You've got twenty handles on the tap list and three minutes before the bartender comes back. Half the names are jokes. Two are puns.
Under every name is a style, and the style tells you how strong and how bitter the beer will be. ABV doubles as a rough body gauge: a 4% beer drinks lighter than a 9% one. For ale vs lager and the four ingredients, start with Beer Decoded.
Ales at a glance
Style
ABV
IBU
Headline character
Goes with
American Pale Ale
4.5-6%
30-50
Citrus hop, biscuit malt
Burgers, fish tacos
English Pale Ale / ESB
4-5.5%
25-40
Toffee, earthy hop, dry
Sharp cheddar, fish & chips
West Coast IPA
5.5-7%
50-70
Pine, grapefruit, bitter
Spicy food, grilled meats
NEIPA / Hazy IPA
6-8%
30-50
Tropical fruit, low bitterness
Fried chicken, tacos
DIPA / Imperial IPA
8-10%
60-100+
Hop loud, alcohol-warm
BBQ, blue cheese
Session IPA
4-5%
30-50
Hoppy but easy
Sushi, weeknight pizza
Hefeweizen
4.5-5.5%
10-15
Banana, clove, cloudy
Brunch, weisswurst
Witbier
4.5-5.5%
10-20
Coriander, orange peel
Mussels, ceviche
Brown Ale
4.5-6%
20-30
Caramel, nut
Roast pork, sausage
Porter
4.5-6.5%
20-40
Chocolate, light roast
Smoked meats, brownies
Dry / Irish Stout
4-5%
25-45
Coffee, dry roast
Oysters, beef stew
Sweet / Milk Stout
4-6%
20-35
Lactose-sweet, mocha
Chocolate desserts
Oatmeal Stout
4.5-6%
20-40
Roast, oats, silky
Roast chicken, mushroom risotto
Imperial Stout
8-12%
50-90
Dark chocolate, char
Steak, chocolate cake
Saison
5-8%
20-40
Pepper, citrus, dry
Mussels, soft cheese
Belgian Dubbel
6-8%
15-25
Raisin, caramel
Lamb, aged Gouda
Belgian Tripel
8-10%
20-40
Banana, clove, dry finish
Roast pork, soft cheese
Belgian Quad
9-12%
20-35
Dried fruit, brown sugar
Game, fruit tart
Barleywine
8-12%
40-100
Toffee, dark fruit
Stilton, caramel desserts
Scotch Ale / Wee Heavy
6-10%
15-30
Caramel, rich malt
Braised beef, smoked salmon
Lagers at a glance
Style
ABV
IBU
Headline character
Goes with
American Pale Lager
4-5%
8-15
Crisp, faintly sweet
Grill food, tacos
Czech Pilsner
4.5-5%
30-45
Bready, floral Saaz hop
Schnitzel, garlicky food
German Pilsner
4.5-5%
30-45
Dry, herbal hop bite
Sausage, salads
Munich Helles
4.5-5.5%
16-22
Soft malt, gentle hop
Pretzels, wurst
Dortmunder Export
5-6%
23-30
Balanced, slightly mineral
Ham, mild cheese
Vienna Lager
4.5-5.5%
18-30
Toasty, copper
Mexican food, roasted vegetables
Märzen / Oktoberfest
5.5-6%
20-28
Toasted bread
Roast pork, pretzels
Bock
6-7.5%
20-30
Rich malt, faint dark fruit
Smoked meats, aged Gouda
Doppelbock
7-10%
16-26
Bread crust, raisin
Roast beef, pork shoulder
Schwarzbier
4.5-5.5%
22-32
Light roast, dry finish
BBQ, sushi
Munich Dunkel
4.5-5.5%
18-28
Toast, light cocoa
Pork, mushroom dishes
Rauchbier (Smoked)
5-6%
20-30
Bacon, campfire
BBQ, smoked salmon
Czech Pilsner (Pilsner Urquell is the original) is soft Plzeň water, Saaz hops, and decoction-mashed Bohemian malt, with more body than the German version. German Pilsner runs drier and more bitter, and drier still in the north. Märzen takes its name from March (März), when it was brewed to lager through summer. Beer Traditions Decoded has the history.
The IPA split
West Coast
NEIPA / Hazy
DIPA / Imperial
Session
Clarity
Bright
Opaque
Either
Usually clear
Body
Medium, dry
Full, soft
Full, alcohol-warm
Light
Hops
Bitter plus aroma
Aromatic, low bitterness
Loud everything
Restrained
Yeast
Clean American
Soft, fruity (London III)
Clean to fruity
Clean
West Coast was the original American IPA, built to show off American hops, and it's still the default in much of California and the Pacific Northwest. NEIPA came out of Vermont: dry-hop heavily, ferment with a softer yeast, skip the filter. You get big tropical aroma and a body closer to a smoothie. The Alchemist's Heady Topper (first brewed 2003, canned from 2011) is the template; the style went mainstream in the mid-2010s, and the Brewers Association gave it its own "Juicy or Hazy" categories in 2018. A DIPA is more of everything in either style, and a Triple IPA passes 10% and drinks like a hop-flavored barleywine.
