Beer style origins

Hey Pard, welcome to BA.
That's waaaay too broad a question. Beer styles have appeared, disappeared, and been modified all around the world for millenia, with some modern styles bearing little, if any, resemblance to the beer that name originally referred to.

This guide from craft beer.com gives an overview of the many, many styles that have originated around the world.

See which ones you're particularly interested in and come on back.

 

Check out the BA Beer Styles page. It's a good starting point.

 

Gruit beers always have interested me because I've never actually seen any at the store or on tap and they seem to be the "starting point" for modern hopped beers. Its also interesting to consider that gruit beers were brewed for a much longer period of time than hopped beers yet they are now very rare to find.

 

I have seen many lists of beer styles but most contain things which I disagree with. As with a great deal of beer literature a lot of it is copied /regurgitated unresearched material.
For example, look up English Bitter. This is simply the name given to Pale Ale when served on draught. If exactly the same beer is bottled it will be labelled as Pale Ale.
Even CAMRA lists these as two separate styles.

 

NEIPA originated in Vermont with the Alchemist. Is there any other style? I'm confused. Sorry, just trying to add some humor on a Friday. OP pleaes don't take any offense.

 

Inquisitive brewers were created as soon as brewing science was defined. Brewers just like to experiment for new and hopefully better beers and new styles are created.

 

Way back in the latter decades of the 20th Century...

An ambitious and meticulous young man began cataloging beer. Early style definitions were simple. Beer I, er/ahh, he found in his father’s refrigerator, were deemed “Dad’s” beer, and beer known as Bass or Killian's were deemed “GoodStuff.” Over time the world opened up and and other people expanded on the intricacies of this system until eventually we came to have a list of over 100 distinct styles. Eventually, given enough time some day we will hopefully have hundreds of thousands of finely nuanced styles. Maybe, and we can only hope, our descendants will be able to proudly distinguish one style for each batch of beer brewed.

Or in fewer words, “I don’t know.”

And on a serious note, I would like to know if our modern system really does owe it’s origins to Michael Jackson (the one who didn’t sing or drink Pepsi).

 

What @officerbill said.

 

From the above link:

"Bohemian-Style Pilsener
The Bohemian pilsener has a slightly sweet and evident malt character and a toasted, biscuit-like, bready malt character. Hop bitterness is perceived as medium with a low to medium-low level of noble-type hop aroma and flavor. This style originated in 1842, with “pilsener” originally indicating an appellation in the Czech Republic. Classic examples of this style used to be conditioned in wooden tanks and had a less sharp hop bitterness despite the similar IBU ranges to German-style pilsner. Low-level diacetyl is acceptable. Bohemian-style pilseners are darker in color and higher in final gravity than their German counterparts.".

One beer style down and 100+ to go.

Cheers!

 

In beer heaven, of course.

Is this a trick question?

 

Maybe?

 

Of course, in the pre-craft era, pilsners were noted for their hop bitterness.

 

Well, even before that, brewers weren't as much "experimenting" as using what they had available to them. Whatever grains, herbs, and spices were local to folks went into the beer.

 

Here's his earliest list of beer styles. Pretty short list by 2020 standards with some odd outliers --- despite some claims, he did NOT classify beers as "LAGERS" and "ALES".

Some of the claims that Jackson's "to blame" is based on the fact that he more of less popularized the term "style", where previously, at least in the US, they were often referred to as a "type", "class" or "variety" of beer. (The former term dating from the turn of the last century and still used by the TTB).


I never saw much difference between the terms, and, again in the US, "style" had been commonly used by the US brewing industry in ads.

 

The actual common usage of beer styles as we know may come as a surprise.

A guy named Michael Jackson is responsible for the formal idea of "Beer Styles". The term is only a few decades old. That is not to say that there were no beer styles prior to Michael Jackson's ground breaking book World Guide to Beer. Styles have been around since the brewer at the end of town attempted to win customers from the other brewer in town. But it was MJ that actually structured a system of descriptions, adopted some formal naming practices, invented some new naming principals and generally set everything in motion.

Prior to his work a beer from Dormund was a Dortmund. A Helles was a Helles, etc. But if a Dortmund brewery attempted to make Helles (they wouldn't.. it is Germany after all) or a Munich brewer wanted to release a Dortmund style they would be at a loss. 300 years ago, no problem. Helles became a Helles and Dortmund a Dortmund because that is what the local conditions could make. So while MJ did not invent the styles his writing was the first to formally recognize the details of each style in one place and he is the one who is responsible for popularizing the conventions.
No. It was decidedly not the BJCP, though they did adopt most of Michael Jackson's work.

This is going to be controversial to many I know. But it remains true. Michael Jackson is responsible for our modern understanding of beer styles. If you have not read World Guide and the follow up Beer Companion be aware that both are so packed with information that your head might explode.

Say a Thank You to Michael Jackson with today's pint. Or if you are the kind who despises the Style ****'s, go to hell. Michael Jackson was a badass Mofo.
Cheers

 

E. All of the above.
Each of those countries/regions have indigenous beer styles and other countries regions also have beer styles of their own!

 

A more informative question might be, “What were the progenitors, or what are the archetypal brands of each style?” Mind you there is no agreed upon convention of styles, so this is automatically a convoluted question.

Hence it’s interest, IMACO (In My Arrogantly Conceded Opinion). I do hope this doesn’t become a popular acronym. Satire belongs to the eccentric after all.

 

So what if Benjamin Franklin didn't actually say

It's still true.