If you're the unfussy type of beer drinker, chances are you just crack open a can or bottle and suck it down right from the container it came in. If you want to be slightly fancier, though ...

Though a handful of common yeast strains may create the base of most commercial beer, nearly any type of yeast can be experimented with, and many producers embrace these opportunities to get weird.

Another type of small beer — so named because of its low alcohol content, typically 2 to 4 percent — was made by reusing grain from a previous brew. People of all social classes drank some ...