A style name is a promise about how a beer was built, not a score. The number ranges in the table are the BJCP 2021 vital statistics for each style, linked to the entry they come from. Nothing here is our own tasting note, and nothing here is tonight’s board.
Boards assume you already know this. “Helles, 5.1%” is four words and a number that tell an experienced drinker roughly everything, and tell a new drinker nothing. This page unpacks the vocabulary so the board becomes readable.
What a style actually is
A beer style is a recipe family with agreed boundaries. The BJCP Style Guidelines are the public catalog: styles get a number (5D, 21A), a written description, and a block of vital statistics — the measurable ranges a beer should land in to be that style.
Five measurements do most of the work:
- OG — original gravity. How much sugar was in the liquid before yeast touched it. Higher OG means more potential alcohol and usually more body.
- FG — final gravity. What’s left after fermentation. A low FG reads dry; a higher FG reads fuller and sweeter.
- ABV — alcohol by volume, which follows from the gap between OG and FG.
- IBU — international bitterness units, a lab measure of the bittering compounds hops contribute. See what IBU means on a board for why the number alone misleads.
- SRM — colour, on a scale from about 2 (pale straw) to 40 and up (opaque black).
Style is not the same thing as the yeast family. Lager and ale name the yeast and the fermentation temperature; every style sits on top of one of those two. That split is on lager vs ale.
The style words you’ll actually see
| Style | Yeast | ABV | IBU | SRM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Lager (1B) | Lager | 4.2–5.3% | 8–18 | 2–3.5 |
| Munich Helles (4A) | Lager | 4.7–5.4% | 16–22 | 3–5 |
| German Pils (5D) | Lager | 4.4–5.2% | 22–40 | 2–4 |
| Kölsch (5B) | Ale, cold-conditioned | 4.4–5.2% | 18–30 | 3.5–5 |
| Weissbier / hefeweizen (10A) | Ale | 4.3–5.6% | 8–15 | 2–6 |
| American Pale Ale (18B) | Ale | 4.5–6.2% | 30–50 | 5–10 |
| American IPA (21A) | Ale | 5.5–7.5% | 40–70 | 6–14 |
| Hazy IPA (21C) | Ale | 6–9% | 25–60 | 3–7 |
| American Porter (20A) | Ale | 4.8–6.5% | 25–50 | 22–40 |
| American Stout (20B) | Ale | 5–7% | 35–75 | 30–40 |
How to read that table quickly
Three columns are enough for most decisions.
- ABV tells you how many you can have. Anything in the low fours is a two-or-three-pint beer. A hazy IPA at the top of its range is 9% — one glass, and treat it accordingly in August.
- IBU tells you where the hops sit, but only relative to the malt. A German Pils at 30 IBU tastes sharply bitter because there is very little malt sweetness underneath. A hazy IPA at 30 IBU does not, because there is a lot. Bitterness is a ratio, not a number.
- SRM tells you the colour and nothing else. Dark does not mean strong, heavy, or high-alcohol. A porter at 4.8% is lighter in alcohol than a pale IPA at 7%.
Sours, seltzers, and the rest of the board
Two families sit outside the table because their numbers are deliberately wide.
Sours. BJCP puts them in categories 23 (European sour ale) and 28 (American wild ale). The souring comes from bacteria — usually Lactobacillus — either alongside the yeast or in a barrel afterwards. A Berliner Weisse is deliberately low-alcohol and tart; a barrel-aged wild ale can be strong and complicated. “Sour” on a board tells you the acid is intentional, not that the keg went bad.
Fruited and pastry beers. A base style plus additions. The base style still governs the body and the alcohol; the additions govern almost everything else. BJCP handles these as specialty categories rather than styles in their own right.
Hard seltzer and cider are not beer and are not in the beer guidelines at all. They are on the board because the room has to sell something to the table that doesn’t drink beer.
What Orlando rooms actually name
These are the style words metro Orlando breweries publish on their own sites. They are citations of a name, not a claim about what is pouring today:
- Ivanhoe Park Brewing names a Golden Pilsner and an American IPA on its homepage — one lager-family word, one ale-family word.
- Ten10 Brewing Company lists Subtropic Saint as a Kölsch at 4.8% ABV, First Flight as an IPA at 5.5%, and a Helles Lager at 5.5%.
- Deviant Wolfe Brewing publishes Iron Bend as a light American lager at 4.5% ABV and Nefarious Nebulas as a hefeweizen at 5.5%.
Put those against the table and the board starts to make sense: three of the four are inside the BJCP ABV range for the style they claim, which is what you’d expect from a brewery using the word carefully. The brewery list has the rest, with check dates, and jump by beer style is the shortcut version.
Then order
Style word, then ABV, then house or guest. That’s the whole procedure, and it is on how to read a tap list. If a style on this page makes you want to brew one, homebrew recipes has two you can actually finish.
Updated 2026-09-02.
Sources
- BJCP Style Guidelines. 2021 beer style guidelines, landing page.
- BJCP 2021 style entries, vital statistics retrieved 2026-09-02: 1B American Lager, 4A Munich Helles, 5D German Pils, 5B Kölsch, 10A Weissbier, 18B American Pale Ale, 21A American IPA, 21C Hazy IPA, 20A American Porter, 20B American Stout.
- BJCP 23A Berliner Weisse. sour category reference.
- BJCP. Yeast and Fermentation. ale and lager yeast species and fermentation temperature bands.
- American Homebrewers Association. What’s the Difference Between Ale and Lager?. Kölsch as a gray area between the families.
- Ten10 Brewing Company. Brews. Subtropic Saint (Kölsch, 4.8%), First Flight (IPA, 5.5%), Helles Lager (5.5%), retrieved 2026-08-31.
- Deviant Wolfe Brewing. Iron Bend (light American lager, 4.5%) and Nefarious Nebulas (hefeweizen, 5.5%) as published on the homepage.
- Ivanhoe Park Brewing. homepage names Golden Pilsner and American IPA.