Brewing regions

A Staffordshire town whose well water made its pale ale better than anyone else's, and which gave brewing a verb — to Burtonise — that is still used in every brewhouse in the world.

The only major beer style with its own written constitution, drunk in 0.2 litre glasses that arrive on a wreath-shaped tray, in a city that has organised its brewing by agreement since the Middle Ages.

A city where the beer, the room it is drunk in and the person who brings it are one institution — and where four old-town houses still brew the beer they serve, a few metres from the table you are sitting at.

Northern Bavaria kept what industrialisation removed everywhere else: village breweries by the hundred, unfiltered beer drawn from wooden casks, malt dried over open beechwood fires, and cellars cut into sandstone that are still working.

Where beer first became an industry — a city that invented porter, brewed it in vats the size of buildings, lost almost all of it, and then rebuilt more breweries than it had in the Victorian era.

The city that turned lager into an institution — a brewing capital with six protected breweries, beer gardens built on top of cooling cellars, and a festival the whole autumn is organised around.

A stretch of farmland south-west of Brussels where beer is still made by leaving it out overnight and letting whatever is in the air ferment it — the last place where that never stopped.

A Bohemian town that dumped its own beer in the street in protest, hired a Bavarian brewer, and in 1842 produced a golden lager that within fifty years had become what most of the world means by the word beer.

A city that treats the pouring of beer as a skill worth training for — where foam is part of the drink, the tap has a lever on its side, and the plainest room in the street may have the best-kept lager in it.

Where Anton Dreher brewed the first amber lager in 1841, a year before the Pilsen pale lager.

Northern Belgium, home of the aged and blended red-brown sour ales of West and East Flanders.

The area south-west of Brussels, in the Senne valley, where spontaneous fermentation survived continuously and lambic is made.

French-speaking southern Belgium, the farmhouse brewing region that produced saison.

The western Czech region whose soft water, Saaz hops and decoction brewing produced the world’s first pale lager.

Where the first pale lager was brewed in 1842, giving its name to the most imitated beer style in the world.

Not where Czech lager was invented, but where it is served with more care than anywhere else — the city that made pouring beer a trained skill.

The Czech hop-growing region that gives Saaz its name, cultivating the variety for well over a century.

The northern French brewing region bordering Belgium, home of bière de garde.

The origin of lager brewing and of German wheat beer, and the source of the purity decree that shaped German brewing for centuries.

Historic home of Berliner Weisse, a low-strength sour wheat beer once brewed in the city at enormous scale.

Home of Kölsch, a warm-fermented but cold-conditioned pale beer protected by a formal producer agreement.

Industrial Ruhr brewing city that gave its name to Dortmunder Export, a pale lager built for a working population.

Home of Altbier, a copper-coloured warm-fermented beer cold-conditioned in the manner of a lager.

Northern Bavarian region with the highest brewery density in the world, home of Rauchbier and of the unfiltered Kellerbier tradition.

The largest continuous hop-growing area in the world, in Bavaria, and the source of the classic German noble varieties.

Bavarian brewing capital, origin of Helles, Dunkel and Märzen, with carbonate-rich water that suits darker malt.

Where Irish porter diverged from the London original into dry stout, and where nitrogen dispense was developed.

The New Zealand hop-growing region whose isolated breeding programme produced Nelson Sauvin, Motueka and Riwaka.

The western Polish town that gave its name to Grodziskie, an oak-smoked wheat beer extinct from 1993 until its deliberate revival.

The Staffordshire town whose gypsum-rich well water made it the centre of world pale ale brewing, and gave brewing the verb "to Burtonise".

The historic English hop-growing county, home of East Kent Goldings and the oast houses built to dry the crop.

Birthplace of porter and the first city to brew beer at genuine industrial scale, with hard, carbonate-rich water suited to dark malt.

A distinct British brewing region with its own malt-forward ale tradition and a historical shilling-based strength naming system.

Northern English brewing region known for the Yorkshire Square fermentation system and for beer served through a tight sparkler head.

Origin of both California Common and the West Coast IPA, and the centre of the American craft brewing revival.

Origin of Kentucky Common, a quick-turnaround dark beer brewed largely for the Louisville market before Prohibition.

Where the hazy, soft, heavily dry-hopped interpretation of IPA developed in the 2000s and 2010s.

The American hop-growing region — chiefly Washington, Oregon and Idaho — that produced the varieties behind modern IPA.

The Washington valley that grows the largest share of American hops, under irrigation in a rain-shadow desert climate.