10 Things You Didn't Know About Craft Beer (Slideshow)

For beer newbies, steering away from comfortable classics like Sam Adams and dabbling in craft beers with names you've never heard of can be intimidating. There's plenty that sets craft beers apart from classic ales.

India Pale Ale — a hoppy style of beer within the pale ale category, which is brewed with mostly pale malts for a more equal malt-to-hop ratio — is the most popular style of craft beer among American craft beer drinkers.

The three main ingredients in craft beer, besides water, should be malted barley, hops, and yeast.

Cascade is the favored hop varietal among craft brewers.

For the best flavor, craft beer should never be tasted from a shaker pint, a straight-sided pint glass that does a poor job of highlighting a beer's flavor but is commonly used to serve it.

An American craft brewer is defined as a small, independent, and traditional producer of beer. Craft breweries are small in production size, independent in ownership, and traditional in brewing ingredients and fermentation methods.

Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Barack Obama have all brewed beer in their homes while serving in office.

Beer is good for your bones! It contains high levels of silicon, a substance that promotes strong bones.

There were a total of 2,822 craft breweries in the United States as of 2013.

California, Washington, Colorado, and Oregon have more craft breweries than any other states.

After Germany, the United States is the second-largest hop producer in the world.