Beer Style Perception vs. Brewery Designation

And sometimes it is - case in point: The Practical Brewer: Manual to the Brewing Industry, 1946.

This book was written by four MBAA master brewers. Edward H. Vogel, Jr., Master-Brewer Griesedieck Bros. Brewery; Frank H. Schwaiger, Master-Brewer Anheuser-Busch; Henry G. Leonhardt, Assistant Master-Brewer at Anheuser-Busch; and J. Adolph Merten, President and general manager of the Columbia Brewing Co.

 

Cream ale seems to be a style mislabeled or at lease bastardized. Orange cream ale? That’s brewed with oranges, vanilla and lactose? That’s so far removed from what a cream ale is. I am finding more and more cream ales with lactose and vanilla. There is no cream in cream ale, despite that cream is in the name.

 

Perhaps so, but my somewhat casual, but still somewhat in depth, study says this broad statement of defining lager by the yeast used full-stop is far too broad a brush and ignores the cold storage (lagering) entirely.

 

Repeated for emphasis!

 

That is an oxymoron.

Cheers!

 

Spot on!

I probably see more bastardized cream ales than I do traditional ones. And the funny thing about the whole thing is that the only reason this happened to cream ale (and not, say, blonde ale or AAL) is because the word “cream” is in the name. It’s like people tasted a classic example and decided it wasn’t creamy enough.

 

I know!

 

When you become a Master-Brewer of a major brewery and write a technical brewing book I will read it.

Cheers!

 

Don't wait with bated breath! (... or even baited breath, depending on what you've recently consumed!)

 

Hybrid. Good to see ya.

 

Every year I homebrew both a batch of Kolsch and Altbier. Not too many folks are familiar with the Altbier style. I tell friends/family that it is an ale that I later cold condition and sometimes I use the word you mentioned of "hybrid" to describe those beers.

Cheers!

 

Nobody has mentioned rogue dead guy yet? Really?

 

The thread should have just ended on this post. Make whatever arguments are which styles should refer to what kind of beers, it's all just going to keep changing.

 

I think that’s exactly what happened. People thought it wasn’t creamy so breweries started make it creamy. Then to make it worse people who have only had a cream ale with lactose in it think that’s what it’s supposed to taste like. A friend who drinks craft but doesn’t spend any time researching beer just drinking it. Sent me a pic of a “coffee cream ale”. Had coffee, like a blonde stout, and lactose. He said best cream ale i’ve Had.....ugh!

 

I've seen a few beers labeled as a tropical stout that adjuncts like coconuts and cocoa nibs. I can see where they could interpret the term tropical stout as such, but I would be surprised to find a brewery in the US that makes an actual tropical stout. *Disclaimer* I basing this statement of the BJCP guidelines for a tropical stout

 

I love these discussions where all I can think about is what a fucked up system of classification we use for beer.

Carry on.

 

The GF actually has seen an app where American Double/Imperial Coconut IPA is a style. We're not there, thankfully, but I think our 106 or so styles could become a third of that - and I believe you think I'm still leaving room for too many.

Knowing the process or intent or history of the style being attempted is nice, but for rating (that isn't purely based on imbiber enjoyment) maybe we need more generic categories than specific styles. What differences should the general beer drinker look for in Kolsch, Helles, Kellerbier, and Pale Lager?

Sure there may be some subtle differences, but a few style descriptions on this site are so broad as to be quite inclusive of other similar "styles" that they lose some meaning.

Random examples on the darker end:

and:

 

I was referring to the original IPAs, the ones actually shipped to India.
Because tax was levied on beer its strength was closely monitored both by the brewers and by Revenue Officers. These supervised every commercial brew, the result of which is a set of accurate brewery records going back for centuries.
Such records do not tally with a lot of brewery folklore.

 

How are we ever going to inform consumers if we don't spend all our time being pedantic about what kind of hops you can put in a pilsner?

 

Not in Germany. Seen plenty of labels with "Obergäriges Lagerbier" on them. And amongst bottom-fermenting beers, in Germany the term Lager often refers to a beer of a specific strength. As in "Helles Lagerbier", which means a beer around 12º Plato and pale.