What makes a craft beer different from a regular can of commercial beer? It comes down to methodology, ingredients and batch size. Craft beer is made with traditional ingredients in smaller batch sizes that allow more control and more attention to detail. Craft breweries aren’t massive factories with automated equipment creating every ounce of beer. Instead, these smaller brewers focus on developing a line of signature beers and a rotating collection of new offerings that are dependent on the creativity of the head brewer.

Smaller batches allow the brewer more control over the ingredients. Because craft breweries do not have to source massive quantities, they can be more selective about the quality of the grains and the types of grains used. They can leverage seasonal ingredients or ingredients that could never be scaled up to a mass-production level. For example, Cerberus has created beers using the cherries off our own trees or locally sourced crabapples. That’s something that would simply not be possible in mass production.

Craft breweries are also able to tweak recipes over time to improve taste, increase the potency or dial back a particular flavor. Their close connections with their customers put authentic feedback front and center — including the emphatic “don’t mess with perfection.”

The capabilities of a craft brewery may be smaller in volume, but they are massive when it comes to creating new beers. If you’ve found that commercial brewers have grown more innovative in their own beer recipes, thank the craft breweries whose devotion to creativity has pushed them to expand beyond the standard brews of the past.

IPA stands for India Pale Ale. Back in the day when Great Britain was running amok laying claim to any land where they parked a ship, rowboat or piece of driftwood, they colonized India and began making frequent shipments to and from the country. Those shipments included beer, which did not do so well on long, boiling hot journeys by sea. Well, unless that beer was loaded with hops. Using more of those magical flowers in beer production amped up the bitterness factor, but they also made the beer far more durable and prevented the inevitable spoiling that occurred in their less hearty counterparts.

Today, IPA beer has evolved to a craft beer artform. Its bitter and diverse hop-dominant flavor profile takes drinkers on a taste adventure. Of course, like every other beer, IPAs have nuance. To get the best understanding of the flavor profile, start with the IBUs. The higher the IBUs, the more pungent your bitterness balance may be. A double IPA or imperial IPA will typically have a higher ABV that can sneak up on people who stick to more mild beers.

Lagers are the most common form of beer drunk in the world right now. If it’s sold in a Super Bowl ad, offered on tap at your local bar or dominating the cooler at your favorite liquor store, it’s likely a lager. There’s a good reason for that. Lagers are really accessible!

Lagers are brewed low and slow: low temps, lazy yeast and longer fermentation. They are also bottom fermented – the yeast does not rise to the top during the fermentation, it sinks. They are light, bubbly and laid-back, which is why they dominate the beer market. It’s really an agreeable style!

If you’re newer to craft beer, a lager is a great starting point for your new brew journey. This is not because lagers are boring or plain, but more because they lack the dominant bitterness of an IPA or the weighty darkness of a stout or porter. These light and refreshing beers include bock, pilsner, Mexican, Vienna and many more. You’ll find quite a few of these on the Cerberus menu.

A stout beer is a filling, dark and richly flavorful beer that can look more like a glass of cold-brewed coffee than a beer. In fact, many of them will even have coffee notes in their flavor profile, or deep hints of cocoa or smoke. They’re the rowdier, stronger grandchild of porters (although today’s porters can rival stouts in ABV).

Stouts often get the rep as the “beer you can chew” because they are heartier and more filling than lighter lagers. The signature darkness of this popular craft beer comes from the roasting of the grains. That process develops the stout’s notes of chocolate, coffee, maple or cocoa.

IBU stands for International Bitterness Units. IBUs are used to quantify the amount of bitter agents in a beer and give drinkers a baseline idea of how bitter their beer will be. We say baseline because high IBU does not always register as extremely bitter. However, you can generally make a solid decision by trusting that higher IBUs translate to a more bitter beer. In brewing, hops tend to make all the difference in the resulting IBU number.

ABV stands for “alcohol by volume.” It tells you just how powerful you can expect your beer to be. For perspective, the beer you used to buy in the grocery store had an ABV of 3.2. Our Double Dry-hopped Elysium IPA has an ABV of 9.4. That means one 10 ounce DDH Elysium has triple the alcohol content of a 12 ounce can of standard beer. If you’re a light drinker or want to watch your intake, check the ABV before knocking one back. It’s easy to underestimate the power of craft beer and end up tipsy when you just wanted a thirst quench.