Secondary Style

Talk Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by barnzy78, Jan 1, 2021.

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  1. barnzy78

    barnzy78 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,601) Jun 2, 2008 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    This is just something that has crossed my mind over the last couple of days. I don’t know how difficult it would be to implement on the site. It may add more confusion to the website, which may not be ideal, especially when trying to maintain an easy & user friendly site for all BA’s to use, no matter what their experience level may be. With that being said, would it be possible to have a “secondary style” category that is *optional* to add for a beer? I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around how it could work, which is why I am throwing it out there to you guys. Examples:

    a) say you have a super fruited slurry Berliner Weisse. So the primary style is Sour - Berliner Weisse, then one could add a secondary style being Fruit and Field Beer

    b) Rye IPA: primary style is IPA - American; secondary style is Rye Beer

    c) Barrel Aged Imperial Stout: primary style is Stout - American Imperial; secondary style Barrel Aged [if it was an added option only available in the secondary field]

    d) Imperial NEIPA: primary style is IPA - New England; secondary style is IPA - Imperial

    e) fruited IPA: primary style is IPA - American; secondary style is Fruit and Field Beer

    It could help solve the problem with hybrid beers or beers that cover more than one style. I have a feeling a revamp of this caliber would prove to be for too time consuming to do, and I like I said earlier may create confusion on the site, but I’ve just been brainstorming...

    Cheers to the New Year!
     
    #1 barnzy78, Jan 1, 2021
  2. Wasatch

    Wasatch Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,050) Jun 8, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Kinda sounds good, but most likely confusing.:slight_smile: It just would keep breaking down, I would think. Then how many of those beers would be made to actually fit into that secondary style. Just saying.

    Cheers!
     
    #2 Wasatch, Jan 1, 2021
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  3. bubseymour

    bubseymour Grand Pooh-Bah (4,800) Oct 30, 2010 Maryland
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    It definitely is a good idea as Brewers continually experiment and mix and match so many different combos of ingredients and brewing techniques so we aren’t always creating more and more beer styles to where most people will eventually struggle to figure out what style to enter a new beer under from hundreds of options to scroll through.
     
    #3 bubseymour, Jan 1, 2021
  4. SLeffler27

    SLeffler27 Grand Pooh-Bah (4,906) Feb 24, 2008 New York
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Wow! This is a how to really geek-out. I like it, and also recognize how it would immediately confuse folks who are more casual about their beer.

    In another thread, I suggested a checkbox (radio button) for variation within a style. Another similar idea, which i just remembered, thanks to @cjgiant , is to list sub-styles and styles with an overlap at the end of the style guide. Maybe there is a means to accommodate this thinking. Certainly there is merit to the idea.
     
    #4 SLeffler27, Jan 1, 2021
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  5. cjgiant

    cjgiant Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,584) Jul 13, 2013 District of Columbia
    Society Pooh-Bah

    I think this was considered last time as well, though with a truly broad "main style" category - like some set of under a dozen: Saison, pale ale, brown ale, porter/stout, sour, etc. and something like the current styles as the second choice. I think that was close to accomplished with the prefixes on the current types, which is helpful when finding the style in the list.

    Another option I recall seeing was, instead using of a single, hierarchical secondary style, continue with a single list of styles and have labels or tags for certain other aspects - e.g. fruited, herbed/spiced, barrel-aged, coffee, lactose. So you can have a NEIPA, with fruited + lactose tags.

    Of course, getting set of useful tags becomes an issue for debate. How detailed do you want? Too many tags could easily get out of hand and reduce usefulness.
     
    #5 cjgiant, Jan 1, 2021
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  6. barnzy78

    barnzy78 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,601) Jun 2, 2008 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    Furthermore, going with some of the WCIPA, NEIPA, MWIPA conversations in other threads, you could have:

    Primary: IPA - American
    Secondary options: New England, West Coast, Midwest, fruited, session, even hazy??...(if you wanted to go that deep). Or could also keep New England its own primary and then have it’s secondary being pale ale, Imperial, fruited. If it’s a regular ol’ NEIPA then there would be no secondary. Same goes for a straight up American IPA using this example.

    Glad to see I’m not as crazy as I think I am! thanks @SLeffler27
     
    #6 barnzy78, Jan 1, 2021
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  7. SLeffler27

    SLeffler27 Grand Pooh-Bah (4,906) Feb 24, 2008 New York
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Oh, don’t misunderstand, we’re both probably certifiable crazy. I for one never let that little inconvenience get in the way. Though I often float ideas past my Director of Public Relations. She is on holiday today. ;-)
     
    #7 SLeffler27, Jan 1, 2021
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  8. barnzy78

    barnzy78 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,601) Jun 2, 2008 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    LOL!
    Mine doesn’t care about beer, so I’m on my own here!
     
    #8 barnzy78, Jan 1, 2021
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  9. dbrauneis

    dbrauneis Grand High Pooh-Bah (8,071) Dec 8, 2007 North Carolina
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    While I can see some value in this for very experienced BAs, I could see this be incredibly confusing for newer members and having lots of requests to flip the styles (primary vs. secondary). Also, I’m not sure how many beers would really *need* this.
     
