American Breweries and Traditional Styles

Disclaimer: I love Tree House and especially Trillium (and many other breweries I mention in this little discussion), I just think it's a shame to see stylistically questionable beers knock rightfully placed beers out of their positions in the "Top Rated" lists per their style, which, for many of these beers, is the only way many people will ever try them.

The impetus for this thread was when I noticed Tree House had brewed an ESB. Four reviews note that they aren't usually ESB fans, but this one was great. One reviewer even specifically noted that this is not how you brew an ESB but is how you brew a good ESB. These comments imply to me that Tree House has taken a traditional style and brewed it with little deference to the style's history and parameters. I must state that I haven't had the beer in question (Old Man), so I am only going off the reviews and therefore this opening paragraph should be taken with a large grain of salt. Tree House Old Man currently sits at a 4.02 average, which would be enough for 6th place in the style if it had enough reviews to qualify. Obviously there's some bias going on here since there are not a ton of English BAs that add actual English ESBs to the database and then rate them enough to make the list, but I'd be willing to bet dollars to Dortmunders that there are at least six ESBs in England that rightfully deserve that spot. (It's worth noting that Three Floyds Lord Rear Admiral is the top of the list, and, per FFF requirements [they don't really brew anything remotely to style], is drastically over-hopped to the point of being something akin to a red IPA).

This got me to thinking about other breweries known for very "American" (read: EXTREME) breweries that have brewed more traditional styles. While I cannot claim that all of them fail at staying within the style guidelines since I could not possibly presume to know every traditional style brewed by a brewery that I deem extreme (a very broad and ill-defined categorization at best), I wanted to point to a few specific examples that make a pretty compelling point and just get a conversation going. Unfortunately this will likely trend into the well-trod "To style or not to style?" conundrum. Nevertheless...

Probably the most egregious example of this comes from another New England hop all-star, Trillium. They brewed a koelsch (actually a pair of koelsches), called Sprang and Big Sprang (the latter of which is the laughable concept of what boils down to an imperial koelsch). As one should expect going in, these are koelsch-inspired only in description and name. In true Trillium style, they are incredibly over-hopped, to the point that the beer is unrecognizable as a koelsch; indeed, the drinker would probably have no idea it was a koelsch if it didn't say so. The Bros. even note this discrepancy in their review of Big Sprang (though they are known to dislike Trillium's approach to a few other beers as well). Still, somehow, Big Sprang and Sprang are the one-two punch on the top of the koelsch style chart. The Bros. recommend recategorizing this as a hoppy American blonde, and to that subject we should look no further than Tree House's Eureka, which basically just tastes like a pale ale due to how heavily-hopped it is.

Finally, while I could likely go on-and-on in detail through nearly every style on this site, I look to Oktoberfests/Maerzens. To get it out of the way, I am talking specifically about maerzens and not their lighter cousin, festbier. The current highest-rated one is, thankfully, an actual German example, though I believe it's just a repeat of a much lower-rated beer by Augustiner Braue in Munich. Then, the trouble begins with Surlyfest (which was number one for a long time). Surlyfest is over-hopped, dry-hopped outside of that, and has a hefty dose of rye malt to boot, making it taste next to nothing like the traditional maerzen. Great Lakes usually knocks lagers out of the park (at least for an American brewery), but their Oktoberfest is laden with far too much caramel and toffee sweetness. The same can be said for New Glarus Staghorn, though not to the same degree. Avery's The Kaiser sits at an absurd 10.2% ABV and is predictably sweet and under-attenuated. Revolution's Oktoberfest gets a lot of praise around me here in Chicago, and it falls into the same trap that Surly does by over-hopping. Same goes for Half Acre (who basically only brew too-sweet stouts and variations on IPAs besides, despite what they may stylistically categorize them as).

This is all not to mention German pilsners (Victory Prima Pils-way too hoppy, even for a German pils), schwarzbiers (Midnight Sun Brewtality Espresso Black Bier-hoppy and heavy on the coffee, ruining any schwarzbier subtlety), American brown ale (dominated by beers with additives or barrel-aging), and so on.

