Category: Style

Flan-didly-anders

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Celebrating two styles of beer from the Flanders region of Belgium, have 5 Flanders Red or Flanders oud Bruin’s to claim this badge.Flanders

These sour red and brown beers have been brewed for centuries. The beers are defined by their patient ageing in oak and nuanced blending which creates low carbonated tart, almost musty, beers. Flanders Reds are probably more well known of the two, and are sometimes know as the Burgundy of Belgium. The fruity, cherry, plum notes are certainly more reminiscent of wine than beer.

Oud Bruin, or Flanders Brown, are similarly aged in oak but the result is less fruity and wine-like. Both rely heavily on the art of aging and blending and it takes a true craftsman to produce a good Flanders Red or Oud Bruin. They are certainly not a beer that is designed to be enjoyed by the mass-produced lager drinker!

Old is New

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Have 5 Old Ales to claim this badge. It then goes up a level every 5 until you reach level 100.OldAle

An Old Ale is an English style of dark ale that uses an aging process to create a richer and sweeter brew. These Ales are also sometimes a blend of an aged Ale and a new ale, similar in a way to a Gueuze but with a completely different result.

Notable examples include Theakston’s Old Peculiar, Robinson’s Old Tom and Greene King’s Strong Suffolk Vintage Ale.

Hella Delicious!

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If you see a German beer marked ‘Hell’, it’s not referring to the Devil but rather the German style of lager. To get this badge, have 5 beers marked as “Lager – Helles” or “Bock – Hell/Maibock/Lenteboc”.

Hella

From Munich, Helles beers are pale lagers that have less of a hop bite than a pilsner. They have a slight malt characteristic but are very easy drinking. The word Hell can be translated as bright, light or pale.

For me, the most iconic version is the Hofbrau Original, but almost all Bavarian breweries produce a version of this classic style.

Pucker Up

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The sour beer badge for Untappd. Have 5 sours to receive level 1, then it levels up after every 5 until it gets to level 100.

pucker

Sour beers are very much in vogue right now in the craft world but actually have a history stretching back to the start of brewing. Here is everything you need to know about sour beers.

Untappd defines a sour beer as any style of Wild Ale (American, Other), Brett Beer, Lambic (Faro, Framboise, Fruit, Gueuze, Kriek, Traditional, Other), IPA (Farmhouse or Sour), Historical Beer (Berliner Braunbier, Lichtenhainer), Non-Alcoholic Beer – Sour, or Sour (Berliner Weisse, Fruited Berliner Weisse, Flanders Oud Bruin, Flanders Red Ale, Fruited, Gose, Fruited Gose or Other). As you can see from the style list, many of the styles originated in or around Belgium.

Haze for Days

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With hazy IPAs being very much the flavour of the month, it’s no surprise that untappd have jumped on board with this badge. They are known by a variety of names, such as East Coast IPA’s, New England IPA’s, or even Vermont-style IPA’s. Whatever you call it, these hazy, juicy creations are definitely making a big impact right now. haze

The badge was introduced in November 2018 and Originally had four styles that count towards this one: New England IPAs, New England Imperial/Double IPAs, New England Pale Ales and Milkshake IPAs.

Three other styles have recently been added to this badge: Milkshake Pale Ales, Double/Imperial Milkshake IPAs and Triple New England IPAs. Milkshake beers have their own badge as well, so they count for both!

Crisp as Day

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The badge for Pilsners. Have 5 to earn this badge.

Pilsners are named after the Czech town of Plzen, which is where the style started. This is where the lager yeast and storage techniques were first combined with pale ale techniques to create the style of golden lager that is today widespread.pilsner

Technically pilsner is a type of lager, however for Untappd’s purposes they are two separate styles. Therefore many beers that could claim to be pilsners are instead categorised as “Lager – Euro” or another variation of lager.

Famous brands that are recognised as pilsners include the original, Pilsner Urquell (now owned by Asahi), and its state-owned rival Budweiser Budvar, as well as Becks (Anheuser-Busch InBev), Groschl (Asahi again) and Tuborg (Carlsburg).

