Beer traditionalists

Which would you rather have? "PawPaw's" mild or yours?

 

I agree completely. One of the most obvious examples for me is Ommegang's Three Philosophers. It has a prevalent cherry taste which is quite nice.
BUT if it came down to choosing a Belgian that tastes like cherry juice (as they sometimes do) because "the brewer knew what he was doing" and one that tastes that way because they blend beer with kriek; even though they might taste identical, I admire the craftsmanship of the one no cherry anything added. The other almost seems lazy.

 

What on earth makes you assume that Americans are the only ones stepping away from 'tradition'?

 

I'll have to check this out. I don't have any contacts in Houston i'm afraid. I wish I did now. That sounds fantastic

 

I like tradition and innovation equally.

 

Picking through the posts so far there seems to be some confusion about what constitutes "tradition" ; most so-called traditions are in fact fairly recent. Given those beers brewed basically from water, malt, hops and yeast anything and everything was tried aeons ago. DIPA isn't new , just the name.Brewers can fiddle with the recipes but it's all been tried earlier.Of course styles evolve , new varieties of barley, hops and yeast enable new flavours and characteristics but this has been going on since brewing began.This though isn't inovation any more than using a new apple variety in an apple pie.
So the style names stay the same but the beers they represent don't.
Then there are the brewers who are trying the effect of any matter of additions to the brews.Having tried a few of these I come to understand why brewers eventually settled for barley, malt and hops.

 

CAMRA doesn't try to protect any sort of beer. It exists to promote the availability of beer of all styles as little affected by packaging and processing as possible.A musical analogy might be the promotion of live music as opposed to recorded.

 

I've no idea what his Mild would have been like ! Before WW1 it was normally 6% and brewed entirely from pale malt. I imagine that it was heavily hopped too (the UK used a third of the entire world's hop production and mild was the main beer) , perhaps more like a present day Pale Ale.I wouldn't be able to down it pint after pint like a modern Mild

 

This sounds like a Dogfish Head / Mikkeller collab waiting to happen. And, I would probably buy it.

 

I agree mostly with the people who ask first "what was the brewery trying to do here" and then "did they succeed." That approach applies not just to beer, but also to music, food, film, etc. On a broad enough timeline, everything was an against-the-grain innovation at some point, so I try not to get caught up in that debate, although I do like to see the preservation of traditional styles.

 

I am traditional in the sense that I like my beer brewed with traditional ingredients. You can keep beers with coffee, pear juice, coriander, lunar soil, etc.

 

I don't get how coriander can be labeled as 'non-traditional' when witbiers and spiced ales have been around for centuries, predating when hops became the ingredient of choice in beer.

 

My taste in beer(and wine) is very Americanized.

 

Re throwback sodas, being in South FL I eagerly await springtime, when the local Coke bottler releases the two liter bottles of Coke Classic with the yellow caps and marked "Kosher for Passover". Beats having to pay the bucks for the Mexican made stuff. Yowza!

 

No brewer should be allowed to start pulling envelopes until they can master these styles:

Dark Mild;
Ordinary Bitter;
Burton Ale;

Or if they're German-inclined:

Helles;
Dunkles;
Spezial

 

Suely you mean Americanised.

 

No, it's Americanized.

 

At one time or another, every traditional style was an existing style with a twist or an entirely new style. We just weren't around when those "traditional" styles emerged.

 

The oldest recipe we have calls for grapes, honey, and grains, so in a way a pils is bucking tradition.

 

Not in New Jersey