Craft beer explained: Fayetteville brewer answers frequently asked questions

Craft beer seems to be in its post-snob era. In Fayetteville and around the country, small-batch beer is pouring into the mainstream.

Still, drinkers who are more likely to order a Bud Light than an India pale ale can find microbrews confusing. We asked a Fayetteville brewer to shed light on the subject.

Heckler Brewing Company owner Danny Miller has spent the past six years brewing — first at home and then in his Ramsey Street brewery which opened last year. Located just north of Methodist University, the brewery specializes in U.K.-inspired beers like Irish red ales and stouts.

Miller covered such topics as the types and styles of craft beer, common words to describe it, and even a little history.

What other food experts should we interview? Let us know by emailing tshook@gannett.com.

What is craft beer?

Craft beer is a niche style of brewing beer usually using a lot of additions beyond the four required ingredients: water, hops, malted barley and yeast. It is small-batch, niche-flavored beers that are moderate to extreme alternatives to existing brew styles.

What are the main types of beer?

All beers fall into two categories — lager and ale. An ale uses ale yeast, and lagers use lager yeast.

Before genetic modification and selective crop breeding, brewers would use lager yeast because it would produce a cleaner product. It would produce a beer with more clarity.

Lagers are bottom-fermenting and ales are top-fermenting, so ale yeast would produce a fuzzy beer whereas lager is crisp, clear and clean tasting.

What are some common descriptions for beers?

Hoppy beers have a pronounced flavor of the hop ingredient. It's not necessarily a beer that has a lot of bitterness to it. Hops can have a lot of different flavors, even fruitiness.

Malty beers are sweet and have a pronounced flavor of the malted variety used in the beer.

Juicy usually refers to the amount of fruit flavor in a beer.

Hazy is a visual component that is characteristic of wheat beers that are supposed to be yeasty. Beers that are foggy tend to have more flavor, but some beers are meant to be as clear as possible.

Clean-tasting means the beer doesn’t have off flavors and isn’t overly complex. It’s not robust, and it’s not rich.

What are the styles of lagers and ales?

The traditional English Indian pale ale was meant to get to the destination without refrigeration. Additional hops were used as a preservative and to mask the flavor of spoilage during transportation.

The American IPA is extreme, with a ton of recognizable hop flavor, because brewers wanted to find a way to distinguish it from English IPAs. New England IPAs use citrus flavors like grapefruit; West Coast IPAs are normally very hazy.

Pale ales are an excellent transition point for drinkers new to craft beer. They are typically mellow, noncomplex and familiar. A craft beer can be very simple and similar to a macrobrew and be just as delicious as any other craft beer.

Historically, stouts and porters were different. Stouts were higher alcohol and had a heavy mouthfeel. Porters were less dry and have a lower alcohol content and lighter mouthfeel. Now, there is less differentiation between stouts and porters, but both are dark, opaque beers.

Irish red ale is malt-forward with a detectable hops flavor without a hops aroma. Typically, they have low and well-balanced bitterness with toffee and caramel-forward sweetness. Heckler's red ale has a biscuity, caramelized butter on a biscuit flavor as a finish.

Saison is a farmhouse ale that predates refrigeration. It was traditionally brewed in the warm summer months when high temperatures provoked the yeast to put off a funk flavor that, in other beers, would be considered an off flavor.

Should different beers be served at different temperatures?

Service temperature varies for different beers. Many Irish stouts and Irish reds should be served warmer to build the aroma. If you don’t build the aroma in the glass you’re missing out on a big percentage of the flavor. On the other hand, pilsners and other beers with a less robust flavor are served at a colder temperature.

Why are different beers served in different glasses?

Different glasses are used because of tradition, temperature and visual appeal. A tulip glass, like a brandy snifter, captures the aroma. Many U.K. and Belgian beers use it. Glasses for beers served at colder temperatures have straight walls because capturing the aroma is less important.

When you’re doing a beer tasting, in what order should you taste them?

Taste it in a strength order — from the least robust to the most intense flavor. Try to balance the alcohol content, moving from a lower to a higher percentage.

How should you store beer?

How you store your beer determines its shelf life.

Skunked beer has been degraded by light exposure. It can happen as quickly as half an hour. It only happens to bottles, because canned beer has zero risk of light exposure.

If beer is stored on a shelf, you can’t control the temperature. You can lose a lot of the flavor of the hops, and bitterness starts to come through. If the beer wasn’t filtered, residual sugar and yeast can continue to ferment, making it over-carbonated. Beer can also go stale.

Most beers can last for six to nine months if stored properly in a cool, dark place.

Is beer ever aged?

The higher the alcohol content in a beer, the longer you want to age it. The booziness and alcohol flavor dissipates. For example, Heckler's Strawberry Dagger is 8% alcohol by volume, but it doesn’t taste like it because it’s aged.

Food, dining and business reporter Taylor Shook can be reached at tshook@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Craft beer expert FAQs: Fayetteville's Heckler Brewing Company owner