Are all beers and ales fizzy?
Asked by
Jeruba (
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July 6th, 2011
I’m about as beer-savvy as a Temperance lady. I don’t know ale from beer or bock from lager; dark from light is about all I can distinguish. I drink an annual beer on the Fourth of July, and that’s about it. Wine’s my beverage of choice when it comes to alcohol.
But every once in a while I find myself meeting a friend for lunch in a brewery restaurant with a thousand beers on the menu.
I don’t feel like asking the server if they are all fizzy. I’d hate to have to call 911 because they were splitting themselves open with laughter.
But it would be nice to try something other than the one or two varieties I stick to. Just, you know, out of a sense of adventure. So if I know I’m safe because they’re all fizzy, I’ll be bold.
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20 Answers
As far as I know, yes. Different varieties have varying degrees of bubbliness, but I believe they’re all fizzy.
I’ll let someone who’s more knowledgeable about the subject elaborate :)
Extremely dark beers are not fizzy, but they’re are disgusting to most people because they’re so dark, bitter, and syrupy. I forgot some of the names, but I just know I never want to try something like that again. The alcohol content of one of these beers was like 9 or 10 percent, too.
Ales tend to be a richer creamier head on the beer where Lite beers and Lagers with be a crisper foam like head. Imports are less foamy and richer head and Domestic big name brands can be almost irritating they are so bubbly.
@Blackberry those kinds of beers are my favorite. Guinness Extra Stout, Duck Rabbit, and Arrogant Bastard Ale are almost black, and they aren’t fizzy at all. Well, Guinness can be depending on how it’s poured.
No. Cask conditioned ales are not fizzy at all and are pumped by hand from the cellar to bar (or they just put the cask on the bar).
@Jeruba Don’t be afraid to ask. The microbrewery in Rapid City gets these questions all the time, especially when they bring out a new variety. They would rather you asked questions and got a beer you can enjoy than bring you something you are going to hate.
Before I started brewing my own I thought beer was beer. Now I find there are almost as many variations in beer as in wine.
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I think I’ve been conditioned. Some people grow up slamming water beers like Miller Lite and such lol. I don’t drink those light beers anymore, but anything darker than Arrogant Bastard (I actually love that one) is too much for me.
No, not all beers/ales are fizzy.
@Blackberry yeah one of my suitemates is a total beer snob. He won’t let us drink anything lighter than Nesquik, lol. The first beer I ever drank was Killian’s Irish Red. I don’t think I’ve ever drank Miller Lite or Budweiser in my life. I do like PBR though.
If you like a stout with a bit of a kick and very minimal fizz may I suggest you try a bottle of Tactical Nuclear Penguin.
(I mention this mainly because I love the name)
Cask ales aren’t fizzy but they are kind of frothy.
@Blackberry Shiner’s Porter, but with a nutty aroma instead of the chocolate of the Shiners.
Beer is a general description for anything that is fermented with grain. For example, sake is a type of beer. Lagers and ales are simply beers that are brewed with different kinds of yeast. The general preference is to have a beer that is carbonated, but as @downtide mentioned cask ales are beers that are fermented naturally in the cask and then pulled directly out of the cask. They have a little carbonation, but not much. The most expensive beer in the world, Sam Adams Utopias, which when I bought it cost $170 for one bottle, is completely flat. But it’s still a beer.
Beer carbonation is added one of two ways. One way is that the carbonation is naturally created by the residual yeast in the bottles, and a second way is the carbonation is added in by a mixer. If you get a beer on tap, the beer is in the keg flat, and the carbonation is added.
@Rarebear I’m afraid I can think of a more expensive beer than Utopia. A little scottish brewery called Brewdog produced a beer last year called the End of History that retailed at £700 a bottle (mainly as a marketing stunt I imagine – 55% alcohol and each bottle came in a taxidermied piece of roadkill).
Mind you, I’d actually want to drink the Utopia. So thats’ gotta be worth something.
@Lightlyseared Yes, you’re correct, that is more expensive, and I knew about that beer. But I can’t get it here in the U.S. (you might have seen it in the UK). Of course, you probably can’t get Utopias in the UK either.
Utopias doesn’t taste like a beer at all. Because it was brewed with maple syrup, it’s very sweet and maple syrupy—it’s almost like a sherry.
@Rarebear They only produced 11 bottles of the stuff so getting it was never really an option anyway. Anyway, given the 55% abv I imagine in tastes pretty awful. I find there comes a point (25%abv or so) with beer where more alcohol stops adding anything desirable to the taste. The aforementioned tactical nuclear penguin is 32% and tastes like someone poured paint thinner into guinness.
@Lightlyseared But you had it? Cool. Tactical Nuclear was one of those unobtainable beers here in the U.S.
Besides Utopias, the highest alcohol beer widely available here is Dogfish Head 120 min IPA. I’m an admirer of that beer, but I made the mistake once of drinking a whole bottle of it after an evening of drinking some other beers. I got really sick.
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