Adjunct Misinformation

@Roguer, I generally agree with your take in broad strokes. However, my frustration with the contemporary use of adjunct by the "craft" segment is that the word had/has become industry jargon for a particular thing. The readoption of adjunct to mean "anything that isn't barley malt, hops, yeast, or water" doesn't foster any clearer understanding, just the opposite. Is an adjunct stout brewed with oats and corn or with yuzu and candy corn? The industry had taken a very broad English word and given it a very specific meaning and now (it would certainly seem largely in an attempt to sound well informed) it has been stripped of that specific meaning and become so broad as to hardly convey any information.
I've come firmly into the opinion that the most useful way for brewers and beer consumers to use the word is to specify the type (malt, flavoring, etc...) of adjunct being applied.
Now, as to your use of vice instead of versus...I'm gonna need to see some links

 

I think this post pretty much nails it.

I've stayed out of this thread because I've grown bored of the topic, but I'll let it suffice to say that numerous, knowledgeable, professional brewers correctly and intentionally use the term "adjunct" to refer to flavoring additives while well aware of this semantic debate. This is not a matter of ignorance; it's a matter of informed disagreement, and I do believe the modernists have the better argument in this case. They've heard the counterarguments and rejected them.

I'll also reiterate that this debate is outsized here on BeerAdvocate because of this site's years-old choice to classify an "American Adjunct Lager" style, which tends to emphasize the limited and outdated definition (although of course the broader, modern, and better-rooted-in-the-English-language definition certainly encompasses that usage).

I'll continue for the time being to use "flavoring adjuncts" and "malt adjuncts" (the term before it was lazily shortened in industry jargon when flavoring adjuncts were uncommon in the brewing habits of English-speaking countries, something that is no longer the case*) as a slight nod to the recalcitrant.

* To be clear, it is both no longer the case that most adjuncts are malt adjuncts (and not flavoring adjuncts) and no longer the case that "adjuncts" refers only to "malt adjuncts" in industry jargon.

 

Boy, this has really turned into a "Tastes Great - Less Filling" debate.

As long as the Brewing Industry continues to define adjuncts as ingredients that provides fermentable sugars to the wort (i.e., corn, rice, sugars, etc,) that is the appropriate usage of the term as far as I am concerned. The fact that some brewers, who perhaps were not formally trained (e.g., attended Brewing School like UC Davis), misuse the term does not have any justification for me.

Cheers!

 

I agree that its often clear what kind of adjunct is being talked about but certainly not always.
Under the broad usage a schwarzbier brewed with chocolate and orange zest is an adjunct lager. And imagine the disappointment in a pastry bois heart when he buys an adjunct stout that is donut and candy bar free (although those might have fermentable sugars?) but does contain quinoa and heritage corn (its still a craft beer after all).

 

Not really, but I'm am disappointed that a beer with cinnamon, coffee, chocolate, and vanilla isn't just labeled as a "flavored stout" .

For me it's about which word provides the most information about a beer I'm considering.
I see the word adjunct (in the traditional sense) has a particular meaning and I know that other grains were added to assist with fermentation. In the growing usage it has no meaning other than “something was added to the beer” and provides little usable information.

IMO this argument is the result of brewer's putting out flavored beers, but not wanting to call them “flavored“ due to the possible negative connotations (see Bud calling out corn syrup) so they started calling their flavorings “adjuncts” since their customers were probably vaguely aware that was an actual brewing term.
“I'm not going to buy that stout, it's chocolate flavored” vs “I'm going to buy that stout with the chocolate adjunct”.

It is probably a losing battle, since the “cool kids”, both brewers and drinkers, are increasingly using the term to mean anything outside of the four standard ingredients, but maybe the industry can settle on “malt adjuncts” and “flavoring adjuncts”. That way we can keep the distinction and brewers don't have to call it a birthday cake flavored stout.

 

I assume you meant to type "coarse" here but why do you think that the term of flavorings is coarse? FWIW flavorings does not sound coarse to me and in this instance I think it conveys the message in a clearer manner.

From my perspective the "industry" does have a consistent meaning for the term of adjunct. It is some 'rogue' brewers that work at craft breweries who sometimes misuse the word.

Cheers!

 

Yes, per the dictionary, adjunct is defined as something joined or added to a thing but not essentially part of it. That definition does not work with beer. Once the 'something' is added to beer is part of the beer. It cannot be separated. Whether it be for fermentation or solely for flavoring.

The brewing definition of adjunct works much better. The definition of brewing adjunct is pretty straight forward.

 

It appears that you do not have a full understanding of what the word "adjunct" means in the brewing industry. Sugars that are fermentable (e.g, Candi sugar, dextrose, sucrose, etc.) are indeed adjuncts.

Permit me to encourage you to read:

https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/446dbAKnTv/

Cheers!

 

Needless to say I am unfamiliar with the breweries in your area but it would not surprise me that there are other craft brewers/breweries in America beyond those "two dozen" examples which are misusing the term adjunct as regards beer production/brewing.

Cheers!

 

I listen to a bunch of national podcasts featuring interviews with brewers (Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast, Beer Sessions Radio, Beer Guys Radio, Brewbound Podcast, etc.). Respected brewers across the country unapologetically use "adjuncts" to refer to "flavoring adjuncts" very frequently. I'm sure I've heard it from over 100 brewers in such podcasts and in person. Get off the internet and start talking to actual brewers; a lot of people will be surprised by real industry jargon. Indeed, I'm absolutely positive that the broad definition is the rule, not the exception, in terms of actual usage within the industry. There's a lot of ignorance in this thread of how this term is actually used in the industry being displayed by people who purport to know how this term is used in the industry.

 

I never said that language does not change. In fact many of the misunderstandings in beer history have resulted from applying modern meanings to what was written a long time ago. Dr Johnson described the then new Saint Paul's Cathedral as "awful"… meaning that it filled him with awe.
But brewers have jargon which are specific to the job in hand. Water is used for cleansing but is called liquor when used for brewing. And ingredients added to the malt which yielded fermentable sugars only because the excess malt enzymes broke down the complex carbohydrates were termed malt adjuncts. A two way process.

 

There is an old saying: “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink”.

From the OCB article I provided a link for you (with emphasis in bold by me):

“Adjuncts are alternative sources of extract used to replace a proportion of the malt.”

An ingredient like coffee provides zero extract and consequently is not an adjunct.

You asked: “Whose opinion is the final say?”

I have some more sources for you to read if you genuinely want to learn here:

Bamforth, C. W.Scientific principles of malting and brewing. St Paul, MN: American Society of Brewing Chemists, 2006.

Goode, D. L., & Arendt, E. K. “Developments in the supply of adjunct materials for brewing.” In Brewing: New technologies, ed. C.W. Bamforth, 30–67. Cambridge: Woodhead, 2006.

Stewart, G. G. “Adjuncts.” In Handbook of Brewing, eds. F.G. Priest & G.G. Stewart, 161–175. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2006.

Stewart, G.G., Anstruther, A, Russell, I. “Handbook of Brewing, Third Edition, CRC Press, 2017.

Or you could decide to not read the material above. Your choice here.

Cheers!

 

This is the crux of the matter. Way back when brewers started applying a specific meaning to a word which, outside the industry, had multiple meanings.

How about letting adjunct refer to flavorings and convincing brewers to use something like Gärungshelfer (which Google tells me means fermentation helpers).
Then we could have an American Gärungshelfer Lager category which sounds like an American version of some old European style.