Beer glossary
Brewing and tasting words explained in plain English, from ABV and attenuation to wort and yeast.
The words you meet on labels, in style guides and on this site. Each style page uses them, and links lead to the families and colours where a word defines a group of beers.
A
ABV
Alcohol by volume: the share of the beer’s volume that is alcohol. A 500 ml glass of 5% beer holds 25 ml of alcohol.
Adjunct
Any grain or sugar a brewer adds besides malted barley: rice, corn, unmalted wheat, oats, sugar. Belgian brewers use sugar to lighten strong ales; large lager brewers use rice or corn for a lighter body.
Ale
A beer fermented with top-fermenting yeast at warmer temperatures, about 15–24 °C. See ales.
All-malt
A beer brewed from malted barley (and sometimes malted wheat) alone, with no adjuncts.
Alpha acids
The bitter compounds in hops. They turn bitter only when the brewer boils them in the wort, which is why hops added early in the boil bring bitterness and hops added late bring aroma.
Astringency
A dry, puckering feel on the tongue, like strong tea. A little can come from roasted grain; a lot counts as a fault.
Attenuation
How much of the sugar in the wort the yeast turns into alcohol and carbon dioxide. A highly attenuated beer, such as a Saison, finishes dry; a less attenuated one keeps more body and sweetness.
B
Barley
The cereal grain behind most beer. Maltsters steep, sprout and dry it to make malt.
Belgian lace
The pattern of foam a good head leaves on the inside of the glass as you drink. Judges treat it as a sign of quality.
Bitterness
The bitter taste from hops, and in dark beers from roasted grain. Brewers measure it in IBU.
Body
How full or thin a beer feels in the mouth. Unfermented sugars and proteins give body; high attenuation takes it away.
Bottle conditioning
A second fermentation in the bottle, from a little yeast and sugar the brewer adds at bottling. It carbonates the beer and leaves a yeast sediment. Belgian Tripel and Gueuze are bottle conditioned.
Bottom fermentation
Fermentation by lager yeast, which works cool and settles at the bottom of the vessel. See lagers.
Brettanomyces
A wild yeast, often called Brett, that brings farmyard, leather and fruity notes to lambic and other wild beers. In most other styles it counts as a fault.
C
Carbonation
The dissolved carbon dioxide that makes beer fizz. It comes from fermentation, from bottle conditioning or from gas added at the brewery.
Cask
A barrel, traditionally wooden and now usually metal, from which a pub serves beer. See real ale.
Cask conditioning
A beer’s last fermentation in the cask it is served from, without filtering or pasteurising, which gives a soft, low carbonation. British bitters are the classic cask beers.
Chill haze
A haze that forms when a beer gets cold, as proteins and tannins clump together. It clears as the beer warms and does not change the taste.
Conditioning
The time after fermentation when a beer matures and carbonates, in a tank, a cask or the bottle.
Crisp
A smooth start that turns sharp and leads into a dry finish. German Pils is the textbook crisp beer.
D
Decoction mash
A mashing method in which the brewer draws off part of the mash, boils it and returns it to raise the temperature. It deepens the malt flavour of German lagers such as Märzen and Doppelbock.
Degrees Plato (°P)
A measure of how much sugar the wort holds, as a percentage by weight. Czech beers are still named by it: an 11° or a 12° lager.
Dextrins
Sugars the yeast cannot ferment. They stay in the beer and add body.
Diacetyl
A compound that tastes of butter or butterscotch. A trace is allowed in some Czech and British beers; more counts as a fault.
DMS
Dimethyl sulphide, which smells of cooked corn. A faint note can appear in beers with a lot of Pilsner malt; a strong one is a fault.
Draught
Beer served from a keg or cask rather than a bottle or can.
Dry
A finish with little or no sweetness left, the result of high attenuation.
Dry hopping
Adding hops after the boil, during or after fermentation, for aroma without extra bitterness. Hazy IPA relies on it.
E
EBC
European Brewery Convention colour scale. One SRM unit equals about two EBC units, so a beer of 10 SRM measures about 20 EBC. See beer by colour.
Esters
Fruity aromas the yeast makes during fermentation: banana, pear, apple, red fruit. Ales show more of them than lagers.
F
Fermentation
The work of yeast, turning the sugar in the wort into alcohol, carbon dioxide and flavour.
Filtration
Passing beer through a filter to remove yeast and haze before packaging. Kristall Weissbier is the filtered version.
Final gravity (FG)
The density of the beer after fermentation. Set against the original gravity, it tells you how much sugar the yeast used and roughly how strong the beer is.
Fining
Clearing a beer by adding an agent, such as isinglass or gelatin, that pulls yeast, protein and haze out of suspension.
Flocculation
How quickly yeast clumps together and settles out once fermentation ends. Lager yeasts drop out readily; some wheat beer yeasts stay in suspension and keep the beer cloudy.
Funky
A word for the earthy, barnyard and leathery character of wild yeasts such as Brett. A compliment in a Gueuze.
G
Grist
The milled grain a brewer mixes with hot water to make the mash.