I am not saying that I don't think a lot of these beers are good or even great (I love so, so many of the beers I'm complaining about), but they are unquestionably terrible examples of the styles they purport to be. They give novice drinkers expectations of a style that will never be met. Lots of people who stand in line for Trillium and Tree House probably have never gone and tried Reissdorf Koelsch or Fuller's ESB or Jever Pilsner, and when they compare those classic examples to whatever hop-enstein creation (insert extreme American brewery here) has put out, they unfairly disparage the perfectly-crafted beers that define the style as being "boring, tasteless, one-dimensional, etc." I don't know if beers like Tree House Old Man, Trillium Big Sprang, Bissell Brothers LUX, Port Board Meeting, and so on are getting rated highly because of their extremity, the hyped names churning them out, or both, but it's ridiculous and unfortunate that beers that flippantly eschew style come to dominate the styles that they couldn't pay even the slightest bit of homage to outside of a simple name drop. (Despite my tone, I don't think it's a malicious middle-finger to these styles by these breweries.)

I don't have a solution to what I perceive as a (first world) problem; I just wanted to get a dialogue going about this. This actually can be seen in many American "lambics" (looking mostly at you, Upland). I am also not against innovation, but a modicum of heed should be paid to stay even marginally within style guidelines. The only real solution I have deals only with Oktoberfests: introduce yet another style that covers American Oktoberfests as they are so very different than their German counterparts. Lastly, while the title suggests otherwise, there are surely some American breweries that are doing a great job creating respectful, tasteful takes on traditional styles with some of their own twist. See Off Color Tooth and Claw, Funk Factory Geuzeria White Lodge, De Garde The Broken Truck, Hill Farmstead Mary (and probably the rest of HF's stuff), and basically the entire portfolio of Lazy Monk, Minneapolis Town Hall, New Glarus (apart from a few outliers like Staghorn), and the amazing Heater Allen, plus many more I'm sure to be missing.

TL; DR: Big name, extreme, American brewers are ruining "Top Rated" lists for traditional styles by miscategorizing their own beers, which is a big problem because in the eternal "To style or not to style?" debate, the answer always bandied about is: "If you want the best beer in a style, look to the list for that style." It's like when they entered Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) into the usually softball "Musical/Comedy" category at the Golden Globes: they're just not playing by the same rules (to be fair, The Grand Budapest Hotel was a great competitor for it that year).

Thanks for reading the massive wall of text. Cheers!

 

I think so. I advocate for that with American Maerzen/Oktoberfest. Maybe we should also have American Pilsner, American ESB, American whatever. Of course, more styles is annoying to a lot of people, though I'm a fan of categorization as I think it makes it easier to find exactly what one is looking for.

Still, I do think styles like American brown ale, American blonde ale, California common, etc. is grossly overpopulated by beers that completely ignore the style.

 

This is something I really want to stress: I, too, like or even love some of the beers that I mentioned, but the truth is they're really bad examples of their given style. Maybe that doesn't matter to a lot of people, especially those who don't care to rate to style (and again I don't want this to devolve into that argument; I think this conversation can be more nuanced than that endless, unwinnable discussion).

I just don't want BA to become useless in regards to more traditional styles, which it will if every one of them is taken over by over-hopped, barrel-aged, additive-laden examples of those styles. How will I use BA as a tool to find a great ESB if all of the highest-rated ones are terrible examples of their style?

That's a serious worry of mine, and maybe it's a little far-fetched and over-involved, but it's something that I could see happening if we don't recategorize some of these beers that are blatantly not what they claim or maybe we should start enforcing rating to style as a requirement. Again, I don't really want to go down that road in this topic, though.

 

Yeah, like I sort of said, I don't want to see this devolve into the rating to style argument (though obviously I agree with your post wholeheartedly). I am also not saying that Old Man is a bad example of an ESB; as I said, I haven't had it (but my inkling is that it's not a great example at all based on the reviews and Tree House's brand).

\I do really want to take note of when poor examples of style rise to the top because of their perception of having "more flavor" or whatever the kids are into these days. It's sort of like @utopiajane said: sometimes less can be more. I don't usually want 6 IPAs back to back, but give me 6 pilsners and I'll polish them off no problem. Subtle styles have a place and deserve respect and recognition, not to be over-hopped to placate the collective palate of the lowest common denominator.

 

Just bitters then?

 

Yeah, the forums are really useful, but there's plenty of bad info on here, too. I guess I just want a higher level of education, care, and, most of all, respect, since that's what the site means to me (and, to an extent, the Bros., I think).