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20,000+ brands of beer worldwide

didyouknow.org — Worldwide, 20,000 brands of beer are brewed in 180 styles, from ales, lagers, pilsner and stouts to bitters, cream ales and iced beers. Beer has been a popular beverage for a long time. Babylonian clay tablets show detailed recipes of beer making in 4300 BC.

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  • Jesse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17That's a lot of Diggnations..
    • diggywiggit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16"Here's to alcohol, the cause of—and solution to—all life's problems. "
  • cardyology, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Drink it with your family, drink it with your friends...... drink till your fat.... stomach distends. Beeeeeeeeer is-liquid-bread-its-good-for-you... we like to drink till we spew! *BEER!*
  • ZennZero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12" The best taste usually is acquired at an alcohol contents of 4.7% ethanol per volume. Less than that results in a beer with a bland taste. More than that and the higher alcohols (butanol, pentanol etc) become overpowering and spoils the taste."

    This is *extremely* subjective. Some of my favorite beers have twice that alcohol content. Most good Trappist style Belgian ales are in that ballpark. Some barley wines (borderline if you consider them beer, but they taste like beer) have three, four, even five times that ABV.
    • slowmo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"Most good Trappist style Belgian ales are in that ballpark."

      Chimay FTW! Those Trappist monks and their crazy insanely euphoric yeasts! Is it just me or does it seem like the gays always have the best drugs?
    • gabeN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I agree Chimay blue lable is the best beer I've had
    • Bokista, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't know how they can back up that claim. Beers taste differently not only as a result of their brewing process, but which ingredients are also included. Are they trying to say that Dogfish Head Chicory Stout would taste better if it were 4.7% instead of 5.9%?
    • schroeder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Unibroue is much better than Chimay or Duvel in my opinion for belgin style beers. La Fin Du Monde and Terrible are my favorites :D
  • Devoboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm doing my best to sample all of them.
  • wolvyne, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2hmmmmmm beer
  • Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Canadian beer for the win!
    • coldshuts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Nothing beats a good "Blanche de Chambly"
    • Konquest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yup... Two good "Blanche de Chambly" is better than one good "Blanche de Chambly" :)
  • wolvyne, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Natty Ice!
    • BrandonR785, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You must be joking. Calling that beer is an insult to all other beers.
  • bat-21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Has anyone tried making Babylonian beer recently?
  • parislemon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I've tried about 50-100 and just that seems like a lot to me. To think there are 20,000+ is crazy. Especially when most Americans drink about 5 different brands only.
  • tlmac59, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3While it is tempting to sample over 20,000 different beers, it may be ill-advised. Undoubtedly, you will encounter a brew that tastes like it has been filtered through sweaty jock straps. Drink-on (with care).
  • 0101010, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Steel Reserve all the way
  • damonlab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was hoping for a list.
    • Miyazaki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1www.ratebeer.com

      Take your time.
    • umfskibum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1or beeradvocate.com. both are fantastic resources for beer lovers, from information on great beers to active trading forums.
  • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"from ales, lagers, pilsner and stouts to bitters, cream ales and iced beers"

    Pilsner is a type of lager; stouts, bitters and cream ales are ales. There are really only three kinds of beer: ales, lagers, and steam beers.
    • FullFrntlNrdity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Steam beer is a beer fermented with lager yeast at ale temps. Its a lager.

      This doesn't consider the fact that there are beers which are neither larger or ale: spontaneously fermented beers have both wild yeast and bacteria in the mix. As do some beers like Berliner Weisse which are brewed with Lactobaccillus cultures.

      See http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/ for a list of commonly accepted beer styles and info on them all.
  • anagoge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Now list them.
  • GiJoeBob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Shiner Bock - Bottled bits of heaven.
  • Valnar300, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Feldschloesschen!!!

    Swiss pride....
  • Chaos12, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2HOORAY BEER!
  • spisska, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6So many mistakes here it's hard to know where to start.

    FTFA: " In 1506, the German Purity Law is issued, specifying that beer ingredients must only be water, barley, wheat and hops."

    Actually the German Purity Law, or Reinheitsgebot, was passed in 1516, and allowed only water, barley and yeast in beer. Beer made from wheat, weis beer, is a different beverage.

