Overused terms/words in craft beer

"Cheers" should go without saying!

 

What you're saying sounds to me like a little bit of unbalanced double talk?

 

Humph- I was going for quadruple talk. But I also wasn't joking, in any event.

People seem to think that 'balance' means that everything is in perfect proportion and symmetry, but that doesn't necessarily have to be so. Just like a Rembrandt painting will look different from a Van Gogh one: balanced compositions with each a different mood and tone, dark vs. light.

In the case of beer, it just means that it is palatable. An IPA can be really bitter with sufficient malt to offset it, but that doesn't mean that they are equal partners- there is an asymmetrical harmony going on to make it work. Or not- in that case you'd criticize is as being 'unbalanced'.

 

Yeah, those intentionally unbalanced IPAs do me in every time when I try to get cerebral.

 

Don't judge a homebrew competition when you're in that kind of mood, then.

I don't run into too many overly bitter 'pro' beers these days, myself, but I'm sure they're out there.

 

Session. Craft. Offering.

 

LOL. Seeing a LOT of that these days.

 

Yeah, that's also particularly annoying one.

 

Pappy

 

Crusher....... session .......cloying.

 

If there's another term or phrase that denotes a beer is brewed accurately within the guidelines of its given style, I would appreciate you sharing it. "True to style" is a clunky term I'm not particularly fond of and if you have something that replaces it I'd be glad to implement it in conversation.

 

Innovation/Innovative. Makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Claims of 'innovation' are a rippling red flags over top of those who did not perform any measurable research into the history of brewing.

Agree with 'session'--Yanks don't know the meaning of the word.

 

Cleft palette.

 

Bottle limit

 

Outside of the competitive homebrewing scene (where the likes of the BJCB have set out arbitrary style guidelines) there is no use for such a term or any variant. Beer shouldn't get extra points for being close to someone's idea of how it's meant to be.

 

Points? It's a descriptive term. It's useful in determining whether a beer fits your preferences in relation to the type of beer it is. The term's usefulness isn't relegated to homebrewing.

 

Citrusy...Piney...are these words over used? Or is it simply that IPA's are over-made...and this is all we can say about them? At least citrus and pine are distinctive...using the word hoppy to describe a beer hurts my head...because to most folks hoppy just equates to bitter...when hops impart so much more to the character of a beer. I recently attended a beer dinner where the brewmaster for a particular brewery announced that they were abandoning their long brewed flagship Brown...and the dinner pairings were three new, yet remarkably similar IPAs and a stout. The American love affair with the hop is leading us down a path to more and more cookie cutter IPAs...especially "Session" IPAs...Is it a good thing that the primary aim in making a beer is simply that people can drink a lot of them in one sitting? Cuz Im pretty sure that's what BMCs marketing strategy has always been...

 

I will say that a lot of these overused words and phrases are what I scan for in the reviews.

 

"This beer is drinking really well right now."

 

That's a tough one, since the style guidelines were designed only to facilitate a common language for the judging of homebrewed beer in competitions.
In truth, the style guidelines themselves are rather clunky, in many cases totally artificial, and they certainly don't apply to beer in the real world (and most certainly don't apply in any 'official' way).
Styles have always been open to individual interpretation by brewers, and any attempt to define them should be in much broader terms.