Devils Backbone Brewing Company Partners with Anheuser-Busch

One reason brewers brew "to style" is to give the consumer something to expect. If you ordered a steak at a restaurant and someone brought you a chicken-burger, you'd probably be a little irked.
The same applies to beer. There is still a ton of variance allowed in the vast majority of styles. The only super-strict ones tend to be old-world styles. A lot of that relates to the naming conventions and history behind the names.
You can happily make a 3x dry hopped ale entirely with citra and win with it - it's just not an ESB and shouldn't be called one.

 

Vienna Lager is the craft beer my BMC friends who hate hoppy ipas and bourbon stouts drink.

 

It is not suprising that Devil's Backbone sold. I know their lineup isn't exciting to at least some of the BA crowd, but based on the collaboration beers I had from this year's pack I think anyone here would have been happy to have had those beers.
I'm guessing those collaborations won't happen again.

I do like their vienna lager and schwarzbier(yet another unpopular style on BA, but hey I prefer them to sours). Hopefully they still make those two beers the same.

 

I don't disagree, I'm just talking about how official competitions are judged.

I remember what a friend and president of our home brew club told me when I first started entering competitions and a beer I entered didn't score well. I loved the beer and everyone who had it loved it. He told me, in competitions it doesn't matter how good the beer is, what matters is how accurate it is to the style you entered it in. It was a blonde ale. It had no flaws but a blonde ale should be very lightly hopped, 15-28 IBUs and mine had a bit more than that. It tasted great, looked great, flawless beer except for the style it was a little over hopped so it got a low score.

Keep in mind I am talking about BJCP competitions. A brewery like Devils Backbone would be in a GABF/WBC competition. They are similar but have some differences. Here's a link talking about how they are judged if you're interested.

http://hoptripper.com/tag/gabf/

 

for every brewery i have heard being bought out, i hear of like 100 new breweries starting up. and nearly every startup ends up being better than the brewery that sold out.

 

Yes, but that's an absurd example. How about my example of Treehouse Julius? Very turbid, and almost no lingering bitterness, yet it is certainly an IPA. It would lose to IPAs that aren't nearly as enjoyable.

Here is another: Dogfish Piercing Pils and Peak Organic Fresh Cut. Both are non-traditional Pilsners, but still recognizable as Pilsners. They happen to be the two Pilsners I most enjoy and really the only two I will buy. They would definitely be marked down in any major competition for the very variances that I think make them better than say, Pilsner Urquell.

 

He is very hands on with this scene. I'm sure he thinks it makes him cool. That his claims he brought Stone, Deschutes and (probably) Ballast Point to VA can be seen as his victories for the state. It will certainly be something he can tout when he runs for another/higher office (especially since there hasn't been much of anything he could claim as victories in his term). I'm sure he has his hands in aspects of this that have or will make him money - how insidious or not his dealings are we'll likely never know.

 

Julius would likely only lose based upon appearances. As of today, IPA is a style that doesn't allow for extreme levels of turbidity. There are breweries that have done fine with similar flavor profiles. There has been some talk about tweaking and even adding categories for that type of IPA (cloudy/turbid) at some point. It's a new thing. Keep in mind that Heady essentially created that style a few years ago and the more recent examples from Treehouse, Trillium, etc. are only a handful of years old. It's not like the BJCP wants to amend their styles every time someone adds a wrinkle to an existing style.
Julius is still pretty clearly an IPA even if it isn't a Celebration clone.

With Piercing Pils - there's nothing keeping it from winning. There have been beers that HAVE won awards that were made in a non-traditional ways. You fool the judges, you deserve it. Otherwise, do we really want to have 5,000 styles for every adjunct variant of every style? It's a variant on a pils, which they clearly label. There's nothing keeping them from entering it as a fruit/veggie beer.

 

As others have said, it gives the beer drinker an insight into what they're buying. As for "brewing to style" being a limiting factor, that's nonsense.

Here's the BJCP guidelines for American IPA:

Aroma: A prominent to intense hop aroma with a citrusy, floral, perfume-like, resinous, piney, and/or fruity character derived from American hops.

Appearance: Color ranges from medium gold to medium reddish copper; some versions can have an orange-ish tint. Should be clear, although unfiltered dry-hopped versions may be a bit hazy. Good head stand with white to off-white color should persist.