    FTFA: "Brewing is the process of changing water and grain into beer through a yeast catalyst. The quality of the water is extremely important. Hard water produce a bitter ale, soft water produce bitter lager. Barley or hops, or a combination of them, is used for the grain."

    Technically, brewing is the process of using yeast to transform the sugars in malted barley into alcohol. The quality -- hardness or softness -- of water has absolutely nothing to do with whether the beer is an ale or a lager. That is dependent on the type of yeast and the time and length of fermentation -- top fermenting yeast at room temperature for a shorter period for ales, bottom fermenting yeast at colder temperatures fir longer periods for lagers. The hardness of the water has different effects on different beers.

    FTFA: "Barley, or wheat beers have a sweet taste."

    All beer in keeping with the Reinheitsgebot is made from barley. Not all Reinheitsgebot beers are sweet, nor are all weis beers. Sweetness is a product of unfermented sugars.

    FTFA "The bitter, dry flavor of hops counterbalance the sweetness of malt."

    Sort of but not really. Sweetness is a product of unfermented sugars. The hops give a beer its distinctive flavor and aroma.

    FTFA: "The beer making process starts by germinating the grain, then steeping the resulting malt in hot water to get the wort. Base wort contents means the percentage of wort in the beer before fermentation. The alcohol contents is roughly one third of the base wort contents."

    Having difficulty parsing this. Alcohol content is related to sugar content in the wort, but can vary widely from brew to brew. Generally sweeter beers are lower in alcohol content since there is still a lot of unfermented sugar. As far as the 1/3 figure, its the first I've ever heard of it, it it really doesn't make much sense.

    The amount of fermentable and unfermentable material in the beer determines its specific gravity, the amount of fermentable sugars determines its alcohol content, the amount of unfermented/unfermentable sugars determines its sweetness.

    Beer yeast generally cannot survive in an environment with greater than about 6-7 percent alcohol -- the yeast dies swimming in its own waste, as it were. This does not include Belgian lambics or other specialty brews like Trappist Duvel or Trippel, which are brewed with different types of yeast -- more similar to those used to make champagne.

    FTFA: "The wort is boiled (brewed) and hops are added. After brewing, fermentation starts by adding yeast."

    Sort of, this is skipping an important step: You cannot add yeast to freshly cooked wort or the yeast will die. The yeast can't be added until the wort has cooled to the temperature at which the yeast ferments

    FTFA: "After fermentation, the wort is drown into tanks where it is allowed to condition or age. Yeast and hops are sometimes added in a secondary fermentation process."

    No. Once the fermentation bins are sealed with airlocks, anything introduced to the fermenting beer could cause it to spoil. You do not add hops to beer after it begins fermenting. 'Finishing hops' are added to the wort at the end of the cooking process.

    Secondary fermentation means moving the mostly fermented brew into separate containers to eliminate the trub -- the gunk of sediment and dead yeast at the bottom of the fermenting bin.

    Brewers using the 'kreutzening' method will introduce corn sugar or malted barley after secondary fermentation and before bottling to create carbonation -- the active yeast still suspended in the beer will react with the sugar while sealed in the bottle to produce carbonation. Otherwise, and with virtually all mass-produced beers, the beer after secondary fermentation is sterilized and infused with CO2.

    FTFA: "Ales, stouts and several other types of brews, like porter, are top-fermented. The top-fermentation yeast [...] usually produces stronger alcohol contents than the bottom-fermentation yeast [...] but the latter produces more quality-consistent brew. Lagers are bottom-fermented."

    No. There is not really any distinction between ale and lager yeast when it comes to alcohol tolerance. English ales are generally around 4-5 percent alcohol while European premium lagers are generally 4.5-5.2 percent alcohol.

    Consistency is the product of many factors. Lagers are more likely more consistent because lagering requires stricter controls of things like temperature and humidity during the longer fermentation process. The longer fermentation allows greater opportunity for the brewer to find spoilage before bottling.

