What are your favorite beer styles?

IPA, DIPA, American Barleywine, Pales, Brown Ales.

 

I know they do but there is no historical justification for doing so.Ales and Porters come from different brewing backgrounds.And of course Kolsch is a lager though it's top fermented.Unless the Germans have no clue about their own beers.
“Differences in Ale and Stout Brewing
The difference in the production of ale and stout consists mainly in the characteristics of the malt and in the treatment of the product after fermentation, ale being produced from pale, or low kiln-dried malt, stout from a mixture of pale malt, caramel malt, and black malt.

Stock ale receives, as stated, after fermentation, an addition of hops in the storage cask and it is also primed by adding sugar solution, whereas stout receives no such addition, with the result that ale undergoes a more brisk secondary fermentation and consequently generally has a higher percentage of alcohol than stout of the same original gravity of wort, and is therefore sweeter to the taste than ale.
"Beer from the Expert's Viewpoint" by Arnold Spencer Wahl and Robert Wahl, 1937, pages 159 – 160. of course a US authoritative work

and http://zythophile.co.uk/2010/10/11/look-will-you-all-stop-misusing-the-word-ale-thank-you/

 

Well aware of its historical meaning in the UK, but guess what? America isn't the UK, and I'm thankful for that

 

The excerpt was from an authoritative American beer bible , not a British one. There are many highly regarded beer experts in the US who never confuse ales with porters.As opposed to writers who just copy stuff without checking and doing research first.

 

England isn't the only country in the beer belt, and much of our terminology in the US comes from the Germans.

Plus, I thought with the Brits that it wasn't ale unless it didn't use hops, historically speaking.

 

Quad and Imperial stouts

 

Belgian Tripel
German Hefeweizen
Belgian Strong Pale Ale
German Marzen
Belgian Witbier
German Pils
American Pale Ale
German Maibock
English Barleywine

 

This is an American thing too (and far from "one random brewery"... but I think you know that and are just trying to argue. I suppose you might say "that was then, this is now" but if so: why prop up the "now" as definitive at the exclusion of all else (especially if it contradicts what came before it)?

 

I've been on a barleywine binge of late but IPA is my fav style consistently.

 

The UK gave the world ales , including IPAs of course and Porters/Stouts.
Pale lager owes its existence to British technology though lager is Continental of course.
As for Germany , I quote your own BJCP: "
Germans think of ale as a type of English beer, and lager as a method of conditioning beer. So Germans would typically
speak of Kölsch as a top-fermenting lager beer, not an ale."

 

Well I guess I didn't understand British beer culture/history/style as much as I thought I did. Obviously many American craft blogs have it wrong. Do you have any good resources I could better educate myself with?

 

The guy that knows an astounding amount about US beers and brewing is @jesskidden . If he doesn't know, nobody knows.
For beers originating in Europe @patto1ro is excellent ; http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/ and http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/
The idea of dividing beer into ales and lagers by yeast type seems to have been plucked out of the air by people who knew a little but not much about brewing. It doesn't fit onto the existing framework very well. A bit like dividing North America berween the US and Canada using the 49th parallel as the decider.OK for a lot of it but Alaskans don't like it

 

Top 5 in order:
1. Russian imperial stout
2. Kolsch
3. Wild ale (sours)
4. APA
5. English Barleywine

 

I'll agree that it puts beers into too narrow of categories. From what I know about German beers, it's less that they have individual styles, and more like collections of related beers that can vary greatly by strength and color, but in general are made the same way with the same goals. I'm well aware of American beer history/traditions, well, as far as the current craft movement is concerned.

 

Just a quick list off the top of my head:

• Marzen
• American Pale Ale & IPA (+sub-styles)
• Belgian Strong Ales (of all varieties)
• Dubbel
• Scotch Ale
• English Porter
• Imperial Stout (all varieties)
• Pilsner (both Czech and German)

 

Honestly, I like a wide variety of beers and don't really confine myself to a particular style. That said, if you plop me blind in front of an extensive beer menu I'll tend to pull the trigger first on a:

• Pilsener
• Stout or Porter
• Hefeweizen or Dunkelweizen
• Dubbel

 

Ipas
Saisons/farmhouse usually Brett
Stouts
Flanders/Fleishman
In that order.. I usually stay far away from lagers with the exception of doppelbocks and the occasional kolsch