"Tropical" and "dank" on a menu point at specific hops:
Hop
Tastes like
Cascade
Grapefruit, floral. The founding American Pale Ale hop.
Centennial
Citrus, pine. "Super Cascade," backbone of many West Coast IPAs.
Simcoe, Chinook
Pine, resin. Classic West Coast.
Columbus / CTZ
Dank: weed-adjacent, oily.
Citra
Mango, passionfruit, lime. The most-planted hop in the US.
Mosaic
Blueberry, mango. Citra's partner in NEIPAs.
Galaxy
Passionfruit, peach. Australian.
Nelson Sauvin
White grape, gooseberry. New Zealand, named for the Sauvignon Blanc note.
Sabro
Coconut, tangerine. Polarizing; shows up in pastry beers.
Saaz
Floral, herbal. Czech lagers.
Stouts and porters
They started as the same beer; "stout porter" meant a stronger porter. Today stout usually runs bigger and roastier, though brewers don't agree on the line. Dry Irish stout often pours on nitro and drinks lighter than it looks. Milk stout's sweetness is lactose, which yeast can't ferment. Imperial stout was historically brewed in England for the Russian court. Pastry stout is imperial stout loaded with vanilla, marshmallow, maple, and so on: integrated at best, a sticky milkshake at worst.
Baltic porter is usually a lager despite the name, fermented cold at 7 to 9%. It's one of the most underrated styles on this page.
Wheat, Belgian, and big beers
Hefeweizen's banana and clove come entirely from the yeast. No bananas were involved. Witbier swaps that yeast character for coriander and bitter orange peel. The style died when Hoegaarden's last wit brewery, Tomsin, closed in 1957. Pierre Celis, a local milkman who'd helped out there, revived it in 1966, and the village name stuck. The sour wheats, Berliner Weisse (around 3%) and salted Gose (born in Goslar, adopted by Leipzig), belong to Sour and Wild Beer Decoded.
Dubbel, Tripel, and Quad aren't literal counts, just a rough strength ladder from the Trappist breweries. Westmalle first called its strong pale ale Tripel in 1934; Quad came in 1991, when the Dutch Trappist brewery La Trappe coined Quadrupel. The Single, or Patersbier, is the light beer monks brew for their own table. Westvleteren 12 and Rochefort 10 are the Quad archetypes. Candi sugar (a cooked beet sugar) adds fermentable sugar without body, so all three finish drier than their ABV suggests. Saison, the Walloon farmhouse beer once brewed in winter for summer harvest workers, finishes bone-dry because its yeast eats almost everything.
Barleywine comes sweeter in English versions and hoppier in American ones. Old Ale, a vintage English style often blended with younger beer, is rare and worth seeking. Pour these big beers at 6 to 10 oz, not pints.
If you like X, try Y
West Coast IPA: NEIPA, Pilsner, DIPA
NEIPA: Wheat IPA, Witbier, Saison
Pilsner: Helles, Czech Pils, dry-hopped lager
Stout: Porter, Imperial Stout, Schwarzbier
Hefeweizen: Witbier, Tripel, Saison
Tripel: Dubbel, Saison, Belgian Pale
Imperial Stout: Barleywine, Quad, Baltic Porter
Märzen: Vienna Lager, Dunkel, Bock
Berliner Weisse: Gose, Witbier, dry Riesling
The freshness rule
Hop aroma oxidizes to cardboard within months, so read the canning date (small print on the bottom or side of most US craft cans). A NEIPA is best under 6 weeks and a different beer past 3 months. West Coast IPA and DIPA are fine at 2 to 3 months and fading by 6. Pilsner and Helles need freshness too. Stouts, barleywines, and Belgians are forgiving, and some imperial stouts and barleywines improve with a year in the cellar.
More label cues
Label says
Means
DDH
Double dry hopped. More aroma, often softer bitterness.
Aged in wood, often ex-bourbon, ex-wine, or ex-rum. Adds vanilla and spirit.
Imperial / Double
Bigger version of any style.
Nitro
Nitrogen instead of CO₂. Smaller bubbles, creamier.
Cask / Real Ale
Unfiltered, unpasteurized, served at cellar temperature, 52-55°F (11-13°C).
Sour
Berliner, Gose, lambic, or kettle-soured fruit beer.
Glassware matters more than people admit: a Hefeweizen vase and a stout snifter concentrate the right aromas. Glassware Decoded explains why, and Food Pairing: What to Drink With What has the pairing logic, written for cocktails.