Generally speaking, beer can be divided according to the production mode, product concentration, beer color, beer consumption object, beer packaging container and yeast species used in beer fermentation.
Sort by color
According to the color of beer, there are light beer, strong beer and dark beer: light beer is light golden yellow. It accounts for more than 98% of the sales in China market. This kind of beer has a refreshing taste, strong killing taste and outstanding wine flavor. Strong beer is brown or reddish brown. This kind of beer has a mellow taste and outstanding malt flavor. Dark beer is dark reddish brown, even dark brown. Looks like soy sauce and vinegar. This kind of beer is brewed by adding burnt malt to deepen the color of beer. This kind of beer has the characteristics of ordinary beer, with high wort concentration, burnt malt, fine foam, mellow taste and light bitterness.
Classification by production process
There are some changes in raw and auxiliary materials or production technology, and it becomes a beer with unique flavor. For example, draft beer: this is beer that can achieve certain biological stability without heat treatment and sterilization in the production process. Whole malt beer: beer brewed by saccharification or boiling with malt as raw material (or partially replaced by barley). Wheat beer: beer brewed with wheat malt as the main raw material (accounting for more than 40% of the total raw material) by upper fermentation or lower fermentation. Turbid beer: this kind of beer has a certain amount of live yeast in the finished product, and the turbidity is 2.0~5.0 EBC turbidity unit.
Other classifications
According to the mode of production, beer can be divided into draft beer and cooked beer. Draft beer refers to beer sold without low temperature sterilization (also known as pasteurization) after packaging. This kind of beer is generally sold on the spot and should not be kept for too long. Generally, it is kept at low temperature for one week. Cooked beer refers to beer that can be stored for a long time after low temperature packaging and sterilization, and can be stored for about three months at the longest.
In addition, judging from the alcohol content of beer, there are alcoholic beer, low-alcohol beer and alcohol-free beer.
According to different consumers, beer can be divided into ordinary beer, alcohol-free (or low-alcohol) beer, sugar-free or low-sugar beer, sour beer and so on. Non-alcoholic or low-alcohol beer is suitable for drivers or people who can't drink. Sugar-free or low-sugar beer is suitable for diabetic patients.