American Breweries and Traditional Styles

On the flipside, some folks live in a fantasy world where they are convinced that U.S. versions of German styles fit perfectly into a certain time period within that tradition even though they have never experienced the culture and its traditions first-hand.

Again, you may not be able to unambiguously define a tradition, but with a combination of the proper scholarship and experience, you can determine if a beer is brewed within a certain tradition or not.

 

I am drinking my first Weihenstepaner Festbier of the season right now (as I watch Football). I will make no comment as regards traditional/established/whatever but I will state this: Yum!!

Cheers!

 

I think that everybody is to a certain extent.

 

I've got my first of the season patiently waiting for me too. Cheers.

 

I was tempted to add the same.

 

That's the fun part, isn't it? Sitting down with the beers and figuring out for yourself what you like and don't like about them, not what you're supposed to like. Some people prefer a malt-driven IPA or a sweeter Märzen. I can say with certainty that I've learned just as much about my personal preferences from having beers that I've loved as I have from ones that I didn't enjoy at all.

 

I hear ya.

 

It seems to me that the Imperial Oktoberfests, Pilsners, Brown Ales, etc. should be moved to the American Strong Ales category to avoid this very problem.

 

While I mostly agree with OP, at least as far as ratings and hype are concerned, I will admit that attempting to categorize a beer according to a style can be a serious limitation to creativity, from a brewer's perspective. For example, I have an idea for a beer that would taste very much like cappuccino, (the exact details of which I will omit so that hopefully no one will steal my idea) but what would it be categorized as? A stout? A spiced beer? A wheat beer? A blond ale? I don't care. It is what it is.

 

I think we all know who's originally to blame for this thread:

Even today, DFH is continuing to try and blur the lines as best they can. Case in point: the new Seaquenchale they came out with is supposed to be a cross between a Berliner Weisse, a Gose and a Kolsch. It's tasty...but c'mon.

 

This reminds me of every person who says they don't like IPAs because they tried a few malty, bitter versions of the style 6-10 years ago, and then you put one of the new school IPAs in front of them and they go "Wow!" Even a style like IPA that seemed so simple and most thought they had a lock on 5 years ago has evolved leaps and bounds since then.

Edit: Not to say that those old school American IPAs weren't to style or vice versa, just illustrating a point that most styles have a wide spectrum and shouldn't be immediately dismissed even after having several of them.

 

What, you expected something different from a brewery that has been quite successful at making "Off centered ales, for off centered people" and been amazingly successful with their customers and fans? I'd suggest its their customers who should have the lion's share of any "blame" to be cast. After all, who else keeps encouraging them by buying all that beer they produce and funding their expansion and almost continuous growth over the years?

 

My post was meant to be tongue-and-cheek so I agree with everything you just said. I guess to sum everything up, what we're dealing with here is "give the people what they want." Most of the people drinking Tree House, Trillium, FFF, etc. don't want a "true" kolsch, ESB or Oktoberfest because they would view it as boring or lacking in flavor intensity. The brewers realize this, so they hop it up or put a twist on it to keep their fans interested. I was merely stating that this has been going on since the early 2000s and breweries like DFH and Stone were the ones that kicked it into high gear because they saw that people were wanting innovation, change and extremity. Well, now we've got it and experiencing the inevitable backlash of "Wait, let's not forget what these styles were originally supposed to taste like"

 

People act like beer styles are something that have been set in stone for centuries. No, style guidelines are a relatively new invention and in many cases are quite arbitrary, not to mention wide ranging.

How far do you take it? Originally, porters were made with 100% brown malt. Are you going to ding every porter not made with 100% brown malt (ie, all of them). Traditionally, most of these beers were made at the brewery, sent out immediately, and then conditioned at the pub by the publican. Do you lose points if you condition at the brewery? Who cares? As time went on, we found better ways of doing things and produce better tasting beers.

Styles are good for communicating information, ie, they give a person a basic, general idea of what the beer is about. But for rating, I couldn't care less about style. It's all beer. The only thing that matters is what's in the glass. I'm not going to ding the [hypothetical] best tasting beer in the world because it doesn't fit into some arbitrary style guideline. And I'm not going to reward below-average beer styles that do not taste good just because they fit the style.

Take Happoshu. It was a beer style developed not because of its great taste or because people demanded it or anything having to do with the quality of the product. It was created as a way to avoid higher taxes. It is, by all accounts, a lower quality beer. The best Happoshu should never be rated anywhere close to the best turbid, cloudy, not to style NE IPA. There's just no comparison, ratings-wise. Giving a 5 to the best Happoshu and a 5 to Heady Topper is an abomination. [And Happoshu is certainly not the only style developed to avoid taxes].

At the end of the day, rate what's in the glass, not a comparison to an arbitrary style guideline.

 

I think what sets DFH apart in this sense is that they're more transparent about it not actually being a pils, ESB, etc. Whereas in many cases with other breweries, they sell something and let the implication do the talking. In other words, with DFH you know what you're getting, and what you're getting isn't tradition. With something like Old Man (though I've not had it), you're getting something sold as an ESB, when it's a loose interpretation at best. That's how you get some many people saying "I don't like ESBs, but I love this." It's not what 'recent' tradition would define as an ESB (or just a strong ale - though maybe it could be, since that seems to be a vaguer term), it's probably closer to a hoppy amber (not a traditional style). Sure, there can be a 'buyer beware' aspect, but approximately 0 people are going to fact-check a brewery on style definitions. If someone's sold an ESB, they'll be surprised that they finally found one they liked.

Not that anyone has to categorically love or loathe a style, but if you've had a decent sampling of beers sold as ESBs (let's say 10), and you didn't like 9, but #10 really did it for you, there's a good chance it's not going to fit into the general canon.

 

I came to the conclusion long ago that the Top by Style lists should actually be interpreted as if you put the word "India" in front of the style name. The top Oktoberfest / Märzen list is a perfect example. The list is dominated by American hopped up beers that are grouped into the Märzen category.

Surly, at #2, would be the poster-boy for this, except you can't really blame Surly.Their web site describes this beer as "NOT A GERMAN STYLE OKTOBERFEST BIER" and the label says "A traditional Oktoberfest bier from Surly? Nein!" So, if you buy one thinking it is a good example of the German style, that is on you.

Just looking at this from the outside, it appears to me that many of the American craft brewers make a fall seasonal and call it an Oktoberfest beer mainly for marketing reasons, so they can throw up a tent, print some banners, and sell tickets and beer. Meanwhile, the beer itself is brewed to the taste of their primary customer base.

 

Yes, and I would go further to say that American brewers do this with many beer styles. Beer classification is one of the marketing tools available to brewers that helps to differentiate a beer from others in their portfolio or in the larger market. I think consumers, understandably, have a hard to recognizing to what degree a stated beer style is the brewer marketing their beer.

 

Well, according to the folks who brought us Beer Advocate...

 

I get your point. But in DFH's defense, they actually brewed three different beers and blended them together. Sam Calagione may be good at blurring style lines, but he definitely did not invent batch blending. From DFH's website:

I haven't tried the beer so I can't speak to what it actually tastes like. But it's not like DFH haphazardly brewed a beer and then said, "this latest mishmosh of ingredients is our Kolsch Gose Berliner Weisse." They set out to make a hybrid of German styles resulting in a "session sour." Sure it's unconventional but at least there's a purpose and a focus there. All I know is that I'd love to try the "straightforward Kolsch" that DFH brewed!