Style-defining beers?

Same thing as Dales Pale Ale, which is really an IPA, at least going by total IBUs and gravity.

Style-defining does not = best. Zombie Dust may be amazing, but it's not fair, or accurate to compare it to true-to-style pale ales

 

Yeah, the basic problem is we often want there to be a univariate solution (usually based on our own pet variable of choice).

 

Yeah, I think it's awful stuff. Especially from the can.

 

Avec les Bon Voeux - saison

 

I dont think BJCP has any pretense of being "academic". That is a very silly standard to hold them to.

 

I agree. My biggest disagreement is with the Brits who refuse to acknowledge this. While, of course, accepting the 16th century definition change of "ale".

I personally think dividing by genetics is more useful than dividing by process, because process has degrees. How long is it lagered, at what temperature? For how long and for how low before the beer becomes a lager? On the other hand, a clade is a clade is a clade.

And when someone makes a beer from Saccharomyces eubayanus, we are gonna need another name, regardless of process.

 

I think people are confusing "style-defining" with "favorite". Hate to say it, but I don't think Three Floyds makes anything to style. They do make delicious beer, though.

 

But the yeast strain is the result of conditioning.Generations of low temperature fermentation favoured the selection of so-called bottom fermenting yeasts whereas warmer conditions suited so called top fermenters. (I say so-called as of course both actually ferment throughout the wort ) The clade isn't the determinator of the beer ,it's the result, what really matter are the fermentation and maturing temperatures.Your argument is back to front.It's like classifying artefacts on the basis of whether they are nailed together or screwed together.
Whilst we can live here with loosely accepting porter into the ale family-at least they have much in common-to include beers which have very little in common except where the yeast settles into the same family is a different matter. Ale is not simply a catch-all name to describe a top fermented brew, it's much more than that.
Martyn Cornell puts it rather better than I can hope to;
http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/look-will-you-all-stop-misusing-the-word-ale-thank-you/

 

First, I like your parenthetical. This, BTW, is why I dont like that classification, as it spreads a myth. So, while I understand why some prefer the terms "top-fermenting" and "bottom-fermenting" yeasts, I dont like them because its a lie. Calling them "ale" and "lager" yeast is more accurate, even if not entirely so. And it becomes completely accurate under the categorization I prefer.

Both agree and disagree. Its true that the clade is the result in the same sense that species are the result of evolution. Which is the analogy Im making so I agree, but we classify by the result, not the process.

And this is where you refuse to acknowledge change. Ale is a catch all name, deal with it.

He provides my answer to him in his 2nd paragraph:

Now, I know that “ale” has already changed its meaning over the centuries.

Yep, and now its done it again. You and he should suck it up and deal.

And later he writes:

But my big objection is that I don’t want, every time I write something about, say, how the London porter brewers in the 1830s began brewing ale, to have to explain to my readers what ale meant at the time, and how porter wasn’t an ale.

To which my response is: too fucking bad. Suck it up and deal.

 

Martyn actually has a response in the comments that I 100% agree with:

This post was written mostly tongue-in-cheek, since I’m very aware that meanings change, and it was really meant to underline that readers of this blog have to understand that fact too, and recognise that “ale” today does not have the meaning that “ale” had in the 18th century, and when I write about “ale” I often mean the 18th century meaning, not the 21st century one. I’m perfectly happy, in fact, about the change in meaning: what pisses me off is people who insist that the modern meaning trumps the older one.

 

It seems fair enough when the word "education" is being thrown around in connection with the BJCP.

 

I forgot this obvious one:

Bass No. 1 - Barley Wine.

 

Also;
"Well, apart from “top-fermenting yeast” being an inaccurate description anyway (“warm-fermenting yeast” is a much better label), there’s also the arrogance of slapping a name, “ale”, on the products of brewers from Cologne, Dusseldorf, Belgium, Picardy and elsewhere that those brewers wouldn’t use themselves."
and
"That theory only works in English. No realigning of the English word “ale” will turn Kölsch into one."

 

Only if you think education only comes from the academy. I spent enough years in grad school to know better than that.

 

I dont know why germans would care what we call it in english.

If we have redefined ale to mean "malt beverage made with S cerevisiae" (and we have) then a Kolsch absolutely is one.

 

Well, make sure you don't call it anything else in Texas.

 

great lakes edmund Fitzgerald for porter.
Fatheads head hunter for ipa.

 

Aprihop, for all the many Apricot infused IPAs...