There are hundreds of different kinds of specialty malts, and each type adds certain characteristics to beer. The palest, lightly dried malts, are used for pilsners and light lagers. A little longer, hotter kilning produces a toastier pale ale malt, which is used in most English-style beers. Kilning with a higher moisture level results in sweet, caramel-flavored crystal malt, which is a favorite of small-scale brewers. Extreme roasting produces darker malts, such as chocolate malt and the coffee-like black patent malt.
There are still more styles of malts ranging from wheat malt to smoked malt, and within each style are a variety of brands that vary slightly from one another. Some darker ales are made with up to eight different malts. So you can see how just this one ingredient can create an infinite variety of beers.
