From the frothy ales of colonial taverns to the bold, hop-forward IPAs of today, beer has been delighting palates for centuries. With so many varieties available, choosing your next pint can be both exciting and overwhelming. This guide will help you understand the basics of beer, explore flavor profiles, and navigate Virginia’s thriving craft beer scene.
Beer Basics: Ale vs. Lager
All beers start as either a lager or an ale, using the same core ingredients—water, malt, hops, and yeast. What sets them apart is the type of yeast and fermentation temperature:
- Ales: Fermented at warmer temperatures with top-fermenting yeast. They’re ready sooner and usually have a slightly higher alcohol content.
- Lagers: Fermented at cooler temperatures with bottom-fermenting yeast, which settles at the bottom. This slower process creates cleaner, crisper flavors.
With hundreds of yeast strains, brewers can create a wide variety of tastes in different beer styles. Yeasts, which are biologically classified as fungi, work diligently toward converting fermentable sugars into alcohol and other byproducts.
Within these two families are countless styles, from light to dark, mild to full-bodied, and low to high in alcohol. Understanding these differences is the first step toward becoming a confident beer taster.
How to Taste Beer: A Step-by-Step Guide
1. Look at color and clarity.
Tasting beer is similar to wine tasting—it’s about using all your senses. You’ll want to look at it in the light, and notice its color, its pour and the consistency of the head. Just by looking at a beer’s color, you can get a sense of its taste.
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Darker beers: roasted malts, chocolate, coffee notes
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Medium-gold beers: bready flavors
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Reddish beers: malt-driven, fruity or nutty notes
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Light-colored beers: bright flavors, citrus, crisp, tropical fruit, peppery notes
2. Swirl to release aromas.
Once you’ve identified the color and potential flavor profile, gently swirl your beer around in your glass to release the aromas. Look for the dominant scents, such as sweet, sour, roasty, earthy, herbal, flowery or citric.
3. Sip and identify flavors.
Take a small sip and let it sit on your palate. Identify flavors like sweetness, bitterness, saltiness, and acidity. The taste of a beer is made of many components, the most important of which are aromatics, flavor and mouthfeel.
Once you’ve mastered tasting basics, it’s easier to appreciate the differences between hoppy and malty beers, the next step in exploring craft beer.
Beer Flavor Profiles Explained: From Hoppy to Malty
Brewers focus on flavor when crafting their beers. Two major flavor directions dominate: hoppy and malty.
Hops grow from the plant Humulus Lupus. These flowers are used in beer for their flavor, balancing the sweetness of the malt with their bitterness. Hops will always provide the most intense flavor contribution, giving it a pronounced bitterness. Hops also help make the beer less prone to spoiling. The flavors and aromas from hops depend on their variety and growing region.
Hoppy Beers
Types of beer that are all about the aromas and pronounced bitterness derived from the hops include Pale Ales and IPAs (India Pale Ale). Though typically presented with a mild malt flavor, the hops in these particular brews will always lean towards the strongest flavor contribution. The character of these is lighter with drier malt, along with earthy, hay-like, grassy and woody hop flavors.
IPA: India Pale Ale
Typical IPAs are “balanced with medium to high malt and bold hop bitterness,” says Brian Nelson, head brewer and VP of production at Richmond’s Hardywood Park Craft Brewery. “The combination of the malt sweetness countered by the high bitterness is followed by aromatics of citrus, tropical fruit, pine and floral notes.” Hardywood’s Great Return is an example of a classic American IPA.
“Pale Ales are a relative of IPAs, but lower in overall ABV [alcohol by volume] and bitterness. They have just as much citrus, tropical fruit, pine and floral notes in the aroma but are less in body and overall sweetness,” Nelson adds.
Hops will always provide the most intense flavor contribution, giving it a pronounced bitterness.
American Pale Ales, American IPAs and American Imperial IPAs have a milder malt character. They are dominated by intense, hop-forward flavors with notes of citrus, resin and tropical fruit. Most IPAs and Pilsners showcase a crisp, lighter flavor. They range from straw to amber in color and are light- to medium-bodied. Many describe these beers as refreshing, with a dry, snappy finish and aromas of spice, herbs and flowers. Whereas, the Belgian Pale Ale is often identified as spicy in flavor and aromatics.
Melissa Hoffmann, the cellar and laboratory manager at Lost Rhino Brewing Company in Ashburn, describes one of their favorite Pilsners, the Rhino Chasers. Featuring Hallertau and Saaz hops, this beer can be compared to an “early morning dive into crisp waves…packing a quick, hoppy bite to wake up the senses and giving off noticeable floral notes.”
