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Specialty Beers

There are four main types of beer — ales, lagers, hybrids and specialty beers. Ales and lagers are the two main types, while hybrids are beers that combine elements of ales and lagers. Specialty beers are either ales, lagers or a hybrid of the two that contain other ingredients that cause them to not fit into a true ale or lager style. Specialty beers employ more unusual ingredients ranging from coffee to nuts to chocolate to just about anything else you can think of.


Styles of Specialty Beers

Fruit & Vegetable Beers
A beer in this category uses an adjunct of fruit or vegetable in fermentation, giving the flavor of the beer the unmistakable aroma and taste of that fruit or vegetable without overtaking the beer itself. Fruits have been used as a beer adjunct or flavoring for centuries, especially with Belgian lambic styles (cherry, raspberry and peach are a common addition to this style of beer). Fruit-filled examples are the Portland WheatBerry Brew, Pyramid Apricot Ale, Marin Blueberry Wheat, Sea Dog Raspberry Wheat Ale and Abita Purple Haze.

Herb & Spice Beers
These beers are similar to fruit and vegetable beers, but with the use of herbs or spices. Common spices used are anise, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, fennel, ginger and nutmeg. These beers usually have low hops to allow the herb or spice flavor to come out. A few palate-pleasing choices are Grant's Spiced Ale, Crazy Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer, Arctic Wheat, Redwood Coast Yule-Tied, Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale and Rogue Mexicali Chili Beer.

Smoked/Rauchbier Beers
Rauchbier (smoked) beers are usually full-bodied, low in bitterness and have a subtly smoked taste and aroma. Tasty choices are the Alaskan Smoked Porter, Rhino Chasers Smoked Chocolate Porter and Vermont Smoked Porter.

Wheat Beers
Brewing with wheat instead of barley is an ancient tradition that stretches back to the earliest days of brewing. Traditionally, wheat beers are cloudy or hazy, though with modern filtration, they can easily be made clear. Wheat beer is distinguished by its creamy texture and sweet flavor, and some styles have overtones of banana and clove. The two most common varieties of wheat beer are Belgian Wits (white) and Bavarian Weisse (weizen). There are also strong (weizen bock), filtered (kristall) and dark (dunkelweizen) versions of the style. The flavors, aroma and body vary depending on the style. Examples include the ever-popular Hoegarden, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, Schneider Weisse, Erdinger Pikantus and Bayern Brewing Dancing Trout Ale.


Coffee Grinders

Coffee aficionados emphatically agree that to ensure the best brew, consumers should buy freshly roasted beans and grind them just before use. Grinding beans at home also lets you experiment with different blends and brewing methods, be it a quick-start cup of espresso in the morning, a pot of drip coffee for an afternoon klatch, or a plunger of half-decaf after dinner. All of these methods need a particular grind, and having the right equipment at home allows you to custom-grind for each one. And with today's electric coffee grinders, all you need are a few seconds and a quick touch of a button.

Generally, retailers stock two kinds of grinders — blade and burr. Whichever you decide upon, an ideal grinder should produce an evenly textured grind and very little coffee "dust," allow for easy removal of the grounds, be easy to clean after each use, heat the beans only minimally after each use, and be relatively quiet. If you use various kinds of coffeemakers, the grinder you select should also have a wide range of adjustments, from ultra-fine to coarse.


Blade Grinders

While blade grinders can accomplish the basic task of grinding beans at an affordable price, they have a few drawbacks, which may not make them the best choice for your customers. A blade grinder has a rotating stainless steel blade that slices through the beans to produce the coffee grind, and you control the fineness by how long you let the grinder run. Unfortunately, the resulting coffee grounds can be uneven in size, leading to inconsistent brew quality. Another disadvantage is that if you are grinding finely, and therefore leaving the beans in the grinder for a longer period of time, there can be significant heat created by the blades. This can give the final coffee a burned taste.

The advantages afforded by blade grinders include ease of use and low price, both of which are desirable for first-time users. Blade grinders are straightforward in their construction, often requiring little more of their users than the mere switching of the on/off button. Blade grinders may also be used to grind dry herbs and spices; however, you should recommend to customers that they use a separate grinder for this purpose, as the oils from the herbs and spices can taint coffee ground in the same machine.


Burr Grinders

Burr grinders are an excellent choice for grinding all types of coffee ― from those destined for everything from percolators to professional espresso machines. Since burr grinders for home use are more akin to the professional grinders used in specialty coffeehouses, they offer much higher precision for the grinding process, as they allow customers to choose the appropriate grind necessary for any type of brewing.

Burr grinders use metal plates or stones to grind a few coffee beans at a time, working on the same principle by which people have ground wheat, corn and other grains for centuries. Fortunately, today's wide range of press-a-button machines is much more practical. You simply put beans into a hopper, set a knob for the desired consistency and turn the machine on. The hopper sends a controlled amount of beans onto two metal plates, one of which is stationary. When the other turns, a series of grooves snag and grind the beans into evenly sized granules that are then sent into a removable container.

With precision and consistency, the burr grinder will usually produce a uniform grind of beans regardless of how many or few beans you feed it, or which of the different grind settings is chosen. The end result should be an even bed of ground coffee for hot water to pass through. Another benefit of burr grinders is that they generate little heat during the grinding process, so the beans stay cool, preventing the loss of flavor that otherwise may evaporate when exposed to heat. With a burr grinder, you may also be able to grind a larger amount of coffee at one time.

In the burr grinder category, there are two different types:

Wheel Burr – The less expensive of the two burr grinders. The wheel spins very fast, and these grinders can be noisy. The higher speed rotation makes these grinders a bit messier as well.

Conical Burr – The burr spins slower than the wheel model, which makes them quieter and less messy. A conical burr grinder can be used for oily or flavored coffees, and is not likely to clog. These are the best type, but tend to be more expensive.