Types of Beer Explained: Ales, Lagers & IPAs

Types of Beer Explained: Ales, Lagers & IPAs

Beer falls into two families — ales and lagers — which branch into styles like IPAs, pilsners, stouts, wheat beers, and sours, each defined by yeast, malt, and hops. An IPA (India Pale Ale) is a hop-forward ale, typically 40–70 IBU and 5.5–7.5% ABV, prized for bold bitterness and aroma.

If you have ever stared at a 24-handle tap wall or a four-page bottle list and wondered what are the different types of beer, you are asking the single most useful question in beverage service. Every beer on earth — all of it — starts as either an ale or a lager, and everything else is a branch on one of those two trees. In this guide, we break down the full beer family: the major ale and lager styles, what actually makes an IPA an IPA, how beer is made, what IBUs measure, how much kegs cost, and which glass belongs under each style. Whether you are building a taproom menu, training bar staff, or just settling an argument about whether Corona is an IPA (it is not — it is a lager), this is the complete answer.

TL;DR: Ales ferment warm with top-fermenting yeast and taste fruity, bold, and complex (IPAs, stouts, wheat beers, sours). Lagers ferment cold with bottom-fermenting yeast and taste crisp, clean, and smooth (pilsners, helles, bocks, Mexican lagers). IPAs are hop-forward ales at roughly 40–70 IBU and 5.5–7.5% ABV. A half-barrel keg holds 15.5 gallons — about 124 pints.

What Are the Different Types of Beer?

The different types of beer are ales and lagers — the two parent families — which split into more than 100 recognized styles including pale ales, IPAs, stouts, porters, wheat beers, sours, pilsners, ambers, and bocks. The dividing line is yeast: ales use top-fermenting yeast at warm temperatures (60–75°F), while lagers use bottom-fermenting yeast at cold temperatures (35–55°F), followed by weeks of cold conditioning.

That single yeast difference drives nearly everything you taste. Warm ale fermentation throws off fruity, spicy flavor compounds called esters, so ales tend toward bold and complex. Cold lager fermentation suppresses those compounds, so lagers taste clean, crisp, and snappy. Here is the quick-reference map:

The beer market behind these styles is enormous. Retail dollar sales of craft beer reached $28.0 billion in 2024 — 24.8% of the $113 billion U.S. beer market — and 9,796 craft breweries were operating nationwide, according to the Brewers Association (current as of August 2026). Every one of those breweries is riffing on the style families below.

Major Ale Styles

Pale ale is the balanced middle of the ale family: enough hop character to be interesting, enough malt to stay sessionable. Classic American examples like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale defined the category.

IPA is pale ale's louder sibling — more hops, more bitterness, more alcohol. It is the best-selling craft style in America by a wide margin, and it gets its own full section below.

Stout is a dark ale built on roasted barley, delivering coffee and dark-chocolate flavors. Sub-styles run from dry Irish stout (Guinness, ~4.2% ABV) to milk stout, oatmeal stout, and 10%+ barrel-aged imperial stout.

Porter is stout's slightly lighter ancestor — dark brown rather than black, leaning toward chocolate and caramel instead of sharp roast.

Wheat beers — hefeweizen, witbier, American wheat — replace a large share of barley with wheat, giving a soft, hazy body. German hefeweizen yeast produces signature banana-and-clove notes; Belgian witbier (like Blue Moon or Allagash White) adds orange peel and coriander.

Sour ales are intentionally tart, acidified with wild yeast or bacteria. The family spans easy-drinking Berliner weisse and gose, fruited kettle sours, and complex barrel-aged lambic and gueuze.

Belgian ales — dubbel, tripel, quadrupel, saison — showcase expressive yeast: peppery spice, dried fruit, and deceptively dry finishes at high strength.

Major Lager Styles

Pilsner is the world's most imitated beer style — golden, crisp, and snappy with floral or spicy hops. Czech pilsners (Pilsner Urquell) are rounder; German pils is drier and more bitter.

Helles and pale lagers dial the hops back in favor of soft, bready malt. Most mass-market American and Mexican lagers — including Corona, a pale lager, not an IPA — live in this family.

Amber, Vienna, and Märzen lagers bring toasted, caramel malt depth while staying smooth. Märzen is the traditional Oktoberfest style.

Dark lagers — dunkel and schwarzbier — prove dark beer can be light-bodied: bread-crust and cocoa flavors with a clean lager finish.

Bock and doppelbock are strong, malty German lagers, historically brewed by monks as "liquid bread," ranging from 6.3% to 9.5% ABV.

What Is an IPA?

An IPA (India Pale Ale) is a hop-forward pale ale defined by pronounced hop bitterness, flavor, and aroma — typically 40–70 IBU and 5.5–7.5% ABV. The style takes its name from the heavily hopped pale ales English brewers shipped to India in the 1800s, when extra hops helped preserve beer on the long voyage. Modern American IPAs traded England's earthy hops for bold citrus, pine, and tropical-fruit varieties like Cascade, Citra, and Mosaic.

