German Styles of Beer
- Weizens, or wheat beers, include the unfiltered wheat beer called hefeweizen, translated as "yeast wheat." Because they're not filtered, hefeweizens have a thick, cloudy appearance. Filtered kristallweizens have less sediment in the bottle and a clear appearance in the glass.
- A large majority of German beers have a light golden color. This includes lagers, pils and bocks. Golden lagers have a noticeable malty sweetness. Bocks are made in the lager style and share many of the same characteristics, but they have an alcohol content of more than 6.4 percent. Bock is German for goat, so you can often identify a bottled bock because it will have a picture of a goat on the label. Pils, also called pilsners, usually have a more bitter flavor than a lager because they contain more hops.
- A beer can only be called a Kolsch if it is brewed in or around the northern Germany town of Koln (Cologne). Kolsch beers are paler than any of the other types of light beers, and have a distinctive fruity flavor. They are usually less sweet than a lager but are not as bitter as a pilsner. Kolsch beers are exported outside of Germany and can be purchased in the U.S. Additionally, many American microbreweries make and sell Kolsch-style beers.
- Dunkel, the German word for dark, generally describes darker beers. Dark beers were the only style brewed in Germany until the 1840s, when golden styles became more popular with brewers and consumers. Dunkels come in two main varieties, dark wheat beers and dark lagers.
