Amber

The BJCP uses 'amber' mainly as a colour designation to form groups. The categories 'Amber Malty European Lager' and 'Amber Bitter European Beer' contain very different beers: Märzen, Dunkles Bock, Vienna lager and Altbier, so including lagers.

As a top-fermented style with 'amber' in the name, the BJCP and the Brewers Association recognise only the American amber ale (at the BJCP 19A American Amber Ale, at the BA American-Style Amber/Red Ale).

In Belgium, De Koninck calls its Bolleke 'this amber colored beer'. That is a spéciale belge, and the style guides describe that style as Belgian Pale Ale or Speciale Belge, not as 'amber'.

In short: 'amber' on a label says something about the colour and usually also about caramel or toast malt, but not which style you get in your glass.

In the American amber, according to the BJCP, the flavour usually starts with a malty sweetness and caramel. But the finish is 'medium to full yet dry': medium-full to full, and yet dry. The balance runs from lightly malty to lightly bitter, and some versions are, according to the BJCP, 'aggressively hoppy'. The bitterness is moderate to fairly high; the BJCP gives 25–40 IBU.

The Belgian spéciale belge is not meant to be sweet either. The BJCP describes a soft, malty flavour with toast, biscuit, nuts or light caramel, and a dry to balanced finish in which bitterness and dryness only come up late.

The first impression of an amber can therefore be sweet, but the style is not supposed to end sweet.

The Brewers Association calls the American style 'American-Style Amber/Red Ale': one style with two names. According to the BJCP, Mendocino Red Tail Ale from 1983, one of the early American ambers, was regionally known as 'red ale'.

The Irish red ale (BJCP 15A) is a style of its own. It is an easy-drinking, lightly malty ale, sometimes with some toffee or caramel, and with a hint of roasted grain that makes the finish dry. The BJCP sees the modern Irish red as an interpretation of English bitter, with fewer hops and some roasted grain.

A red IPA is something else again. According to the BJCP, the American amber was the forerunner of such hoppy, caramel-like beers, and a red IPA has more alcohol, bitterness and hops than an amber.

The colour of beer comes mainly from the grain. The more caramelised, roasted or darkly kilned malt the brewer uses, the darker the beer. CraftBeer.com of the Brewers Association expressly adds that colour does not equal alcohol content or mouthfeel. A quality guide of the Brewers Association for the trade also writes that colour sometimes suggests strength, but often wrongly.

The style guidelines show it in black and white. An Irish stout is black from dark roasted malt or barley, but according to the BJCP has 3.8–5.0% alcohol. A Belgian tripel is deep yellow to light amber and has 7.5–9.5%. The Brewers Association gives the same picture: a dry Irish stout has 4.1–5.3% at a colour of 80+ EBC (black), a tripel 7.1–10.1% at 8–18 EBC (pale). Such a stout does not have to be heavy either: the BJCP calls it remarkably smooth, with a medium-light to medium-full body.

Of course there are also dark beers that are strong, such as imperial stout (8–12% according to the BJCP). That is due to the amount of sugar that was fermented, not to the colour.