Craft Beer for Beginners: 4 Things People Get Wrong
- Kiran Kumar Nanduri
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
"Something not too bitter."
I hear it most nights. Someone looks up at twenty taps, decides the safest move is to name what they don't want, and I end up pouring them one of the two least interesting beers on the wall.
The instinct is fair. The instruction is wrong. Most advice about craft beer for beginners opens with a glossary of styles, which is a bit like learning to swim by reading about water. TapHouse Frankfurt pours 20 rotating taps beside a modern Indian kitchen at Mendelssohnstraße 51 in the Westend, and these are the four things I correct most often standing behind them.
1. "IPA means bitter"
Bitterness is one thing hops do. It isn't the only thing, and for about a decade most brewers haven't been chasing it.
Two IPAs currently on tap make the point. Camba Island is a hazy New England IPA at 6.6%: soft, cloudy, mostly mango and citrus pith. Too Hop To Handle from Straßenbräu is an Imperial IPA at 8.6% and will absolutely bite you. Same three letters on the badge. Two completely different drinks.
If you had one bad IPA years ago and wrote off the category, it was probably a West Coast IPA, where the bitterness is the entire point. Try a hazy one instead. Or start lower: Camba's Bavarian Summer is a session IPA at 5.3%, which is the same flavour idea at a volume you can hold a conversation over.
2. "Dark means heavy"
Colour comes from how far the malt was roasted. That's all it tells you. It says almost nothing about strength and not much about body.
The concrete version: Camba's Chiemsee Black is a dark lager at 5.5%. It looks like a stout and drinks like a lager, and it is three percent weaker than the pale golden Imperial IPA sitting a few handles along. Order by colour and you'd have that exactly backwards.
Dark beers taste of roast, coffee, bread crust, sometimes chocolate. None of those are heavy. They're just not yellow.
3. "I have to pick one"
You don't, and this is the part most people don't realise they're allowed to ask for.
Order a flight. Five 0.1 litre glasses on a board, picked by you or by whoever's pouring, so you taste your way across the wall for half a litre in total. You'll find something you like. More usefully, you'll find out what you don't. Nobody has ever regretted it, and it's the best possible answer to "I don't know what I want".
If you want it properly explained rather than just poured, that's a different thing: our guided tastings are five 0.15 litre pours of five different beers with somebody talking you through each one.
4. "Just give me your most popular one"
This one I'll push back on properly.
Everything on those twenty handles sells. In five years I haven't had a beer sit there going stale while I waited for somebody to order it. Some move faster than others, but there's no dead handle. So "most popular" doesn't narrow anything down. It tells you what a few hundred other people fancied, which has very little to do with what you'll like.
Here's what I ask instead. It takes about fifteen seconds.
• What do you normally drink?
• Have you ever tried a Pale Ale or an IPA?
Two answers and I know roughly where to start you. If you drink Pils, you are not getting an 8.4% Imperial IPA as your first glass. If you've had Pale Ales before and liked them, we can go somewhere more interesting than the safe end of the bar. And if you genuinely don't know, we're back to the flight.
Not everything here is beginner territory
Two styles move slowest for us: Gose and Rauchbier. Gose is salty and sour. Rauchbier is brewed with smoked malt and tastes like a campfire, in a way you either love on the first sip or never. Neither is a gentle introduction, and neither is a permanent fixture here. They come round every so often, and when one of them is on, it's worth asking for a taste before you commit to a glass.
What if you just want a normal beer?
Then have a normal beer, made properly.
When somebody tells me they drink Krombacher or Beck's, I pour them a Bavarian Helles: Camba's Hell at 5.2%. Clean, malty, not remotely challenging. It's the beer that has turned the most sceptics in this room into regulars, and they keep coming back for it rather than graduating away from it. Nobody has to arrive at craft beer through an Imperial Stout.
Then there's the food
Hops cut spice. Spice amplifies hops. That's the reason there's an Indian kitchen in a craft beer bar and not just a bag of crisps (we have those too, and peanuts, of course): heat and bitterness push against each other, and carbonation resets your mouth between bites in a way that water can't.
One thing worth knowing, because it's the mistake I see most. Alcohol amplifies capsaicin. So a big 8% Imperial IPA next to a fierce curry makes both feel hotter, not better. If you're eating something genuinely hot, go lower in alcohol, not higher. A hoppy Pale Ale or a wheat beer next to tandoori chicken is a far better idea than the strongest thing on the board.
So: don't describe what you don't want. Tell whoever's behind the bar what you normally drink, and ask for a flight. You'll be about four minutes away from something you actually like.
What's pouring changes constantly, so the full list lives on our live menu, which updates itself every day. If you'd rather have it walked through properly, we run guided tastings in English and German, and you can book a table for a Friday if you don't fancy standing.
Hops. Heat. Frankfurt.
Questions we get asked at the bar
Are all IPAs bitter?
No. Bitterness is one possible hop character, not a requirement. Hazy or New England IPAs are hopped for aroma and flavour instead, so they taste of tropical fruit and citrus with very little bite. West Coast IPAs are the bitter ones. If an IPA put you off once, a hazy IPA is a completely different drink.
Is dark beer stronger than lager?
Usually not. Colour comes from how far the malt was roasted and says almost nothing about alcohol. A dark lager at 5.5% is weaker than most pale IPAs, which commonly run from 6% to over 8%. Dark beers taste of roast and coffee rather than being heavy or strong.
What craft beer should I try first?
If you normally drink Pils or lager, start with a well made Bavarian Helles, then try a Pale Ale next. Better still, order a flight and taste five styles side by side in 0.1 litre glasses. You'll learn more in ten minutes at the bar than from any list of beer styles.
Can I taste beers before committing to a full glass?
Yes, ask for a flight. At TapHouse Frankfurt a flight is five 0.1 litre glasses on a wooden board, half a litre in total, so you can compare five styles directly against each other. For a guided version, our Exclusive Beer Tasting is five 0.15 litre pours with an expert talking through each beer.
Which beer goes best with spicy Indian food?
Go lower in alcohol than you'd expect, because alcohol makes chilli heat feel stronger. A hoppy Pale Ale or a wheat beer around 5% works with tandoori and grilled dishes. Save the 8% Imperial IPAs for a milder plate, or for drinking on their own.
Where can I try craft beer in Frankfurt?
TapHouse Frankfurt is at Mendelssohnstraße 51 in the Westend, with 20 rotating taps and a modern Indian kitchen in the same room. Open from 4pm Tuesday to Friday, from noon on Saturday and Sunday, closed Mondays. The current tap list is published on a live menu that updates daily.
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