    #9 dbrauneis, Jan 1, 2021
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  10. cjgiant

    cjgiant Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,584) Jul 13, 2013 District of Columbia
    Society Pooh-Bah

    I'd argue the very generic *need* has never been higher. Though I agree with you on the original proposal, but what do you think about tagging/labeling?

    For instance, if we could apply a top/search criteria for a style (let's say stouts) that could easily eliminate adjuncts or barrel-aged varieties by indicating to not include beers with those tags, would that not maybe be helpful to someone looking such? I know there are more than a few top lists that are cluttered with potentially questionable versions - i.e. how far down the brown ale list do you have to go to find a classic brown ale?

    Then again, what idiot other than me is looking for a good, classic brown ale :slight_smile:
     
    #10 cjgiant, Jan 2, 2021
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  11. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    This is a fun idea that's worth exploring. It'd also be easy to implement on the tech side as we're talking about simply adding another field in the database and using the same style pulldown in our forms.

    As mentioned in this thread, we've also considered tagging. This is a much bigger project and if implemented would require a lot of daily maintenance (adding new tags, change requests to add/remove tags on beers, etc).
     
    #11 Todd, Jan 2, 2021
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  12. barnzy78

    barnzy78 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,601) Jun 2, 2008 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    Apologies if some of this is repetitive with ideas above; just clarifying my thoughts. I’ve been rethinking this topic, and I think it would be better to have only some options available as drop-downs for each style - call it a ‘sub-style’ rather than a secondary style. Maybe not even each style has a drop-down, just ones where there are other options or other ways to differentiate within a certain style. I think a straight up secondary style with all the same options for drop-downs adds way too much confusion, as many have said.

    A lot of the ideas being thrown around on the other threads could work with this format if it’s not too difficult tech-wise - see examples below. I also like the idea of the radio/option buttons that was mentioned earlier, that could be used when looking at a list of beers within a style, if that makes sense. My biggest concern is this all being way too much tech and website work. I am not tech-savvy and don’t know what is easy and what is not.

    Examples of issues in other threads that could be solved with the sub-style category:

    ‘India Pale Ale - American’ could have the following optional sub-styles as drop-downs
    •Session
    •West Coast (?)
    •Midwest (??)
    •Sour
    •Brett (?)
    •Brut (could be consolidated under here instead of having its own)
    •Fruited
    •Rye
    •Hazy / Juicy (??) - it always irks me when these are in the NEIPA style. (I personally think it would be too far adding this one in here though...just throwing it in the mix for conversation)


    NEIPA could have
    •Pale Ale
    •Imperial / Double
    •Milkshake

    Sour - Kettle
    •Fruited

    Cream Ale
    •Kentucky Common (?)

    Stout - American Imperial
    •Pastry / Sweet / Dessert (?)

    *More common sub-styles that could be allowed across multiple styles could be fruited or barrel aged if desired.

    *Basically, all of this keeps the main style categories intact, while allowing for some variation within a style.
     
    #12 barnzy78, Jan 4, 2021
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  13. dbrauneis

    dbrauneis Grand High Pooh-Bah (8,071) Dec 8, 2007 North Carolina
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    I posted this in another thread about Gluten Free/Gluten Reduced Beer as a separate style but the “best” use I can think for this secondary style would be as a way to indicate certain properties about a beer that are not the style but related to the style. For example:
    • Gluten Free
    • Gluten Reduced
    • Low Alcohol
    • Contains Lactose
    • Vegan
    With the increase in the amount of Gluten Free/Gluten Reduces and Low Alcohol/No Alcohol beers on the market, we are seeing these available in lots of additional styles.
     
    #13 dbrauneis, Jan 4, 2021
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  14. barnzy78

    barnzy78 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,601) Jun 2, 2008 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    Yeah, for sure. Those could be added to the mix as well, although I feel it then potentially moves to a “tag” system as multiple sub-styles could be chosen, complicating things. Unless there was a way to tag a beer with one of those properties while still being confined within it’s style and optional sub-style. I do like the idea that the site could be helpful in guiding a beer lover towards a beer that fits what they are looking for based on diet restrictions.
     
    #14 barnzy78, Jan 4, 2021
  15. cjgiant

    cjgiant Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,584) Jul 13, 2013 District of Columbia
    Society Pooh-Bah

    I can see how it could be a bigger project to implement, for sure. I also think it has a high degree of usefulness, if the tagging is curated well and at a not too detailed level.

    For an overly simple convoluted example, we wouldn't want tags for each possible fruit that could be added but one for "fruit added." I would think a cores set of tags would work for the oft-cited 85% case threshold.

    Although it would probably add to the effort, I wonder if you could trust a certain set of BAs to change tags without a change request if the maintenance tail is expected to be high? Possibly something like maybe people on this council that are Society members (and/or)**.

    Anyhow, just some more ideas to attempt to handle the ever more complex and changing world or styles :slight_smile:


    **Note: I can think of a few safeguards that could be put in place, but that's getting deeper into the implementation and could easily be follow on work if necessary.
     
    #15 cjgiant, Jan 5, 2021
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