Should Grisette be its own style?

I've been advocating on these forums for a new system of styles and sub-styles. Right now, we have style criteria including country/region, add-junks, ABV, color, brewing method, etc, etc. It's so out of hand that some beers could be a number of styles. Why does there need to be two styles for a beer depending on ABV, for instance? What next, super imperial for ABV over 15%? What style should a pumpkin porter be, fruit/vegetable or porter?

I'd propose having perhaps a dozen or so different base styles, with other current styles falling in line under them. For instance, porter is a main style, and under it you would have stout, and under that you could have a handful of variations. Same thing for Pale Ales. Eliminate imperial and vegetable/fruit as styles. And others. Brewers can put any description/differentiator on the label, such as imperial, but it doesn't warrant a style.

Lots of holes in this, and I am far from an expert. I'm just seeing a mess and suggesting someone who knows a lot about it resolve the issue. If something isn't done, the mess will only snowball, and styles will mean even less than they do now. Sorry to those wanting to get that trophy for their esoteric beer.

 

Quit cluttering these forums with facts!

 

Read the link provided. If you still don't think that grisette is something unto itself after reading those blog posts, I don't know what to tell you.

I have a feeling a lot of people ask themselves that same question.

 

While I agree with this idea, good luck getting everyone else on board. Especially those that think that beers shouldn't be pigeon-holed into styles.

 

I'm not usually one to favor adding more styles, but I do find the saison style annoyingly broad. When I see a beer labeled "saison" it could be between ~3% to 10% ABV, it could be sour, it could be 10 to 80 IBUs, it could have modern hops or traditional hops, dry-hopped or not, color could be from pale yellow to black, and it could have fruit, herbs or spices. The only thing saison means to me is it has a saison-type of yeast, which is still very broad. I would welcome some sub-styles or universal quick descriptors.

BUT...

...yeah.

 

"It's a philosophy of brewing", but, yeah, it's annoying as hell.

 

Should grisette be considered a style of beer?

We can have opinions, but we don’t have any power in deciding this. This is just something that evolves. A lot of times it feels like people don't see it that way. Including grisette in a style list on a website is an entirely different matter, although beer styles and beer style lists obviously influence each other.


Should grisette be included in a style list on a beer website?

I’m not sure how much I care. I think it depends on context.


Should brewers call their beers grisettes?

No. Please keep that word off your beer. Leave it as a historical term belonging to a certain region and time. Cool off your hubris that believes that you are resurrecting a style. The most knowledgeable people on the topic and/or the self-appointed experts don’t claim to have a lot of real information on this type of beer. They claim exactly the opposite. There’s a lot of speculation.

There is nothing about American grisettes that excludes them from being labeled saisons… so please just call them saisons. We’ve already taken that word (saison) and bastardized it to our heart’s content. If you don't like the term saison, then use your own word.

There are plenty of quotes from the sources linked in this thread that illustrate what I mean, but I'll limit myself to this one because it's to the point and the most annoying:

I really don't understand why anyone would be happy with that.

 

Ehh . . . I think if you do your research, you've got a certain amount of license to do so, but if you're just making shit up, you probably shouldn't.

 

Most styles I would imagine are born from resource availability and trial thru time - but I will tell you this, no day or moment exists where man brewed a beer and declared that beer as Grisette.

But if you're so enamored by Grisette, which I sincerely doubt, then by all means, gather as many articles that you can find and journey on with your empty ways

 

Well . . . someone somewhere had to do it. It just didn't appear out of nowhere.

Though my ways may be empty, at least I don't loathe the people that I choose to spend time with on the internet. That takes a special kind of moral turpitude or confusion to do.

 

Someone trying to differentiate their beer did.

No it doesn't. Disdain, obsession and ego make up the backbone of social forums

 

You've got me there.

 

My god. What an asinine and hubristic thing to say. That person should publicly shamed and outcast from the industry. It pisses me off to think of the smirk on his pucey face as he says that.

"From now on, call me Nuwanda" [Dead Poets Society]

 

I take it that you don't know who Cory King is.

 

Relevance?
Is he known to make jokes this bad?

 

Not that he shouldn't be tarred and feathered for saying that, but Cory King is the brewer for Perennial and the owner/brewer for Side Project, one of the most highly rated most sought after breweries in all of the land. That's what makes the quote coming from him even worse. The hypetrain is a terrible thing and it seems to make the people driving it and riding on it dumber by the mile.

 

Oh man. Thst sucks. Anyways, sly fox summer is a good one too

 

OK. Still don't understand your original reply to my comment. Should he not be shamed or outcast? Is his face not pucey? Should we just chuckle and walk away because his brewery is sought after? That was a douchebag thing to claim (Americans define styles) and then admit to (just made it up).

 

Like I said, he should probably receive even more flak for it.