Know your beer terms!

Ale - beer made with ales yeasts. Styles include pale ale, golden ale, brown ale and porter.

Blond or Blonde - term for a golden beer. Bock- stronger lager beer.

Grist - ground malt (or other grains) which along with warm water forms the basis for wort.

Head - the foam that forms on the top of the beer when poured.

Hefeweizen - German term for wheat beer.

India Pale Ale (IPA) - robust, heavily hopped beer.

Lager - family of bottom-fermented beer styles. Range from golden pilsners to black beers.

Lambic - Beers fermented by wild yeasts in small breweries in Belgium.

Malt - barley or other grains that have undergone a process of controlled germination until the grain contains high concentrations of sugar. The grain is then dried, kilned or roasted.

Mash - the mixture where the grist is steeped in hot water. The mashing process breaks down the grain starch into fermentable sugars.

Pale Ale - style of beer that originated in Britain and is characterized by pale malts.

Pilsner - gold lager.

Porter - family of dark beers characterized by dark chocolate flavors and assertive hoppiness.

Stout - dark style of beer usually top fermented and made with highly roasted grain.

Weiss or Weisse - “white” in German denoting a wheat beer.

Wort - infusion containing fermentable sugar produced by the mashing process. The wort is filtered, boiled and cooled before the yeast is added initiating the fermentation process.

Yeast - large family of unicellular fungal organisms.