewed annually since 1981, and one of the earliest American IPAs.

The hazy IPA that reached general distribution first, from the brewery whose pale ale defined the style it departs from.

The most influential beer of the American craft movement, and the one that made Cascade’s grapefruit character the sound of American hops.

A widely available West Coast-leaning American IPA, resinous and firmly bitter, named for the dry-hopping vessel developed to make it.

A defining West Coast IPA, and one of the beers that made assertive bitterness a selling point rather than an apology.

An American-brewed German pils, and the beer most often cited as proof that the style travels.

An American amber lager from the country’s oldest operating brewery, and a survival of what American beer was before it went pale.

A blended gueuze from a house that spent most of its history blending other brewers’ lambic rather than making its own.

A traditional blended gueuze — bone dry, sharply acidic, funky and enormously carbonated — and one of the most approachable entries to lambic.

Unblended lambic sold as it comes from the barrel — still, sharply acidic and the raw material every gueuze is made from.

A Brussels gueuze made entirely from spontaneously fermented lambic and left unsweetened.

A raspberry lambic with no added sugar, and the clearest demonstration that fruit beer need not be sweet.

The most widely distributed Trappist dark strong ale, and for many drinkers the first Belgian beer of any depth they encounter.

The Trappist tripel from Chimay, drier and more hop-forward than the style’s usual reference points.

The beer the monks brew for their own table, sold commercially — low in strength and not at all low in character.

The Trappist dubbel from Scourmont, and the most widely available reference for the style.

The other Belgian golden strong ale, in a painted bottle with a pink elephant, and many drinkers’ first strong Belgian beer.

The beer that created the Belgian golden strong ale: pale, enormously carbonated, dangerously drinkable, and 8.5%.

Duvel with a third, rotating hop addition, released as a series that changes the hop variety — effectively a controlled experiment in one beer.

The beer that revived witbier from extinction and made it one of the most widely brewed styles in the world.

An early and long-running Belgian IPA, hopped at American rates and fermented with an expressive Belgian strain.

An Ardennes strong blond ale with coriander, and one of the most recognisable modern Wallonian beers.

For much of the world the first Belgian beer encountered, and a licensed abbey brand rather than a monastic one.

The reference East Flanders brown ale — a blend of aged and young beer, sweet-and-sour rather than sharp.

A sweetened cherry lambic, and the form in which most drinkers outside Belgium first meet the tradition.

The dark counterpart to La Chouffe, built on the same Ardennes yeast, and a Belgian strong ale wearing a Scottish name.

A dry-hopped Trappist ale refermented with Brettanomyces, deliberately designed to be a different beer at three months and at three years.

An amber Belgian strong ale served in a rounded glass held in a wooden stand, which is most of the reason people order it.

A benchmark Belgian dark strong ale of enormous depth — figs, dates, port and dark chocolate — that carries 11.3% almost invisibly.

The smallest and least-known of the three Rochefort beers, and the one that shows what the strength in the others is doing.

The middle Trappist strong ale from Rochefort, and by many accounts the best-balanced of the three.

The everyday Flanders red: a blend of young beer and foeder-aged beer, with the young beer dominant.

A blend weighted heavily toward foeder-aged beer, and the reference example of Flanders red — sour cherry, balsamic and oak.

The beer the modern saison category was substantially reconstructed from — dry, peppery, bitter and extremely carbonated.

A Watou quadrupel from the brewery that produced the Westvleteren beers commercially for decades.

A tripel from the brewery that spent decades producing Westvleteren’s beer under licence, brewed with the same yeast lineage.

A Belgian tripel brewed from three grains, giving a softness the category does not usually have.

The reference dubbel — dark, raisin-and-fig, dry-finishing — and the beer that gave the category its name alongside its tripel sibling.

The beer that gave the tripel its name and its shape: pale, dry, spicy and deceptively strong.

A Trappist quadrupel sold only at the abbey gate, and the clearest example of production deliberately capped rather than grown.

A Cork dry stout, softer and more chocolatey than its better-known rivals.

An alcohol-free version of the world’s best-known stout, made by brewing normally and then removing the alcohol.