What classifies a beer as an IPA is that hop emphasis: the hops lead, and the malt plays a supporting role. That is also the answer to "why is an IPA different than beer" — an IPA is beer, specifically an ale sub-style, the same way a pinot noir is still wine. IPA is not a separate beverage; it is the hoppiest, and currently most popular, branch of the ale family. IPAs accounted for 49.41% of craft dollar sales at off-premise retailers in 2024, with sales topping $2.27 billion, per Circana data reported by Brewbound (current as of August 2026). No taproom or gastropub beer list is complete without at least one.

IPA vs. Pale Ale: What's the Difference?

The difference between an IPA and a pale ale is intensity. Pale ales run roughly 30–50 IBU and 4.5–6.2% ABV with a visible malt backbone; IPAs push to 40–70+ IBU and 5.5–7.5% ABV with hops firmly in charge. Think of pale ale as the volume knob at 6 and IPA at 9 — same instrument, louder song.

The Main IPA Sub-Styles

• West Coast IPA — clear, dry, and assertively bitter, with pine and grapefruit. The classic American interpretation.
• Hazy IPA (New England IPA / NEIPA) — opaque and juicy, with soft bitterness and saturated tropical-fruit aroma from late and dry hopping. The fastest-growing IPA format of the past decade.
• Double / Imperial IPA — everything scaled up: 7.5–10% ABV and 65–100 IBU.
• Session IPA — full hop aroma at 3.5–5% ABV for longer drinking occasions.
• Cold IPA / IPL — IPA hopping rates fermented with lager yeast or cold-conditioned for a crisper finish.

What Are IBUs in Beer?

IBUs (International Bitterness Units) measure the concentration of bittering hop compounds — iso-alpha acids — in a finished beer, on a scale that in practice runs from 0 to about 100. A light American lager sits around 5–10 IBU, a pilsner 25–45, an IPA 40–70, and a double IPA can exceed 100 (though the human palate stops distinguishing much beyond that).

One caveat every server should know: IBUs measure bitterness compounds, not perceived bitterness. A 60 IBU imperial stout with a huge sweet malt body can taste less bitter than a bone-dry 40 IBU West Coast IPA. Use IBU as a guide on menus, but train staff to describe balance, not just the number.

What Is Beer Made Of — and How Is Beer Made?

Beer is made of four core ingredients: water, malted grain (usually barley), hops, and yeast. Water makes up 90%+ of the liquid; malt provides fermentable sugar, color, and body; hops add bitterness, aroma, and preservative power; and yeast converts sugar into alcohol and CO2 while defining the beer's family — ale or lager.

The brewing process runs in six steps:

• 1. Malting: Barley is soaked, germinated, and kilned, unlocking the enzymes and sugars brewers need. Darker kilning and roasting create the malts behind ambers, porters, and stouts.
• 2. Mashing: Crushed malt steeps in hot water (~145–160°F), converting starches into fermentable sugars and producing a sweet liquid called wort.
• 3. Boiling: The wort is boiled, typically for 60–90 minutes, and hops are added — early additions for bitterness, late additions for flavor and aroma.
• 4. Fermenting: Yeast is pitched. Ale yeast works warm and fast (days); lager yeast works cold and slow (weeks). This is where beer becomes beer.
• 5. Conditioning: The beer matures — days for a hazy IPA, a month or more for a clean lager — as flavors round out and clarity develops.
• 6. Packaging: The finished beer is carbonated and filled into kegs, cans, or bottles.

How Much Are Beer Kegs? Sizes and Prices

Beer kegs cost roughly $60 to $250 depending on size, brand, and market: a sixth-barrel of craft beer typically runs $70–$130, a half-barrel of domestic lager $120–$200, and a half-barrel of craft or import beer $160–$250, plus a refundable keg deposit (usually $30–$100) and tap hardware if you rent it. Prices vary by state and distributor, so treat these as planning ranges (current as of August 2026 — confirm with your local distributor).

*Beer cost only; excludes deposit, tap rental, and delivery. Ranges reflect typical U.S. distributor pricing and vary by market.

For operators, the keg math is the point: a $180 half-barrel yielding 124 pints costs about $1.45 per pint. At a $7 menu price, that is a pour cost around 20% — which is exactly why draft beer remains one of the highest-margin items in a $1.5 trillion U.S. restaurant and foodservice industry, per the National Restaurant Association (2025 forecast; current as of August 2026). Sixth barrels are the smart play for rotating craft handles: less capital tied up per tap and less waste if a style moves slowly.

What Are the Different Types of Beer Glasses?

The main types of beer glasses are the pint (shaker and nonic), pilsner glass, weizen glass, tulip, snifter, goblet, stein, and mug — each shaped to manage a specific style's foam, aroma, and carbonation. Serving beer in the right glass is not theater: glass geometry controls head retention and how much aroma reaches your nose, which is most of what you "taste."

