Most Important American Craft Beers Ever Brewed

The answer is Palm.
Badum-ching!

 

A different answer is provided in '”Rockford Files" episode 7 "Quickie Nirvana" season 4 but I am in a generous mood today so I will accept your answer.

You get your Gold Star back!

Cheers!

 

Crazy thought: Redhook, not for being that landmark beer in its own right (though I liked it fine when it first came east), but for the fact that a West Coast brewery expanded with production back east. I recall thinking at the time, Geez, this is getting serious, this new-beer thing is not going away.

I don't think this supplants anything on the list. Just a thought.

 

Don't get me started. Unless the beer's on you

Same style, why not. They're damn near the same beer. What style is that? I couldn't say beyond Amber Ale...

Oh, I'm not arguing for the inclusion of Blue Moon; I was just addressing zid's point about the cultural significance of Alagash White. It's a fine beer, and definitely has earned it's success. I just don't see it as important as whomever made this list.

 

Sam Adams Triple Bock It set a standard for how bad a "craft" beer can be.

 

On BA Palm is listed as being a Belgian Pale Ale. In contrast Fat Tire is listed as being an Amber Ale.

Cheers!

 

Ha! But sadly, I'm sure it's been eclipsed by now .

 

Not side by side, but Palm is similar.

 

Well, keep in mind that whomever adds the beer to the database will choose the style that it falls under- so each of those could have been added by a different person. I do wonder how Palm is viewed in Belgium, though- that would be the best way to address the situation. Hopefully one of our Belgian members could provide a bit more detail.

At the moment an old episode of Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter is running through my mind- the one where they were drinking Scotch Ales in Belgium. That just signifies to me that their brewing industry has a history of brewing styles other than their own; perhaps Palm started out as a Belgian take on an English Pale Ale? Just a guess.

 

Both Palm and DeKoninck are everyday drinkers for people in Belgium. Palm is one of the best selling ales, just as Fat Tire is one of the best selling craft beers in the US.

Of course more Jupiler, Stella, and Maes sold than all the ales in Belgium.

 

Jupiler is the best selling beer in Belgium last I read. Stella is the best selling beer world wide, as much is exported to the rest of the world. Just clarifying best selling.

 

Warning - this will be another of my long, ridiculous and annoying posts.

It's not that there's fault with how those beers were added to this database. Going by the categories here, those probably are the best ways to categorize those beers. Categories can cover a very wide span of beers (as both of those do), and one category can overlap with another. This discussion shows that the gulf between beers in those categories can be very large or very small.

On top of that, you have the problems that are inherent with the categories. I've never really understood why the Belgian categories here were organized as pale ale and dark ale (as opposed to blonde, brown, amber). It's a catch-all approach (which is fine) done from the outside looking in. I have a beer book written by a British author and all of the Belgian quads in it are listed as barley wines. This is par for the course. Palm is a "Belgian Pale Ale" through the BeerAdvocate lens.

When Michael Jackson wrote about "Belgian Ales" he acknowledged that Belgians would essentially not call such beers "ales." Regarding Palm, he states that "speciales belges" could be referred to as ales in Belgium... and were similar to English pale ales "but more aromatic and spicy in both malt and yeast character." (Dupont made a speciale belges for Philly beer week once.) Jackson describes Speciale Palm as clean, well-rounded, and with toasty malt aromas.

On the Belgium Beer Tourism website, "Amber (Speciale Belge)" is listed as a style. The description there repeats the info from the Palm website that the style was made to compete with Pilsners but with a "richer taste" and will be "slightly hoppy, malty and fruity."

Palm is or was the best selling "ale" in Belgium. Make of that what you will as it relates to character.

The focus has been on Palm, but I'm more intrigued by how Fat Tire fits into this. When I've had Fat Tire, I've never thought that it had a quality that I'd associate with the artificially narrow concept of "Belgian beer"... but I also never thought to look for it.

