Stepping into a pub and having to quickly choose from a list of craft beers, stouts and lagers at the bar as your friends wait impatiently to order can be a pretty intimidating moment.
Unless you regularly drink pints with your friends or have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the beery industry, the majority of us are left to winging it when it comes to understanding beer-related terminology. But that might be about to change as, on Friday 2 August, the world will come together in honour of International Beer Day. The day, which is widely believed to have started in Santa Cruz, California, is celebrated on the first Friday of every August by beer lovers across the world to toast brewers, bar tenders, and, of course, the alcoholic beverage itself.
No, this isn't the small lump of skin known by the same name spelt wart. You might pay a lot of attention to how much of a head a bartender leaves on your beer at the bar but attenuation is a whole other ball game.
Filtered beer is when the sedimentation of yeast, hops, malt particles, barley and any microbes that are used in the beer brewing process is removed. They are generally produced for shorter durations and come in a variety of colours and strengths.
It is easy to get a consistent brew and therefore can be produced in much larger quantities than ale. The alcohol is typically higher than ale. To put it simply, hops is a climbing plant think of it like a grape vine which is also known by its Latinate botanical name Humulus lupulus.
