What is a "malty" or "hoppy" beer anyways!?

When I am leading one of our historical craft brewery tours in Toronto, one of the things I like to do is try to find out which types of beer my guests are fond of. Usually the answers will range quite vastly but, for the most part, the answer will break down into, “oh I really like malty beers” or, “I’m all about hoppy beers”. Now there is nothing wrong with these answers but, to me a least, I feel there could be much more to describing the beer that someone enjoys. For the most part when people mention liking “malty” or “hoppy” beer they are probably referring to a brown ale or English special bitter for malty types and a good ol IPA for those hop lovers. These descriptions are fine but I believe that describing beer can be much more fun and creative based on the flavour profiles that live within what some would call a “malty” or “hoppy” beer.

Let’s start with the “malty” profile. Now, every beer can be considered malty since the core ingredient in making beer is some variety of malt (usually barley). The malt is essential since this is where the ferment-able sugars are sourced which will eventually produce carbonation and alcohol. But when someone says that a beer is “malty” what is this referring to? I like to think they are referring to the fact that a beer of this nature is more malt forward as opposed to being hop forward and, therefore, the malt profile is more pronounced. That malt profile is so much more than simply “malty” though! With the vast variety of malts comes an equally vast amount of flavour profiles. Some flavours that come to mind when thinking of malt profiles are bread-like, toasty, honey, grain, nutty, chocolate, coffee, and smoky. Each of these profiles are very unique showing up in a variety of beers whether on their own or a combination thereof. A few examples of some brews that might host these flavour profiles are: amber lagers/ales, brown ales, barley wines, dark lagers, dunkelweizen, hefeweizen, stouts, porters, and dubbels.

Now onto the “hoppy” profile. Hops play a crucial role in the creation of any beer as they are the wonderful flowers that provide aroma and bitterness. This is probably why so often hops are associated with a very hop forward style of beer known as the india pale ale (IPA) but to say that all IPAs are simply hoppy wouldn’t do the style any justice. Hops can produce a wide variety of aromas that can range from fresh pine needles to ripe mango! When talking about hop profiles there are a number that come to mind, for example think floral, spicy, piney, citrusy, herbal, tropical, woody, or earthy. A number of these aromas can be present together or alone but the spectrum of hop profiles is very wide, try to pick some of these out next time you try your favourite hoppy brew. Some beer varieties which are considered more hop forward are: IPA, American/English pale ales, Imperial IPA’s, and imperial red ales. 

Beer can be so much more than we think it is and this is exactly the thinking I invite all my guests to try and incorporate on our tours. Dive a bit deeper into the next beer you drink by taking some time to really appreciate the aroma or run the beer over your palate a bit more. You just might be surprised by what you experience! Cheers.

Craft beer is here.