Shifting over to a different New Belgium beer... their 1554. 1554 is a "Belgian black lager." It was inspired by a rare beer from Belgium's past. New Belgium once called the beer a "black ale" but now calls it a "black lager." It's brewed with a lager yeast at ale temperatures. When it said "ale" on the label, it was listed here as a "Belgian dark ale" (that listing still exists here). Now that the label says lager, it's listed as a "Euro dark lager." It's the same beer. To me (and through the lens of my limited experience), this beer feels like a Schwarzbier. It hits that sensory ballpark for me. I never drink a beer and think, "This tastes like a Euro dark lager." Would I actually say that it was a Schwarzbier and should be classified as such? Classifying it as a Schwarzbier here wouldn't necessarily bother me because it helps prepare the reader. Calling it a Schwarzbier might bother me. I see these as two different actions, but unfortunately, it's rarely interpreted as such. If an American brewer is trying to recreate a Belgian black lager, it simply isn't a Schwarzbier even if it resembles one... unless those Belgian black lagers were intentionally brewed to actually be like Schwarzbiers... then maybe.

As @TongoRad mentioned, Belgian takes on Scotch Ale are a unique subculture. Stouts pop up and it seems like almost everyone has a "Pils." Belgian beer Scotch de Silly is classified here as a "Scotch Ale." D'Achouffe McChouffe is classified here as a "Belgian Strong Dark Ale." Is the Silly beer closer to a Scotch ale and lacking in a Belgian signature? Does the d'Achouffe beer posses much more of a Belgian signature than a typical Scotch ale? Perhaps... but are the beers actually in two different styles anyway? Could you say that they were both styles? I don't have an answer.

 

A post perhaps not so long, but otherwise....


To give the short answer to your concluding questions, "yes."

I don't think we can be dismissing errors of entry, a taxonomy that "just growled" without any consistent guiding hand, and/or historical accidents as possible causes of the confusion you describe.

On the same site you mentioned, Scotch de Silly is one Belgian brewery's attempt to do a Scotch Ale as brewed by and for Scots, but within the limits of what could br done in the then and there.

http://belgium.beertourism.com/belgian-beers/scotch-de-silly

Achuffe McChouffe is a much more modern beer, brewed under less constrained conditions, that is influenced by both the Scotch Ale and the Belgian Dubbel and is a "mash up" of two styles for the marketplace of its time. so it is bicategorical indeed.

http://belgium.beertourism.com/belgian-beers/mc-chouffe

Just as some folks rant about an American brewed coffee flavored Kolsch being listed/labeled as a Kolsch and about that showing a lack of respect for tradition, we need to rant about putting those Belgian brewers up on those pedestals of "hundreds of years of brewing tradition" and recognize that the Belgians can be as unconstrained by the "dead hand of the past" as the Americans.

The taxonomy is flawed and as you say sometimes the categories don't quite fit or can be partially overlapping. But that is true at some level for virtually every taxonomy ever created, whether it be Belgian, German, American or International, especially when historical accident, human error comes in to play, and things have just growed over time without a consistent guiding hand or a unifying set of criteria.

As long as Brewers are allowed unfettered freedom to brew what they can and want in their time and place, we'll have this problem of trying to impose order. It would continue to be a problem even if there were to be a guiding hand in place. So we do the best we can with the cards dealt to us.

 

Chris, that was a thoughtful post.

As a reminder for others this tangent started when I commented on you prior post about Allagash having a Belgian beer as its flagship: Allagash White.

It got me thinking that New Belgium might make that same claim since Fat Tire was stated to be inspired by Palm. I checked BA and Palm is categorized as a Belgian Pale Ale. I then checked to see how Fat Tire was categorized and it is listed as being an Amber Ale. I wondered: if Palm is listed as a Belgian Pale Ale shouldn’t Fat Tire also be categorized as a Belgian Pale Ale?

My memory of drinking both Palm and Fat Tire indicates to me that these beers are very similar. I reached out to other BAs and they responded with similar thoughts.

Permit me to lay down an ‘equation’ for you since I am more adept at mathematics than philosophy:

If Palm = Belgian Pale Ale and if Fat Tire is very similar to Palm then Fat Tire = Belgian Pale Ale.

I suppose this is the best that I have for this conversation.

Not exactly gold star material.

Cheers!

 

Heady Topper-only distro is within 25 miles-meaning 99.9 % of us will never try it...come on...really?

 

Historically, it's probably always been about marketing regardless of size.