I came across an interesting dilemma yesterday while looking up a new brewery's list of beers. I understand classification can tread thin lines or eradicate completely, hybrids can be created, etc. I like to think I'm a journeyman of sorts as far as my knowledge of beer goes. According to ratings, I've had beers in 100 styles. I've had thousands of beers including many I never rated. This is my question: what is a beer that's essentially a Schwarzbier brewed as an ale? I could find nothing like it, and it's all completely German in its profile and use of ingredients. Was I just blanking when I couldn't find a style remotely like it? What especially throws me off is the brewer's description of the style (unnamed, of course), as "classic" and "traditional." They didn't say it was a take on a Schwarz or an imitation of one as an ale, and it's neither an Anglicization or an Americanization. Does anyone know what it is?
I would list it as a Schwarzbier. Sometimes the best you can do with placing a beer under a style is to find the style it most closely resembles even if it isn't a 100% match.
To me, the grain and hop profile have generally trumped the yeast profile when it comes to style. Of course, this overly simple reasoning excludes most sour and many other Belgian beer styles. But with anything else in the world of craft beer, a lot of room for discussion (or vulgar assault) is left open.
Well, does a schwartzbier HAVE to be a lager? Can it not be top fermented, and then lagered, like an altbier? I've had at least one black altbier.
German brewers have historically made their own versions of English "porter." I think they were/are typically lagered and made use of bottom fermenting yeast, but that doesn't mean that top fermented versions didn't exist in the past. Michael Jackson mentions trying a top-fermented one. Edit: Schwartzbiers might have been top fermented in the past, but someone like Ron Pattinson would be a better candidate to talk of such things than myself (by a thousand). Germany must have been producing black beers with top fermenting yeast at some point.
I'd say a black altbier is as close as it gets, but that really depends on whether or not it was lagered... so just call it a German-style black ale
This is why I'm a proponent of using a tagged-based system with beers. Whether the beer is ultimately classified as a Schwarzbier or Black Altbier (or even some other type of ale), you could attach those terms as tags to such a beer so later searches for either "schwarzbier" or "black altbier" will bring it up. Problem solved.
There was a great post about that very issue some time ago: http://www.craftbeer.com/brewers_banter/lager-or-not-ale-like-you-a-lot-new-belgiums-1554 Sometimes these issues have less to do with the beer and more to do with policies and regulations.
Who needs to tag anything when you can simply add a beer as the closest style that fits, and mention any discrepancies in a written review.
I'm coming from a different angle. It would be nice to be able to do a search for something like say, "chipotle smoked porter with vanilla coffee and marshmallows" and actually have it bring back beers that fit this profile (which could be made possible via user-added tags--#chipotle #smoked #vanilla #coffee #marshmallows, etc.). Granted, doesn't help you one bit if you're trying to count how many of a specific type of beer you've had on here and are concerned whether to call it one thing or another, but it'd still be cool.
Agreed. I'd have to try the beer in question, but right now I am imagining a slightly lower gravity Baltika #6 kind of thing, so I'd say that classification would be the way to go.
If the beer in question was brewed with a neutral ale yeast strain and of moderate ABV (e.g., about 5% ABV) I would be tempted to classify the beer as being a Schwartbier even though it wasn’t brewed with a lager yeast strain. If the beer was of higher alcohol strength (> 6% ABV) I would be tempted to classify the beer as a Baltic Porter. Cheers!
