What is the difference between Ales and Lagers, their style points and their different production methods.
The taste profiles between a lager and an ale can vary, but typically ales are a bit more fruity, bitter, have older, deeper, and richer flavors. When look at a lager, something clean, crisp, perhaps even more easy drinking is expected. Although of course between these two there are many similarities and many exceptions.
Some of the most familiar lagers that you're going to find here in North America are classic macro brews...Budweiser, Coors, Miller, etc, lagers we typically drank before the craft beer revolution. There's a ton of different types of ales. In fact, ale is what really brought craft beer into the American limelight. Some of the most familiar ales we might know would be Allagash, a Belgian style white ale, and Sierra Nevada's pale ale, a hoppy version of a pale ale.
One of the main differences between ales and lagers is how they're produced. Lagers are typically produced at a lower fermentation temperature. With slowed down metabolic pace of the yeast, less flavor profiles is produced, leaving a clean and crisp style beer. Ales on the other hand are fermented at a higher temperature. This, speeds up the metabolic pace, allows it to produce a greater variety of flavor profile that we've come to love in many different styles of ales.
Many different types of yeast are used in the brewing industry, but typically there are two main branches. One that's used for ales and one that's used for lagers. Some beers are perfectly clear and some might be hazy or completely opaque. One big reason is the yeast's ability to flocculate, that is, to combine and fall down. Traditionally, lagers were stored for long extended periods of time, that's called “lagering”. This allowed the yeast to fall out of suspension and give you a nice clear liquid. On the other hand, ale yeast not only were drank faster and quicker than lager, but also the specific type of yeast sometimes would have trouble flocculating out.
Hops are incredibly versatile. Depending on when we add hops in the brewing process, different flavors can be achieved out of the same hop. For example, the bittering and bitterness of hops comes from a long boil of the hop. But if the hops is added through the end of the boil or perhaps once the boil is over, a lot more flavor and acids will be extracted. When brewing IPA, hops is added when the beer is typically done boiling or after the beer is cold. That helps alleviate any of the bitterness that might be perceived and add more of the fruitiness.
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