After water and tea, beer is the third most popular drink in the world. This should not be surprising, as beer is also the most complex and varied of drinks. It can taste like lemons or smoke, coffee or coconuts, bananas or bread, chillies or ginger. Beer can be crisply acidic and earthy, or it can be bracingly bitter and spectacularly aromatic. It can evince a mere prickle of carbonation or flourish on the palate into a fine mousse. It can be enjoyed days after it was brewed or emerge from a bottle more than a century later and produce rapturous delight.
Wine, beer’s great rival and table companion, despite its many wonders, cannot begin to approach beer’s variety of flavour, aroma, and texture. Because beer can taste like almost anything, it brings superior talents to the dinner table. Beer does not resemble wine so much as it resembles music. Beer predates human civilization and may well have had a hand in creating it. Beer was primary in the minds of ancient peoples, who carved word of it into stone, painted images of it upon temple walls, built cities fuelled by its manufacture, and carried it with them into the afterlife. Beer built castles in Bavaria, great ships upon the Baltic Sea, the power of the Hanseatic League, and modern industry in London. Many of the American founding fathers brewed beer, and it has graced the tables of the White House for more than 200 years. Across the sweep of world history, at the cutting edge of technology, on the tables of the rich and the poor, in almost every human situation of any real note, you will find beer.
Why then, we must wonder, is so little written of beer today? Perhaps we must blame its ubiquity, its rapid industrialization and past standardization, and its societal even-handedness. Beer is a thing we think we know, yet right below the surface lies a fascinating world of flavour, aroma, art, and science. It is a world many of us are now rediscovering, as we seek to reconnect with our food and drink. We are brewing beer in our homes, talking about beer with our friends, and bringing beer back to the dinner table where it has always been and always belonged.
Very refreshing and thirst quenching.
Very refreshing and thirst quenching.
Refreshing and thirst quenching, although generally more filling than standard/lite versions.
Malty but fully attenuated Pils malt showcase.
Balance and smoothness are the hallmarks of this style. It has the malt profile of a Helles, the hop character of a Pils, and is slightly stronger than both.
Crisp, clean, refreshing beer that prominently features noble German hop bitterness accentuated by sulfates in the water. 
Crisp, complex and well-rounded yet refreshing. 
A substantial Pilsner that can stand up to the classic European Pilsners, but exhibiting the native American grains and hops available to German brewers who initially brewed it in the USA. Refreshing, but with the underlying malt and hops that stand out when compared to other modern American light lagers. Maize lends a distinctive grainy sweetness. Rice contributes a crisper, more neutral character. 
Characterized by soft, elegant maltiness that dries out in the finish to avoid becoming sweet. 
Smooth, clean, and rather rich, with a depth of malt character. This is one of the classic malty styles, with a maltiness that is often described as soft, complex, and elegant but never cloying. 
A somewhat sweeter version of standard/premium lager with a little more body and flavor. 
Characterized by depth and complexity of Munich malt and the accompanying melanoidins. Rich Munich flavors, but not as intense as a bock or as roasted as a schwarzbier. 
A dark German lager that balances roasted yet smooth malt flavors with moderate hop bitterness. 
A relatively pale, strong, malty lager beer. Designed to walk a fine line between blandness and too much color. Hop character is generally more apparent than in other bocks. 
A dark, strong, malty lager beer. 
A very strong and rich lager. A bigger version of either a traditional bock or a helles bock. 
An extremely strong, full and malty dark lager.