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Guinness	Ireland
Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout	Guinness Ltd.
Black as night, with a rather creamy tan head; semi-sticky and dissipates rather quickly. Earthy esters, dark malts, mild aromatic hop bouquet of floral. Smooth upfront with a nice rich malt flavor. Some rounded malt sweetness pulls through (almost get some molasses out of it, and some ripe dark fruits), but it gets swept away by a hop flavor that is a bit lemony, puckering. There's also a dryness to the brew that is amplified by the hop snap. The dryness carries through in the aftertaste, along with some earth and grain husk flavors.

Harp	Ireland
Lager	Harp Brewery
Golden straw with a clean white frothy head. Clean, fresh and crisp grain. A full malt body with dry toasted overtones and an evening hop leaf bitterness. Virtually no after-taste. A very good lager.

Hoegaarden Original White Ale	Belgium
Witbier / White or Wit	Brouwerij van Hoegaarden
The brew is sweet, mildly dextrinous, with a smooth semi-chewy mouthfeel. The yeast creates a pepper flavour that compliments the light hop (lemony), sour flavour -- unique to this style. The aftertaste dries, from the unmalted wheat, and a slight bitterness escapes at the very end. The original White Ale, and grandfather to many a Summer-style white ale. Seems to have less character lately, though if you have it over in Belgium it is better.

Kronenbourg 1664	France
Euro Pale Lager	Brasseries Kronenbourg
Kronenbourg 1664 is a premium lager of France, combining the best of continental beer culture and a love for the finer things in life. Sparking gold in color with a smooth head and pleasing hop aroma, Kronenbourg 1664 is uniquely well balanced, providing crisp refreshment and a genuinely pleasing taste. Kronenbourg 1664 is the leading French premium beer around the world, with a specifically strong presence in both its home country, France, and also in the UK.

Michelob ULTRA	USA
American-style Light Lager	Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.
Michelob ULTRA is a smooth, refreshing lager with 95 calories, 4.2 percent alcohol by volume and 2.6 grams of carbohydrates per 12-oz. serving. Michelob ULTRA is brewed using the finest pale two-row and Munich six-row barley, select grains, all-imported hops and a pure cultured yeast strain. The special choice of grains, combined with the extended mash process, produces a smooth, refreshing beer with fewer carbohydrates.

Miller Lite	USA
American-style Light Lager	Miller Brewing Co.
Tastes great... or is it less filling? Very pale yellow in color with a fine wispy head of carbonation. Clean, semi-floral to the nose with hints of grain. Light graininess, with hints of grain husk and sweetness. The tight carbonation mingles with a slight steely flavor, to produce some sharpness and mouth appeal. The hops come across lemony, with the slightest of tea-like characteristics. Finishes mostly clean.

Newcastle Brown Ale		England
English-Style Brown Ale	Newcastle Breweries Ltd.
Tawny/leathery brown. Nice and rich in color with a bit of a creamy, bubbly lace of a head. Semi-sticky and seems to retain well. Medicinal, astringent aromas. Smells crisp and clean. Most of the smells come from the Ringwood yeast. Sweet taste (but not very malty) and light-bodied in the beginning. Toasted notes. A crispness creeps up pretty quickly followed by corn sweetness and a definite alcohol taste distinctly from the added maize grits. Hop notes are leafy, a bit oily. They meld with the prominent yeast profile, that seems to dominate, to create a dryness.

Old Speckled Hen Strong Pale Ale	England
Classic English-Style Pale Ale	Greene King / Morland Brewery
Deep hazy amber, with a rich look to it. A creamy off-white head site a top, stays and sticks. Semi-medicinal aroma with hidden sweet malts in the background. Extremely smooth. Well rounded mouth feel. Toasted, caramel and sweet malt flavors. A bit of a spicy, lemony hop flavor begins about 3/4 of the way through and dries, then balances the malt profile. Finishes sweet with a bit of medicinal flavour.

