Beer terms, in plain English

Beer Styles

The major style families you'll see referenced constantly in WSET study materials, grouped by what mainly drives their character.

Malt-driven styles

Pale lager

The world's best-selling beer style: light-bodied, clean, and crisp, cold-fermented and cold-conditioned for a smooth, easy-drinking character.

Brown ale

A malt-forward style with notes of caramel, toffee, and nuts, moderate in strength and low in hop bitterness.

Porter

A dark, malty ale with roasted, chocolate, and coffee notes, historically a lighter forerunner to stout.

Stout

A dark, full-bodied ale built on heavily roasted malt, giving pronounced coffee and dark chocolate flavors and often a creamy texture.

Hop-driven styles

Pilsner

A pale, hoppy lager originating in the Czech Republic, prized for its crisp bitterness and floral, spicy hop character.

Bitter

A traditional English pale ale, moderate in strength, with a balance tilted toward hop bitterness and earthy, herbal hop character.

IPA (India Pale Ale)

A hop-forward ale style, originally brewed extra strong and heavily hopped to survive shipment to India, now known for bold citrus, pine, or tropical hop aromas.

Yeast-driven styles

Weissbier (wheat beer)

A German wheat beer fermented with a distinctive yeast strain that produces banana and clove aromas, typically cloudy and effervescent.

Saison

A Belgian farmhouse ale, traditionally brewed for farm workers, known for a peppery, fruity yeast character and a dry, refreshing finish.

Witbier

A Belgian wheat beer brewed with coriander and orange peel, giving a soft, spicy, citrusy character and a hazy appearance.

Sour styles

Berliner Weisse

A light, tart German wheat beer, low in alcohol, traditionally soured with lactic acid bacteria and often served with a flavored syrup.

Geuze

A Belgian sour beer made by blending young and old lambic (spontaneously fermented beer), producing a complex, tart, funky character.

General Terms, A–Z

A

ABV (Alcohol by Volume)

The percentage of a beer's total volume that is pure alcohol.

Adjunct

A fermentable ingredient other than malted barley, such as corn, rice, or sugar, used to adjust body, strength, or cost.

Ale

Beer fermented with a "top-fermenting" yeast at warmer temperatures, generally producing fruitier, more complex flavors than lager.

B

Barrel-aging

Aging beer in a wooden barrel, often one previously used for wine or spirits, to add complexity and sometimes sourness.

Bittering hops

Hops added early in the boil, mainly to contribute bitterness rather than aroma.

Body

How light or heavy a beer feels in the mouth, shaped mainly by the amount of unfermented sugar and protein left in the finished beer.

Bottle conditioning

Carbonating beer naturally by adding a small amount of yeast and sugar at bottling, causing a secondary fermentation inside the sealed bottle.

C

Cask conditioning

Serving beer that's naturally carbonated and matured in the cask it's served from, typically by hand pump, without added carbon dioxide.

Carbonation

The dissolved carbon dioxide in beer that gives it fizz, either produced naturally by fermentation or added mechanically.

Craft beer

A loosely-defined term for beer from small, independent breweries, usually associated with traditional ingredients and more experimental styles.

D

Dry hopping

Adding hops to beer after fermentation, with no boiling, to add aroma without extra bitterness.

F

Fermentation

The process where yeast converts the sugars in wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide, turning wort into beer.

Filtration

Removing yeast and other solids from beer before packaging, for a clearer appearance.

Finings

Substances added to beer to help clear it by binding to yeast and other particles so they settle out.

G

Gravity (original/final)

A measure of the dissolved sugar in wort before fermentation (original gravity) and in the finished beer (final gravity); the difference between the two indicates how much sugar was fermented into alcohol.

Grist

The mix of milled grains used to make a batch of beer.

H

Head

The layer of foam on top of a poured beer, formed by carbon dioxide and proteins.

Hops

The flowers of the hop plant, added during brewing for bitterness, flavor, and aroma, and as a natural preservative.

I

IBU (International Bitterness Units)

A scale used to measure a beer's bitterness level, based on the concentration of bittering compounds from hops.

L

Lagering

Cold-storing lager for an extended period after primary fermentation, allowing it to mellow and clarify.

Lautering

The step where the sweet liquid (wort) is separated from the solid spent grain after mashing.

M

Malt

Grain, usually barley, that's been germinated and then dried, developing the enzymes and sugars needed for brewing.

Malting

The process of soaking, germinating, and drying grain to produce malt.

Mash

Mixing crushed malt with hot water to activate enzymes that convert starch into fermentable sugar.

Mouthfeel

The overall tactile sensation of a beer in the mouth, including body, carbonation, and texture.

P

Pasteurization

Briefly heating packaged beer to kill remaining yeast and bacteria, extending shelf life at some cost to fresh flavor.

Pitching

Adding yeast to cooled wort to begin fermentation.

R

Racking

Moving beer from one vessel to another, leaving sediment behind, typically after fermentation.

S

Session beer

A beer brewed to a lower alcohol strength specifically so it can be enjoyed over a longer drinking session.

Sparging

Rinsing the grain bed with hot water during lautering to extract any remaining sugars.

W

Wort

The sweet, sugary liquid extracted from mashed grain, before it's fermented into beer.

Y

Yeast

The microorganism responsible for fermentation, converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, and contributing much of a beer's flavor character depending on the strain used.