Growler
A refillable jug, usually about two litres, for carrying draught beer home.
Gruit
A mix of herbs that brewers used to bitter and flavour beer before hops took over.
H
Hand pump
The tall lever on a British bar that draws real ale up from the cellar without gas pressure.
Head retention
How long the foam on a beer lasts. Wheat, malt proteins and hops help it; fat and detergent kill it.
Hops
The cones of the hop plant, Humulus lupulus. They bring bitterness, aroma and flavour, and help preserve the beer.
I
IBU
International Bitterness Units: the bitter hop compounds in a beer, measured in a laboratory. Malt sweetness hides some of it, so two beers with the same IBU can taste differently bitter.
Infusion mash
A mash held at one temperature, or raised in steps by adding hot water, without the boiling of a decoction. British ales use it.
K
Kräusen
The thick, rocky foam on top of fermenting wort. Kräusening means adding fermenting wort to finished beer to carbonate it, a method some Czech kvasnicové beers use.
L
Lactic acid bacteria
Bacteria, mainly Lactobacillus (Lacto) and Pediococcus (Pedio), that turn sugar into lactic acid. They make the clean sourness of Berliner Weisse and Gose.
Lager
A beer fermented cool with bottom-fermenting yeast and matured cold. See lagers.
Lagering
Storing beer cold for weeks or months after fermentation. The German lagern means to store.
Lautering
Separating the sweet liquid from the spent grain after mashing.
Lightstruck
A skunky smell that appears when ultraviolet or fluorescent light reaches a beer, in a light-coloured bottle or in the glass. It counts as a fault.
M
Malt
Grain, usually barley, that the maltster has steeped, sprouted and dried. Kilning it hotter or longer makes darker malt, from pale Pilsner malt to black roasted malt.
Mash
The mix of milled malt and hot water in which enzymes turn starch into sugar.
Mouthfeel
How a beer feels in the mouth: body, carbonation, creaminess, warmth from alcohol, astringency.
Munich malt
A malt kilned a little darker than pale malt, with a rich, bready, toasty flavour. It shapes Märzen and Munich Dunkel.
N
New World hops
Hop varieties from the United States, Australia and New Zealand, with citrus, tropical fruit and pine aromas. They define American IPA.
Nitro
Beer served with a gas mix rich in nitrogen, which gives a creamy feel and a dense head. Irish Dry Stout on draught is the classic nitro beer.
Noble hops
Traditional European hop varieties grown in four small areas: Hallertau, Spalt and Tettnang in Germany, and Saaz around Žatec in the Czech Republic. They bring a soft, floral, spicy character.
O
Original gravity (OG)
The density of the wort before fermentation, which shows how much sugar the yeast has to work with. A higher OG usually means a stronger beer.
Oxidation
The stale, papery or sherry-like taste that oxygen gives beer as it ages. Some strong beers carry it well; most pale beers do not.
P
Phenols
Spicy, clove-like or peppery flavours from some yeasts. Weissbier gets its clove from them.
Pilsner malt
The palest base malt, with a light, grainy-sweet flavour, used for pale lagers and many Belgian ales.
Pitching
Adding yeast to the cooled wort to start fermentation.
R
Real ale
British cask beer that finishes conditioning in the cask and reaches your glass without added gas, by gravity or hand pump.
Reinheitsgebot
The Bavarian beer law of 1516, which allowed only barley, hops and water; yeast was added to the list once brewers knew it existed. See the history.
Residual sugar
The sugar left in a beer after fermentation, which shapes its sweetness and body.
S
Saccharomyces
The genus of brewing yeasts: S. cerevisiae for ales, S. pastorianus for lagers.
Session beer
A beer light enough in body and alcohol for more than one in a sitting; the BJCP counts beers under 4% ABV as session strength. British bitters are the classic examples.
Sour
A tart, acidic taste from lactic or acetic acid. Intended in wild and sour beers; a fault in most others.
Sparging
Rinsing the spent grain with hot water to collect the last of the sugar.
SRM
Standard Reference Method, the American scale for beer colour: about 2 for pale straw, 40 and above for black. See beer by colour.
T
Tannins
Astringent compounds from grain husks and hops. Too much makes a beer harsh and drying.
Top fermentation
Fermentation by ale yeast, which works warm and rises to the top of the vessel. See ales.
Trub
The sediment of proteins, hop matter and dead yeast left in the kettle or the fermenter.
W
Wet hopping
Brewing with freshly picked hops that have not been dried, for a green, grassy hop character. A harvest-time speciality.
Wort
The sweet liquid drawn from the mash, which the brewer boils with hops and then ferments into beer.
Y
Yeast
The single-celled fungus that ferments sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide and shapes much of a beer’s flavour. Wild yeasts and bacteria give lambic its character.
Z
Zymurgy
The science of fermentation in brewing.
Sources
Checked .
- Beer Glossary — CraftBeer.com, Brewers Association
- Introduction to Beer Styles (glossary of terms) — Beer Judge Certification Program
- Reinheitsgebot — The Oxford Companion to Beer, Oxford University Press