Flavor: Hop flavor is medium to high, and should reflect an American hop character with citrusy, floral, resinous, piney or fruity aspects. Medium-high to very high hop bitterness, although the malt backbone will support the strong hop character and provide the best balance. Malt flavor should be low to medium, and is generally clean and malty sweet although some caramel or toasty flavors are acceptable at low levels. No diacetyl. Low fruitiness is acceptable but not required. The bitterness may linger into the aftertaste but should not be harsh. Medium-dry to dry finish. Some clean alcohol flavor can be noted in stronger versions. Oak is inappropriate in this style. May be slightly sulfury, but most examples do not exhibit this character.

Mouthfeel: Smooth, medium-light to medium-bodied mouthfeel without hop-derived astringency, although moderate to medium-high carbonation can combine to render an overall dry sensation in the presence of malt sweetness. Some smooth alcohol warming can and should be sensed in stronger (but not all) versions.

Overall Impression: A decidedly hoppy and bitter, moderately strong American pale ale.

ABV: 5.5-7.5%

That gives you tons wiggle room while still falling into the style category.

You could make a 5.5% light bodied, crystal clear, golden colored IPA with floral aromatics, or you could brew a 7.5% intensely resiny, copper colored, slightly hazy, slightly toasty IPA with citrusy undertones, and both would fall within the realm of American IPA.

What you can't do (if you want to win), is make something that looks and tastes like extra pulpy orange juice.

 

Feel free to LOL at whatever ratings you choose, but having worked through how the beers are judged at GABF I'm quite confident that bad beers don't win medals. They may be beers I don't personally carefor, that doesn't make them bad beers.

 

I never said bad beers win medals.

What I would say is that boring, conventional beers brewed "to style" win medals. Anything that doesn't taste like a carbon copy of Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or the Who don't win medals.

 

I though that Blue Point Toasted Lager was going to be that but it did not happen.

 

I understand all of that. The net result for me is still that the awards will have diminished usefulness as a result.

 

At first it seems that way, but there's over 4000 breweries in the country, and that number is still growing exponentially. Even if a brewery the size of AB-InBev were purchasing another brewery every week (they're not), that would be 52 per year. A rather small percentage compared to the amount that are opening on what may be a daily basis, not weekly.

I thought something seemed odd when I read negative comments towards them in this thread. I had always heard they were great, and remember wanting to try some of their beers. Then I thought, "Wait, I've heard how great their LAGERS are, this explains the negative comments."

Simply going off of how Goose Island has moved along, I'm personally excited for this purchase if it means Devil's Backbone hits Boston and I get more high quality lagers (likely fresh too).

 

Have you ever had Hop JuJu from Fat Heads? BORIS the Crusher from Hoppin Frog? Reintarnation from Ei8ht Ball? NONE of these are what you would call boring, conventional beers and all have won medals at the GABF. And there are just a couple I thought of off the top of my head that I can get within an hour of here, tops. If you are trying to say that Hop JuJu is some boring IIPA, then you simply have no idea what you are talking about (and yes, that's compared to any IIPA across the country, from crystal clear FW Double Jack to muddy-as-hell Julius).

 

I don't entirely disagree. I think the awards have a bigger place in the world of traditional styles. There's no real way to give out awards for every single style or variation.
To me, style names are still useful in informing me what's in the bottle. I remember hating when Lost Abbey labeled everything "ale brewed with spices." I would never buy anything because I had no idea what that really meant.
DFH does a pretty good job of spelling things out, like "An IPA loaded with Apricots" or "A brown ale aged on hungarian oak."
It at least gives me a general idea what I'm getting.

 

Right. Because the Boston area needs some high quality *cough* Jack's Abbey *cough* lagers.

 

Point taken, Hop Juju is a very nice beer.

However, the Devil's Backbone IPA isn't even in the top 100 of IPA's I've tasted.

Seems like if you're going to proclaim an AMERICAN brewerie's greatness, they should be able to make at least a good IPA (unless they're a brewery that doesn't even make an IPA).

 

Opinions are one thing. Money in the bank is quite another. This might not mean anything to you, but for breweries fighting for space where AB inBev owned breweries can flex some muscle. It's a real fight, and it has the potential to mean jobs lost for the breweries who are fighting for the same space DB can now walk into.

 

Why does an "AMERICAN" brewery have to make a good IPA - or an IPA at all?

It is their company, they are welcome to brew what they like.

I was listening to an old "Steal This Beer" podcast, and they were talking about how in Portland there are different breweries who just do one area of beers and not try to be everything to everyone. Makes sense to me.