How to classify India Pale Lagers?

I always feel my answer is better.

I'm also a fan of this compromise, agree completely.

If you can tell the difference between a Baltic Porter and a regular Porter in a blind tasting, you're a better man than me.

If I put an IPL, West Coast IPA, and a New England IPA in a blind tasting (opaque cups too obviously), I would bet the New England IPA would be the style most people guessed correctly.

There also weren't rating websites back then.

 

I classify them as good if they're really fresh and have been kept cold

but quite gross once they fall off which is ~4 weeks if not sooner.

The 2015 Beer Camp Hoppy Lager 12pks that were like $13 at Harris Teeter, I must have bought 4 or 5 times before it felt too old. I'd love to se that one come back, in 12pks cans.

 

You mean aside from that extra alcohol bump?

 

I don't want to re-read this thread for an answer, but has anyone asked the rhetorical question of: What style name will we put on a pale lager that is brewed in India (whether hoppy or not)?

EDIT: I just looked at the BA list of breweries in India and selected this one https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43845/ because it has the most beers in its list, and guess what....they brew a pale ale. And it's listed in the American Pale Ale style category!

 

Is that a style name of a beer name? Or you made that up.

 

For the record, y'all probably knew that I meant pale lager instead of ale at both iterations in my earlier post.

 

So, a Double IPL?

 

In the UK, "brown stout" was the original name for "stout" and was used in the 18th and 19th century. People used the term interchangeably with "strong porter." Such beers were also made with what was known as "brown malt." At one point, you could have "brown stout" or "pale stout" before the term was linked to just strong porters.

 

Yup, that's the evolution of the term outside the US (I guess I just assumed that was common knowledge but should have noted it), just pointing out that in the US it seems to have lasted longer, right into the post-Repeal era when brewers like Ballantine and Feigenspan in Newark and Esslinger's in Phila., all of which also brewed porters, labeled their beers "Brown Stout" even as the Federal definition from the FAA Act (1934) made the "Brown" kinda redundant:

I see that some retailers' ads at the time in the US still called Guinness "Brown Stout" even though the label on the US imported version did not.

 

Hmmm, gonna Sikh that style out, and hopefully Singh its praises.

 

Don't forget Imperial Indian India pale lager!!!

And of course, if it's in the US, you'll have the inevitable limited release in 4 packs of 16 oz. cans of Double Dry Hopped Imperial Indian India Pale Lager.

ISO: DDHIIIPL

FT: A head ache

 

For curiosity's sake I thought I would mention that when going through a Swedish brewing logbook I noticed that the brewery started using a top fermenting yeast on the 22nd of November 1917 for their pilsner brews and they upped the pitching temp from 11.25 C to 12.5 C (pre-war it had been 10.62 C so there had been some creep whilst still using a bottom fermenting yeast). The original gravity was down to 6.5% Balling at that point after successive cuts (it would see further cuts in the coming year). They kept using the same top fermenting yeast until 4th of September 1919 when they started using a bottom fermenting yeast again. The cellar temperature crept up from 1.25 C to first 3.12 C on the 31st of October 1917, then up to 6.25 C 22nd of May 1918, and up to 7.5 C on 1st of October 1918. It went back down to pre-war temperatures by March 1920 by successive reductions in temperature. The hopping rate shifted a bit, mostly downward compared with the pre-war level but at one point in October-November 1918 it exceeded the pre-war level for a few brews (the hops were from the previous year or older).

These shifts were obviously brought about due to problems caused by WW1 and rationing but I thought it was interesting nonetheless to see how brewing was impacted and altered as a result of the war, even with Sweden being a neutral country. One thing I notice about the shift over to top fermentation is that the primary fermentation period is cut down from around 6 days at the same original gravity when using a bottom fermenting yeast, to 3 days with the top fermenting yeast. The specific gravity when transfering the beer to the cellar was on the other hand increased from around 2.8% Balling to around 5-5.4% Balling. This leaves us with room to speculate about whether the change was driven primarily by concern for the health of the yeast when solely fermenting lower gravity worts, which is what I'm thinking, or something else or a combination of factors. With a drastic move like that (which must have had a pronounced impact on the flavor and aroma properties of the beer) I would have to imagine that the decision came down to something as fundamental of a problem as that. But I don't have the answer of course.

 

If a brewer calls a beer an IPL, then I call it that too. If I was entering one on this site, I would classify it as an "American lager" because that's essentially the convention here... BUT, to go against the main thinking in this thread, I think classifying it as an IPA is sort of the better fit in an imperfect world.

When a brewer uses a so-called "ale yeast" to make a beer labeled pilsner, the collective here puts it in the pilsner category. A strong ale made with lager yeast is put in a strong ale category. A lower ABV beer labeled "ale" but made with lager yeast is put in a pale ale category, and so on, and so on. There's far more fluidity in use than people realize. Essentially, the brewer calls the beer the result they were aiming for regardless of what was used to make it. In other words, the yeast doesn't always define the beer... the character of the beer defines the beer. I understand why people don't like this but that doesn't change that it's sometimes done that way.

When a brewer makes an IPL, they are going for an IPA except they are using an unconventional yeast for the job. The only difference between IPLs and the other examples above is that the brewer wants to publicly announce that it's a "lager." IPLs have as much to do with India as the IPAs on the shelf. The general differences between an IPA and an IPL are certainly no greater than the possible differences between different IPAs.

 

Huh, I'll be damned (well, maybe just darned). You were right about numbers.
Between wegman's and the beer store I only counted 6 IPL's from 5 breweries. I would have sworn there were more.
However; I still believe high hopped lagers merit their own style listing since I also only saw 4 Brut IPA's.

 

Yeah I'm still confused why Brut IPA is already a style.

And of course I was right.

I've only been wrong twice. When Trump got in, and the Patriots lost in 2007.

 

I've read through the forum, and there are many valid points and some just traditional nomenclature. The bottom line seems to be, are we classifying beers by yeast type, fermentation temperatures or by flavor. Right now, it looks like we do both. I don't see a simple answer. If the brewer wants to call it an IPL, it's an IPL. If the brewer wants to call it Hoppy Lager, such as Sierra Nevada, it's a hoppy lager. It's just semantics. The whole hoppy higher alcohol style was created based on history of exportation to India for preservation of the beer. So, should every higher hopped ale, or lager, have the name India associated with it? I say, roll it out. Put whatever name you want on it. The drinkers will decide if it has merit. Try and go with trends if you want, but, with the sophisticated market now, the best tasting beers, no matter what the name and classification, will win. On a personal note, I think beers should be classified by flavor profiles, and not type of yeast or fermentation. This may change what you think of my post, but, so posted.