    FTFA: "Ales usually are heavily hopped, and include bitters, brown ales, cream ales, mild ale, pale ale, India pale ale, barley wine and several other types. "

    No. Some Ales are heavily hopped, some less so. Some lagers are heavily hopped, some less so. IPAs have a characteristic strong hop flavor while some brown ales and porters have little hop flavor. Pilsner-type beers (lagers) are known for their strong and distinctive hop taste.

    FTFA: "The main fermentation of both ales and lager are done on the similar temperature for 7-14 days."

    No. Lager requires cooler temperatures and a longer primary fermentation -- 7-14 days for ales, up to 28 days for lager. A good lager is 'racked' or under secondary fermentation for two or three additional months or longer. Many ales do not require secondary fermentation.

    FTFA: "At 270 days, the longest lager fermentation is for that of Budejovicky Budvar brewery's Bud Strong."

    This may be, but I've been several times to the brewery at Ceske Budejovice and have never heard of this beer. I also doubt they would call it 'Bud Strong -- there have been numerous legal fights between Budvar (Budejovicky Pivovar -- the company that brews in Ceske Budejovice) and Anheiser-Busch. Both Budvar and A-B make a beer called Budweiser (I'll give you a hint -- the name comes from a town, and it's not St. Louis). Long story short -- A-B's brew in Europe is sold as 'Bud' while Budvar's is sold in the US as "Czechovar". Budvar would not, cannot make a beer called 'Bud'.

    FTFA: " The best taste usually is acquired at an alcohol contents of 4.7% ethanol per volume. Less than that results in a beer with a bland taste. More than that and the higher alcohols (butanol, pentanol etc) become overpowering and spoils the taste."

    Taste is a matter of, ummmm ... taste. But the standard for world-class beers seems to be 5 percent.

    FTFA: "The strongest beer type by alcohol content is doppelbock, which is usually 8%-10% ethanol by its volume content. The strongest beer brand in production is German "Eisbock", with some 14% ethanol by volume."

    No. The strongest beer is actually made by Sam Adams, which uses some kind of horribly mutated yeast strain to produce a beer that's around 20 percent. Never had it, not interested.

    But there are naturally produced lambics and Trappist beers that that are around 12 percent, which they achieve by using yeast strains more commonly used in wine and champagne making.

    Bock type beers are not characterized by their alcohol content but by their specific gravity -- there is more beer in the beer, as it were. Back in the day, German monks would seasonally put far more barley than normal in their beer to get them through the long Lenten fast. Traditional bocks aren't much stronger than normal lagers -- around 6.5 percent for bock vs ~5 percent for regular beer, but much more filling and as a rule quite a bit sweeter.

    Real doppelbocks rarely get above 8.5 percent without additional processing.

    Eisbock is a bit of a different animal because of the processing that's involved. It's the same concept, though a bit older, as that used in 'ice beers' today -- you strengthen the beer by freezing it and filtering out the frozen water. There are traditional examples, but it is really a bastardization of the process.

    I wouldn't have responded to this at all except for the sheer quantity of errors in such a small writeup, and the ease with which those errors could have been corrected with some rudimentary research. This is, after all, a subject I, and I'm sure many others, care deeply about.

    In case anyone's really interested, I have brewed, I visit commercial breweries whenever I get the chance, and I'm on a constant and unending quest to find Best Beer.

    But please note that the Best Beer is not just about quality but about quality vs price. In the Chicago area the winner is Bitburger 0.5L cans -- 8 for around $8.50 and Golden Pheasant in 0.5 liter bottles -- 4 for $5 from the Polish deli. In the Washington DC area I recommend Yuengling.


    • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1very interesting post! I just started brewing myself. I'm going to try making an egyptian/sumerian-style brew with my next batch
  • rickrwh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Mmmmm...beer, is there anything it can't do?
  • gQrTd2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0FTFA: " In 1506, the German Purity Law is issued, specifying that beer ingredients must only be water, barley, wheat and hops."

    -Actually the German Purity Law, or Reinheitsgebot, was passed in 1516, and allowed only water, barley and yeast in beer. Beer made from wheat, weis beer, is a different beverage.-

    Not exactly because Pasteur hadn't discovered yeast until the 1800s. The original Reinheitsgebot was to allow water, barley and hops only.
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