Adjunct Misinformation

Ahh, the old debate goes on with little/no nuance. Language is debated as if it is a steady thing. Confusing to say the least, when updates to "official" definitions for things always lag behind popular usage that is the true determinant. Add regional differences to the mix and it is amazing we are able to communicate at all.

Anyone keeping score? Which idea is winning? A strict definition of adjunct as a fermentable addition whose primary mission is to add fermentables? Or an updated definition that follows the trend to see adjunct in brewing as any addition?

 

Dave, there are no “winners” here.

It seems like ‘debating’ in contemporary times is less about sharing ideas and more about proselyting your preconceived notions. I did my best to advise folks to read some textbooks but I am pretty sure I was not successful here. Because podcasts are where truth resides?

Cheers!

P.S. I suppose it is only a matter of time where the expression “read a book” will become passé?

 

You appear to have misunderstood people's response to your providing of sources. The general response read to me as being along the lines of "you have provided experts who support the idea that this is the meaning of the term, we offer up currently operating members of the industry using the term with another meaning. Keeping in mind that language change happens through popular usage before formal definitions are changed."
No one discredited the credentials of the experts cited, they simply questioned the authority of those experts to dictate industry jargon. If industry members begin to use a term in a new way does that not indicate that real usage of the term is changing and those cited experts may be on their way to representing a historical usage of a term whose industry usage is changing

 

Did people actually read the material referenced? Or did they simply decide that since they choose to not recognize them as being an 'approved' authority to just...

P.S. Time for me to move on to other threads. This one appears to be toast.

 

Do you have any evidence that these people have any authority over language use within the industry or not? That seems to be the main contention from those embracing the broader meaning of the term, that popular usage (not any particular individual) is the authority on language meaning.
You pay lip service to exchanging ideas but don't seem to happy when folks offer a different opinion

 

I first got into craft beer (a term then not yet particularly popular) in the early to mid-'00s. People inside and outside of the industry spoke of "adjuncts" to refer to flavoring adjuncts then, and such ingredients were less common than they are today. Indeed, I rarely heard "adjuncts" refer to "malt adjuncts" until I started using this site, with its classification of "American Adjunct Lagers," a few years later. I don't think this is a case of language evolving as much as it is the case of popular tastes evolving to demand more flavoring adjuncts. The term "adjuncts" gets used more often because there are far more beers that employ flavoring adjuncts now than there were in the past; there's more occasion to speak of adjuncts in that context.

I'm not convinced that there ever was a time in which most actual, knowledgeable brewers used "adjuncts" exclusively to refer to "malt adjuncts." There certainly were many decades of brewing history in the English-speaking world, and especially in the United States, in which the use of flavoring adjuncts was rare, and so the only adjuncts most brewers were using in practice were of the malt adjunct variety. I suspect it's likely that the myth of the narrow use of "adjunct" as the only proper use of "adjunct" developed during that period. But I wouldn't be surprised at all if, say, Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company in 1950 had made Raspberry Schlitz that the brewers would've called the raspberries they used "adjuncts."

 

Guy Fieri is down with calling flavorings adjuncts

 

I guess if everyone is going to use adjunct to describe anything that is added to beer it would be nice if they would distinguish between malt adjunct and flavor adjunct.

 

I dunno, I reckon the name of the adjunct sorts that difference out, unless you think malted cinnamon is a thing.

 

Heck, really? And you've been into craft beer since waaaayyyyyyyyy back in the early 2000's, so that's really sayin' something, yessir.

 

Pretty sure that was the year all these un
named brewers started calling flavorings adjuncts and brewing educators stopped caring whether or not their students used proper brewing terminology.

 

I thought you were pretending to have "ignored" me.

 

This is just too rich. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that his view of beer is, entirely coincidentally I'm sure, locked into the notion that it just happened to be at its peak when he first discovered the hobby.

That has certainly never, ever been the case for any other loudmouthed, get-off-my-lawn type members of any other hobbies.

 

I’m pretty sure the only winner here is the willful misrepresentation of opposing views.

 

I unignored you. I truly couldn't do without that sage wisdom from wayyyyyyyy back in the early 2000's you bring, with your characteristic humility and open mindedness.

 

Brewers regularly (and properly) have been including flavoring adjuncts among "adjuncts" for as long as I've been aware enough to notice. I can't speak directly to any time earlier. There seems to be a misconception in this thread, including by some who defend the broad usage, that the broad usage was popularized in the last few years, and prior to that the narrow usage was nearly universal industry "jargon." Perhaps the broad usage is solely a 21st century phenomenon (@tolar111's tongue-in-cheek suggestion), but I'm very skeptical.

What certainly seems to be a 21st century phenomenon is a small, self-appointed cadre of "beer advocates" working themselves into a tizzy over this issue, which is barely noticed outside of this forum. Perhaps it's fair to say that using "adjunct" as a shortened synonym of "malt adjunct" to the exclusion of flavoring adjuncts is not brewing jargon but rather BeerAdvocate jargon, albeit controversial even here. The broad usage long* has been used with, as far as I can tell, little controversy or resistance in the brewing industry.

* ... so long that it goes back at least as far as the early to mid-'00s, which universally is viewed as an impressively long period time, hence my earlier obvious brag.

 

Indeed. This topic and its discussion here are perfect examples, each in its way, of the Shaw observation that, "The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

 

I'd be really interested to see a detailed history of "adjunct" used in beer packaging, ad copy, internal brewery communications to mean "flavorings". I'm with
@jasonmason that it seems like a fairly recent shift and seems designed by brewers who wanted their heavily flavored beers to sound more sophisticated.
There's a long history of adding non essential flavorings to beer and it seems like those beers were always called "spiced" or "flavored" or maybe "fruited" in the case of lambics.
I'd take @islay 's bet and go with raspberry Schlitz being called a flavored ale with raspberries added for flavor not a "raspberry adjunct ale" or some such. But who knows.
To me, the essential aspect of the broad definition that the brewing industry fixed on is the subordinate aspect of adjuncts. I don't think that snickerdoodles or Madagascar vanilla beans or hand roasted civet coffee is or is supposed to be subordinate in the beers those things are used in. They are featured flavorings, usually prominently displayed on the packaging with every intent that their flavor is the dominant characteristic of the beer.
But as noted above, I don't get to decide what words mean except when I say them and if I want to use them in an obscure way then I get to deal with the difficulties in communication that follow. So if the industry and consumers keep shifting to the broader definition I'll just adapt and make sure to let the folks at AtG know that I love their adjunct stout but I don't want any of the adjunct variants

 

it’s been fun watching this go on....

It’s interesting that sometimes we want to label/classify everything to the nth degree (English IPA, west coast ipa, NE ipa, American ipa, ...) and other times we want to cram everything under the sun into a single category when other terms have been around for years (adjunct, flavoring, spice, fruit, etc.)

People are strange - let’s drink beer.