Weizen Glass vs. Pilsner Glass

A weizen glass is taller and wider (usually a full half-liter, 17–23 oz) with a curved, vase-like top designed to contain a hefeweizen's massive foam head; a pilsner glass is slimmer and smaller (12–18 oz) with a straight taper that shows off a lager's clarity and rising carbonation. They look similar from across the bar, but they are not interchangeable: pour a hefeweizen into a pilsner glass and half your pour becomes overflowing foam. If you stock hefeweizen brands like Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, Franziskaner Weissbier, or Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, dedicated weizen glasses pay for themselves in saved beer alone.

Beer Glass Sizes: 12 oz vs. 16 oz and Beyond

Beer glasses range from 9 oz snifters to 34 oz steins, with 12 oz and 16 oz as the two workhorse sizes. A 12 oz glass matches a standard bottle or can pour and is the right call for high-ABV beers — imperial stouts, double IPAs, tripels — where a smaller serving keeps guests happy and service responsible. A 16 oz glass is the standard American pint for draft pours of pale ales, lagers, and IPAs. Many operators add a 20 oz imperial nonic for stouts and English ales, and 5 oz taster glasses for flights. A practical rule from behind the bar: the higher the ABV, the smaller the glass.

The Best Beer Glasses for Bars in the U.S. and Canada

The best beer glasses for commercial service — whether your bar is in Chicago or Toronto — are commercial-grade, dishwasher-safe glasses in a core set of four: a 16 oz pint, a pilsner glass, a weizen or tulip for aromatics, and a snifter for strong pours. Restaurantware ships beer glassware across the U.S. and Canada, and Canadian operators should note serving-size conventions differ (a Canadian "pint" is legally 20 imperial ounces ≈ 568 ml), which makes 18–20 oz glasses like schooners and imperial nonics especially useful north of the border.

Matching Beer Styles to Glassware and Service: The Operator's Playbook

In 15+ years supplying 40,000+ foodservice operations, we've seen the same pattern in every successful taproom and gastropub: beer programs make money when the service details match the beer list. A bar that pours a $9 Belgian tripel into a shaker pint is quietly telling guests the beer is not special. The fix costs a few dollars per seat:

• Pilsners and light lagers: a footed pilsner like the Bev Tek 18 oz beer glass - stemmed, pilsner keeps the beer brilliant and the head intact — and the stem keeps warm hands off cold beer.
• Stouts, porters, and English ales: the Bev Tek 20 oz imperial nonic pint glass gives a full imperial pour with the classic bulge that protects the rim and holds foam.
• Taproom and session pours: the Vetri 18 oz schooner glass is a versatile, durable all-rounder that flatters everything from helles to hazy IPA.
• Flights: 5 oz tasters on a paddle turn a keg decision into a guest experience — and lift check averages while they are at it.

Our foodservice customers consistently tell us that upgrading from a single all-purpose pint to style-matched glassware measurably lifts draft sales — guests photograph a proper weizen pour, they order a second tulip of hazy IPA, and servers get an easy upsell script ("that one comes in its proper glass"). Browse the full beer glasses collection to build a program around your tap list.

Frequently Asked Questions

What classifies a beer as an IPA?

A beer is classified as an IPA when it is a pale ale brewed with pronounced hop bitterness, flavor, and aroma — typically 40–70 IBU and 5.5–7.5% ABV. Hops lead the flavor profile, with malt in a supporting role. Sub-styles include West Coast, hazy (NEIPA), double, and session IPAs.

Is Blue Moon considered an IPA?

No. Blue Moon is a Belgian-style witbier — a wheat ale brewed with orange peel and coriander at about 5.4% ABV and low bitterness. It shares the ale family with IPAs but sits at the opposite end of the hop spectrum.

Is Corona an IPA or a lager?

Corona is a lager — specifically a Mexican pale lager at about 4.6% ABV with low bitterness. It is brewed with cold, bottom-fermenting lager yeast, which makes it crisp and clean rather than hoppy like an IPA.

Why is an IPA different than beer?

An IPA is not different from beer — it is a type of beer. IPA is a hop-forward sub-style of ale, one of beer's two families. The style stands out for higher bitterness (40–70 IBU) and stronger hop aroma than most other beers, which is why people often talk about it as if it were its own category.

What are IPAs made of?

IPAs are made of the same four ingredients as all beer — water, malted barley, hops, and ale yeast — but with a much heavier hop charge, often added late in the boil and during fermentation (dry hopping) to maximize aroma.

How much alcohol does an IPA have compared to regular beer?

A standard IPA runs 5.5–7.5% ABV, versus roughly 4–5% for mainstream lagers. Double IPAs reach 7.5–10%, while session IPAs drop to 3.5–5% to match everyday lagers in strength.

Build Your Beer Program on the Right Foundations

So, what are the different types of beer? Two families — ales and lagers — a dozen major style branches, and endless local variations, each with an ideal serving size, temperature, and glass. Master the map and everything else gets easier: menu writing, staff training, keg purchasing, and the glassware order. Start with a core of four styles (a lager, a pale ale or IPA, a wheat, and a dark beer), pour each into the glass it deserves, and let the math on a well-run keg do the rest. When you are ready to outfit the bar, Restaurantware's beer glasses collection has commercial-grade pints, pilsners, schooners, and more in stock and ready to ship.