The nitrogen-dispensed Irish dry stout that is, for most of the world, what "stout" means — and a much lighter, drier beer than its colour suggests.

The bottled, carbonated Guinness — a sharper and more bitter beer than the nitro draught most people picture.

The strong, heavily-hopped export stout that predates the draught product by well over a century, and a completely different beer from the pint most drinkers know.

The Cork stout, noticeably sweeter and softer than the Dublin reference and a useful demonstration that dry stout is a span rather than one beer.

The most widely distributed Irish dry stout that is not Guinness, and the beer that makes the style describable.

The most widely distributed Irish red ale, and the reference point for a style defined by restraint.

A Czech half-dark lager, which is a category in its own right at home and almost unknown outside it.

An unpasteurised Czech premium pale lager from an independent brewery, and the useful control in the argument about what changed after 1989.

A long-lagered Czech pale lager, softer and rounder than Urquell, and sold under different names in different countries because of a century-old trade mark dispute.

The original pale lager, and still the reference: rich Moravian malt, a firm Saaz bitterness and a finish far drier than the sweetness of the malt suggests.

Prague’s largest-selling lager, and the Czech beer most drinkers outside the country meet on draught.

The most widely exported Czech dark lager, and much lighter and sweeter than its colour suggests.

A Czech výčepní — the everyday draught strength that most Czech beer is actually drunk at, rather than the premium grade that gets exported.

One of the most widely exported beers in the world, and the one most often served with something wedged in the neck of the bottle.

The Mexican amber lager most drinkers outside Mexico have met, and the practical reference for a category defined commercially rather than traditionally.

A Mexican pale lager that became the best-selling beer in the United States, displacing brands that had held the position for decades.

A Mexican dark lager descended from the Vienna tradition Austrian brewers brought to Mexico, and one of the few places that tradition survived commercially.

The alcohol-free version of the world’s most widely distributed pale lager, and for many drinkers the first alcohol-free beer they met on a bar.

One of the most widely distributed beers in the world, and the usual reference point for international pale lager — including for its green-bottle lightstrike.

The beer that put the word "quadrupel" into the vocabulary, which is why the term describes a strength rather than a tradition.

The tripel from the only Dutch Trappist brewery, showing that the mark is about provenance rather than nationality.

A Viennese pale lager from the city that gave its name to Vienna lager, and a reminder that Austrian brewing is not simply German brewing.

From the brewery where Vienna lager was invented, in the town the style is named after.

Salzburg’s everyday lager, from Austria’s largest independent brewery, and the most exported Austrian beer.

The only widely available example of Australian sparkling ale — bottle-conditioned, cloudy once roused, and unlike anything else in mainstream distribution.

The beer that introduced American hop character to mainstream Australian drinking.

The beer that created the "dry" lager category in 1987 and reshaped the Japanese market, built around very high attenuation and a short finish.

A Japanese pale lager from the country’s oldest brewing brand, drier and crisper than most European equivalents.

A New Zealand pilsner using local hop varieties, and a demonstration that they suit more than tropical pale ale.

A New Zealand hazy IPA built on Southern Hemisphere hops, and a demonstration that the style is a technique rather than an American monopoly.

A deliberate reconstruction of the oak-smoked Polish wheat beer, brewed on the original site after production ceased entirely.

A reference Baltic porter — strong, smooth, bottom-fermented — and the clearest demonstration that a porter can be a lager.

A bottle-conditioned Quebec tripel, and the Canadian beer most widely known outside Canada.

A Chinese pale lager founded by German brewers in a German concession, and the most widely exported beer from Asia.

The everyday beer of the brewery whose laboratory isolated the first pure yeast culture, which is why modern brewing is reproducible at all.

Commercially available sahti, from one of the very few genuinely continuous European farmhouse traditions.

The beer that kept the bière de garde tradition of French Flanders alive commercially.

Italy’s most exported beer, brewed with a maize variety grown under contract rather than bought as generic adjunct.

The Jamaican stout that shows tropical stout is a local beer rather than a British one sold abroad.

Barcelona’s pale lager, brewed to a recipe from 1876 by an Alsatian brewer working in a much hotter climate.