A Periodic Table of Beer
January 11, 2010
Last night I was a guest on 4BC’s beer show with Matt Kirkegaard. Matt started the show by answering a few questions from listeners – the first of which went along the lines of: “What is the difference between ale, lager, stout and pilsener?”
Matt’s reply was, of course, succinct and accurate. If you’re not familiar with the differences yourself, you can check out a rather comprehensive explanation at RateBeer. But there’s also much more visually pleasing answer to the question, something I stumbled upon recently – the Periodic Table of Beer! (Click on the image below for a much larger version).
This highly informative and entertaining chart was put together by this guy, but it’s based on a much older design by Mantis Design.
Not only does the chart encompass pretty much every style of beer, it also gives you the ‘vital stats’ of each brew: ABV stands for “alcohol by volume”, IBU stands for “international bitterness units”, and SRM stands for “standard reference method” — a measurement of color.
Spend a bit of time reading over the chart and enjoy the wonderfully varied world of beer – and be happy in the knowledge that you have many beers to try yet!
(Thanks @leohede for the heads up!)
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