Tagged: ale

Odds are your first beer was a lager, but your first craft-beer was an ale. You’ve no doubt heard the distinction between ales and lagers, but you might not know what determines this most basic division in beer styles. Almost every beer can be classified as either a lager or an ale simply depending on the type of yeast used to ferment the beer. Ales were the first types of beer to be brewed. Ale yeasts do their work on the top of the beer, and they prefer comparatively warm temperatures when fermenting. Lager yeasts ferment from the bottom of the beer, and they perform best at cooler temperatures where they produce a very “clean” tasting beer. Read on for the details behind this distinction.  Read more →