Malt-Forward Beers
American Amber Ales & American Imperial Red Ales
Malty beers highlight grains like barley, wheat, or rye, giving flavor notes from caramel to roasted coffee. Amber Ales and Imperial Red Ales have a fuller malt profile. They add fruity flavors and sometimes a touch of caramel.
These beers still lean toward highly aromatic hops, with pine and tropical fruit notes. Many other brews showcase a more hop-forward flavor profile. Even a German-Style Brown with its well-balanced, crisp and flavorful fruitiness showcases its evident bitterness from a highly hopped, malty flavor. Cream Ales, Blond Ales and Wheat Ales range in color from straw to amber, are light- and medium-bodied, and show a bit of fruit flavor like green apples, berries or pears.
When looking for more malt-forward brews, chances are the darkness of a beer will give it away. These beers most generally range from copper in color to dark brown and range from light- to full-bodied.
Barley is the main grain for developing malt, but brewers have also used wheat, rye, rice, and corn in beer making. Once the grain is germinated to the brewer’s liking, they apply heat to stop the process. The amount of heat affects the malt’s appearance and flavor, ultimately impacting the beer’s taste.
Common Beer Styles
Lagers: Crisp & Clean
A few crisper, lighter beers that demonstrate full bready, almost biscuity, malt flavors include Pale Lagers, Amber Lagers and Vienna Lagers. “Lagers have a wide variety of characters but traditionally represent malt-forward beers with the exception of a Pilsner,” describes Robbie O’Cain, Starr Hill Brewery’s brewmaster and vice president of operations. “The caramel flavors work nicely with toasted malts and are accentuated by the particular yeast strain, which ferments at a much cooler strain than the standard ale.” Starr Hill’s Jomo is a Vienna-style lager brewed with very specific malts that create a sensation of “liquid bread.”
Ales: Bold and Flavorful
Alongside a solid malt backbone, Scottish Ales, Irish Red Ales, Belgian Pale Ales and English Strong Ales tend to possess mildly fruity aromas, toffee flavors and notes of dried red apples and plums. In contrast, the American Ambers—also red ales—range from copper to light brown in color and offer medium to high maltiness with caramel character.
Stouts, Porters & Dark Brews
When it comes to stout-style brews, flavors become even richer and darker. Sweet Stouts, Oatmeal Stouts, Imperial Brown Ales and Belgian Stouts are dark and malty rich, but they gravitate towards milk chocolate, hazelnut and latte flavors for a medium-light to full-bodied experience. The Shooter McMunn’s Irish Stout at Lost Rhino is a great example of “a smooth and roasty classic Irish stout, finishing with mild dark chocolate bitterness, and crafted using roast barley, rice, Pilsner and oat flakes,” Hoffmann from Lost Rhino says. Whereas, Black IPAs, American Brown Ales, American Stouts and Imperials Stouts give off notes of burnt grain, dark chocolate and espresso, and, in the strongest versions, fruit flavors of plums, cherries, raspberries and prunes.
Beers like Porters teeter the line between ales and lagers. Their flavor depends on the yeast strain and fermented temperatures. “Classic-style Porters focus on chocolate, coffee and roasty characteristics,” Nelson describes, adding, “bitterness and hop aroma are medium to low and are not the focus of the style.”
Sours & Specialty Varieties
Brett Sours and Salty Goses are often hard to categorize as ales or lagers. Their tartness can vary widely, and they may also give off fruit, spice, or other flavors. These brews showcase a strong, palate-scrubbing flavor. On the nose, they can be instantly detected as sour, almost spoiled, with a distinct yeast aroma. Each brew’s bitter and sour taste is determined by its wild yeast strain, added ingredients and aging process.
Sours typically give off milder fruit notes and are sour and funky, while Gose beers, a specific subset of the sour category, have mild acidity, paler malts, are softer in tart and lighter bodied. At Starr Hill, their Say it Ain’t Sour pack features flavors of cucumber, pineapple, guava and cran-raspberry for a mouth-watering sensation.
Regardless of the category and sub-category a beer falls under, though, each can come out different from the last and offer a unique twist on the flavors and overall experience. So, be daring and ask questions when trying a new beer, because you never know when you’ll stumble across one that truly speaks to your unique palate.
Allow this Guide to Beer Tasting to help you further by checking out some of the Best Breweries with Food Near Charlottesville, reading up on How Devils Backbone Made It Big and trying other Virginia breweries.
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is a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Saint Francis University with degrees in English, journalism and human resource management. She researches and writes for all of our publications on topics ranging from craft beverages and wine to home décor, parenting and travel.
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