What beer styles should be retired?

Except some of these styles are redundant and others have no actual "history". Name a historic "American Pale Lager". Sure, there were some US adjunct lagers that called themselves "pale lager" or even "extra pale lager" (Rolling Rock maybe the best known) but none that I've ever come across were all-malt. Typically the all-malt lagers brewed in the US used two-row malt and imported hops from Germany or elsewhere in central Europe. So how were those beer different from their European equivalents?

What US brewer today of the beers listed under "American Pale Lager" calls their beer by that name?

Combining styles does not "eradicate" beers or their history.

 

Couldn't come up with a better word for it. But I see combing styles as a good thing. I saw that someone mentioned getting rid of pumpkin beers as a style and I wasn't sure why that would help anything.

 

What there should be is some sort of governing body that is in charge of such things. Spirits (liquor) are subject to many laws and regulations and there are laws on the books governing where a spirit can legally be made and how it can be made.

I'm not gonna distill a brown spirit in my garage and call it bourbon when it doesn't adhere to what is legally classified as a bourbon. I can brew a brown ale and call it whatever I want.

 

Session IPAs. Pretty stupid concept. Why not just have a Pale Ale? Around the same ABV and without watery taste/feel.

 

Are you Russian? Well, Kvass is a soft drink and not a beer style. Look it up anywhere on the web.

 

Hmm, how did you abstract that?

 

Well, actually it depends in part on what the Kvass was fermented with. Those using lacto fermentation come out with no alcohol. Those using bread (sometimes called "bread kvass") have low levels of alcohol created by yeast fermentation. While some Bread Kvass may in fact be classified as Alcohol-free in the US, some have too much alcohol to be counted by the Feds as being a Low Alcohol Beer and so are counted as Beer. E.g.,:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/440/43111/

@Lurchus @bbtkd

 

Nothing against pumpkin ales, but I too have always wondered why they aren't in the fruit/vegetable style

 

I don't prefer IPAs, so could we vote them off the island? Wait, you mean that would not eliminate the actual beers? Never mind

 

Can't we just call it all beer? Any other distinction is simply being fussy!

 

well.....
as already implied, one method includes using bread and fermenting it. Using grains, fermenting it with yeast, which produces a bit of alcohol........sounds like beer to me.
There do exist bottled versions which only contain malt extracts and such,sure. Maybe those are the ones you usually see in the US, I don't know..
But I don't really see what this has to do with my nationality.

 

Smuttynose Robust Porter is exactly what it says it is. If I want a stout, I'll often buy the Robust Porter.

 

I had simply never seen "Robust Porter", at least that I can recall, on a label. I do see a fair bit of Imperial Porters. I'll always take the Imperial Porters over a standard Porter, as I find the latter often a bit watery.

 

Beer is a living thing. Since it was first brewed in Mesopotamia 4000 years ago, it has grown, evolved and changed. It is growing and changing as I write this. It is changed by the minds of people who ask themselves "Why not?" We try to keep up with the changes by naming new and different beer styles. It's taxing and confusing (especially for those determined to sample every style on the market) but it is necessary.

 

New styles aren't being invented though, just subdivisions of existing styles.

 

Sours.....is it really even beer

 

Would quads be in that category then? Since the actual name is Belgian dark strong ale.

 

this is a bad post

 

Quads taste different enough from imperial stouts/RIS that I personally would not include them. But I smell what you're cooking... use another term if you want or accept "Belgian" indicates a different style....I don't care, I'm not arguing semantics of a hypothetical.