We all know that in the brewing market, the country is well-known for its cask beers, which are otherwise called as real ales.

But, this is all the country brews? Absolutely not! Whenever we try to understand the types of English beers, we could realize that these are complicated!

From the ancient historical times till date, the English beers have been changing from time to time and hence, they are difficult to understand. If you are among those who are interested in understanding the English beer types, just continue reading.

You know what? We have subtypes in this version of beers and each of them is differing from one another in terms of strength.

Let’s see the subtypes here:

Session/Ordinary Bitter: These are the weakest bitter beer types and would have strengths of about 3 to 4.1% ABV.

Best Bitter: These are found to be bit stronger than the ordinary type and their strengths are ranging between 3.8 to 4.7% ABV.

Premium Bitter: These, which are otherwise known as ‘extra special bitter’, are found to be having strengths of 4.8% and above.

Ale Beer Types

Pale Ale

The pale ales are found to be representing the country’s best beers and are found to be medium-bodied with low to medium malt contents.

The colours are found to be varying from bronze to copper. These generously hopped beers would give a dry and crispy taste with some sweetness.

Golden Ale

Golden ales were originally developed during the 20th century in order to compete with the pale lagers.

These, which are otherwise called as summer ales, are found to be having a similar appearance to that of our pale lagers with their malt character having subdued and their hop profile ranging from spicy to citrus.

The strengths of these English beers are found to be ranging from 4 to 5% ABV. The most commonly used hop additions for the golden ales are Styrian Golding and Cascade.

Indian Pale Ale

Traditionally, the Indian Pale Ales are the heavily hopped beers and were developed for export to the Indian Subcontinent.

But today’s Indian pale ales are found to be the stronger variants of ordinary ales, but with the slightly higher gravity than them.

Most of the present-day Indian pale ales are found to be deep golden to medium amber coloured and are found to be giving some lively aromas of English hops (earthy, grassy, and floral).

Brown Ale

These, which were traditionally associated with north-eastern parts of the country, are generally sweeter and tend to be full-bodied and stronger than the mild ale English beer types.

In most cases, we can find that these beers are deep reddish brown in colours. In these beers, both the hop aromas as well as the bitterness are usually found to be lower.

In other words, we can say these ale beers are less bitter than ordinary pale ales, but are higher in malt and alcohol contents than them. The alcohol levels of these beers are found to be lying between 4 and 5.5% ABV.

Mild Ale

Mild Ales are originally from London and even today, they are considered as the regional favourites there.

These are lower in their alcohol levels but are flavourful. The mild ales are found to be light to medium bodied with 3 to 3.6% ABV and are mostly dark in colours.

Light Mild Ale

These are very similar to mild ales but are found to be pale in colours. We could find that these English beer types are sometimes overlapping with the weakest types of bitter.

Old Ale

This is the English beer style that is used to describe the beers that are kept for a long time before consuming. We could find that most of the old ales are full-bodied and darker in colours.

They will be tawny with the sweetness of the nutty malt. In simple terms, these can be called as the higher alcohol versions of the pale ale with some fruity characters.