Pilsner Urquell	Czech Republic
Bohemian-Style Pilsner	Plzeòsky´ Prazdroj
Golden and clear with a lot of CO2 activity. The heads stays as a thin creamy lace with bubbles. Mild sulfur notes, with aromatic medly of light hop and malt. Crisp taste and refreshing straight from the beginning. A nice amount of dextrin sweetness, followed by a lemony tea-like hop flavour. Finishes with a strong aftertaste.

Shiner Bock	Shiner, Texas, USA
American Dark Lager	Spoetzl Brewery
Shiner Bock is a crystal clear with a tawny amber liquid. Big rocky off-white head settles to a two fingered lace that leave a few sticky patches here and there down the glass. It has a clean aroma with hints of husk and dextrin malt. The taste has medium body with a moderate carbonation, clean and smooth mouth feel with a thin maltiness on the palate. Flavors of toasted malt and caramel run slim with a strained malt sweetness. Hops seem faded and used up with a struggling bitterness. Finish is lean and clean with remnants of toasted grain.

Shiner Hefeweizen	Shiner, Texas, USA
Wheat (Weisse)	Spoetzl Brewery
Shiner Hefeweizen (Hef-ay-vite-zen) is a classic unfiltered Bavarian-style wheat brew. Once poured into a glass, the distinctively cloudy Shiner Hefeweizen delivers a fresh, satisfying flavor from start to finish.

Smithwick's Irish Ale	Ireland
Red Irish Ale	Guiness Ltd.
Technically an amber/red ale, Smithwick's appears like a dirty blonde beer. The head of the frothy brew is a mass of foamy white thickness, but with a very fine dark-brown prancing around the medium-sized bubbles. The body is dark, dirty looking amber, which actually appears to be darker toward the center. Nothing too strong yet nothing too underrepresented, the mellow sweetness, along with a mossy woodsy smell and balanced with a somewhat floral bouquet keep Smithwick's from standing out above any other brew as far as scent goes. The taste, however, is what's helping to launch the Irish brew onto several beer drinkers' favorites list. What else is remarkable about this brew is the fact that it has a very dry, smooth beginning and finish. The brew is so dry, in fact, that the woodsy aroma adds to the taste, giving it a nice, oak flavor at the end. A hint of citrus fruitiness is afforded by sprightly hops, but is balanced by a very nice caramel malt.

Styles of Beer
Can you tell a porter from a stout, a lager from a pilsner?

Article reposted with permission of History-of-Beer.com

The American Homebrewer's Association recognizes seventy styles of beer. Here is a description of the most common styles:

Dark beer: Beer becomes darker when the barley is kilned for a longer period of time. This also creates richer, deeper flavors from the roasted grain.

Lager: Two different types of yeast can be used to create alcohol. Yeast that ferments slowly at a low temperature creates a smoother, more mellow beer.

Ale: The other type of yeast, which ferments more rapidly and at a higher temperature, results in a more aromatic and fruity product.

Amber: Malty, hoppy beers with a rich golden color.

Bitter: A British style, highly hopped for a more dry and aromatic beer, pale in color but strong in alcohol content.

Fruit Beer: Fruit may be added either during the primary fermentation or later. Usually made with berries, although other fruits can be used.

India Pale Ale: The name is often shortened to IPA. This ale was originally brewed in England for export to India. The large quantities of hops added were intended as a preservative and to mask potential off-flavors that might develop during the long voyage.

Pilsner: This is the term for the classic lager originally developed in Czechoslovakia, a pale, golden-hued, light beer after which many mass-produced American beers are modeled.

Porter: Very bitter, very dark, this beer was developed in England as a "nourishing" drink for manual laborers such as porters.

Stout: Very dark and heavy, with roasted unmalted barley and, often, caramel malt or sugar. Invented by Guinness as a variation on traditional porter.

Wheat beer (Weizen): Malted wheat, in addition to barley, is used for this German style beer. Hefeweizen is a variation.