Untappd recognises six styles of pilsner: Czech / Bohemian, German, Italian, New Zealand, Imperial/Double, and Other.

Lager Jack

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Lager Jack is, unsurprisingly, Untappd’s badge for lagers. Have 5 to get level one.

The badge includes IPLs, Dunkels, Helles and Vienna lagers (all of whom have their own badges as well) but doesn’t count any form of Pilsner.lager jack

Lagers essentially took over the beer world in the 19th and 20th centuries, and for good reason. Refreshing, crisp and also cheap and easy to mass produce, almost every country has a brand or two of lager that dominate beer sales.

“Lagering” refers to the cold storage of beer, originally in caves or cellars. However, what defines a lager is actually the type of yeast used. The lager strains of yeast ferment on the bottom while most Ale yeasts are top fermenting.

Lagers have been made since the 1500s in Germany, but they were originally dark in colour, essentially what is now known as a Vienna lager. It wasn’t until the mid 19th century that pale ale techniques were combined with lager yeast to create the popular style we know today. This, combined with refrigeration technology to allow easy lagering, allowed for the style to increase in availability and popularity and rapidly take over the beer industry.

The ten most popular lagers are also the ten most popular beers in the world. Snow beer from China sells roughly 75 million barrels a year and is followed by Tsingtao, Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch InBev), Yanjing, Corona (also Anheuser-Busch InBev), Skol (Anheuser-Busch InBev), Heineken, Coors (Molson Coors) and Brahma (Anheuser-Busch InBev again).

Heavy Weight

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While there may be debate over if a Stout is a type of Porter or a Porter is a type of Stout, for this badge it’s irrelevant. Have 5 Stouts or Porters to claim this badge.

heavyweight

Porters are dark, hopped beers that originated in London. Originally named after the working class carriers, or porters, that preferred the style, there may be no more famous example of the style than Fuller’s London Porter.

The name Stout means strong, and originally described a strong Porter. However now Stout is regarded as a style in it self. The most famous stout in the world has to be Guinness, even though it is about 4.2%, hardly qualifying as a strong beer.

There are many variations of both styles, as can be seen by the list of styles that count towards this badge: Porter – American, Baltic, Coffee, English, Imperial/Double, Imperial/Double Baltic, Imperial/Double Coffee, Other. Non-Alcoholic Beer – Porter / Stout. Stout – American, Beligna, Coffee, English, Foreign/Export, Imperial/Double, Imperial/Double Coffee, Imperial/Double Pastry, Imperial/Double White, Imperial/Double Milk, Imperial/Double Oatmeal, Irish Dry, Milk/Sweet, Oatmeal, Other, Oyster, Pastry, Russian Imperial and White.

There are also separate badges for both Porters and Stouts (To The Port and Beyond a Shadow of a Stout), as well as some notable sub-styles: Oatmeal Stouts (Oat of this World!), Coffee Porters and Coffee Stouts (Wake Up and Smell the Coffee), Pastry Stouts (Dessert Time!), Milk/Sweet Stouts (So Udderly Sweet) and Russian Imperial Stouts (Imperial Czar).

Tripping on TIPAs

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This is a big one. Introduced in 2018, simply track down five Triple IPAs to get this badge. And yes, it levels all the way up to 100.

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Triple IPAs are heavily hopped, intense syrupy beers that are an extension of the Double IPA style. Untappd also recognised Triple New England IPAs, which count for both this badge and Haze for Days.

Probably the most famous example is Pliny the Younger, but if you have missed out on that here’s a list of some other excellent options.

What Gose Round

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Untappd’s badge for Gose beers. Have 5 beers that are ‘Sour – Gose’ or ‘Sour – Gose – Fruited’ to get this badge.

Gose

Gose is a sour, salty wheat beer from the area around Lepzig in Germany. With a tradition dating back to the 16th century, the style all but died out in the 20th century due to the growth in popularity of pilsner lagers and two world wars.

The style was revived in 1980 by a Lepzig bar owner and has made a major come back, now being a popular style for craft brewers to experiment in.