American Breweries and Traditional Styles

I've had some very nice MB hoped beers on this trip and our last. A tasty Saphir hopped Heller Bock too on this one.

 

That is one I'd line up to get.

 

Some thoughts to consider. The basis for a beer being included in the Top Beers list has changed at least twice since you jointed the site. Currently the criteria are quite liberal in that it only takes 10 ratings for a beer to hit the top 250. If you want to see a place where things are being thrown against the wall to see what sticks, spend time looking through the Top 250 list. Try looking at the Beers of Fame list instead. My view of this phenomenon is that the Top 250 list is much more of a popularity contest (as others have pointed out).

 

There is, but it’s not very common and apart from Fuller’s it isn’t called ESB.

 

And as a beer consumer you have the right to drink the beers that are brewed in Cologne (Koln), Germany, Czech Republic, etc.

The other beer consumers who do enjoy drinking the beers that you consider to be non-innovative get to drink the beers that they enjoy drinking.

Isn't that the best of 'both worlds'? We collectively get to choose which beers we like and prefer to drink/buy.

Cheers!

 

Im new to craft. Almost 4 years. And the thing ive noticed is people with an open mind will continue just fine. If someone says i dont like kolsch because its too hoppy, well i hope they are corrected.

 

Yeah, it's called strong ale, which is what Fuller's ESB is.

 

Introduce a secondary "To style" rating, in which Reviewers can rate how accurate it fits into it's style category.

 

The problem with that is we have to crystallise each style – a fraut objective indeed. Some styles are more clear-cut than others but how are we to take into consideration the parameters of a style as broad as English pale ale / bitter? (I use this example because I'm most familiar with it). Bitter comes in all spectrums and flavours. It varies significantly in hop intensity and encompasses all varietals. It could be subdivided into smaller categories but then there'd be lots of overlapping and multiple crossbreed categories would arise. To impose strict regimentation where there was none before seems a bit... imposing.

 

The only thing I would like to see is more of the better "traditional" styles from across the pond as opposed to the BIG BEER homogenized stuff...but w/American craft exploding it pushes most places to limit imports to the BIG BEER stuff that most consumers seek out.
There are still plenty of places if you know where to look that stock the better brands that are spoken about on BA.

I'm grateful that when I started really getting into good beer it was via a neighborhood German bar/restaurant that introduced me to all sorts of solid beer from Germany, UK, Belgium, Czech & served little to nothing American & hasn't changed too much to this day.

I do agree w/brewer interpretation. Anyone who crafts or creates in whatever medium is coming from a place of their own making w/an obvious appreciation of said style.

I think there's just as much room for the traditional, and for it to be revered, as there is for one's own take on the style or pushing of the envelope...which is how things evolve.

Respect the past...blaze your own trail.

 

I think it may be better and more fruitful to talk about brewers working "(with)in the tradition" of German/Czech/UK brewing in general or in a certain "style" in particular rather than saying this or that beer is "traditional."

 

I think after awhile you can get a sense of which breweries do and do not try and work within long established style guidelines. But consumers need to do alittle homework and learn what you can expect from a representative version of a particular style. This lack of familiarity leads to beers like Trillium's Big Sprang being the leading Kolsch on this site. If I'm looking for a traditional porter, Helles, etc I know which breweries to avoid due to past history.

 

If this is a problem that occurs for all styles, an ad hoc style-by-style fix sounds impractical. Here's an alternative way to fix this:

1) Modify rating options so that there are extra numeric scores for things like hoppiness or "to style". This doesn't need to factor into the overall score; it could simply be another metric that is displayed along with the score. This way if you look up a Pilsener you are curious about, you will quickly know whether it is a hopped-up version or more traditional.

2) Add extra search options so that you can threshold by ABV, hoppniess, country of origin, etc. That way you can easily obtain a list of the top Pilseners that fall within the traditional style metrics.

 

Not to get into too much of a semantics war, but when I think of traditional versions of styles I think of beers that are well-established and made within that style's guidelines. So maybe the better word to use is "established?"

 

That's a good suggestion.

As for semantics, they are sometimes critical in communication. Real wars have occasionally been triggered by differences in understanding of meanings or words.

 

It seems like you already know how. In this thread you have been pointing out examples of how a highly rated beer that isn't "to style" is high on the list (even though in some cases you haven't actually had the beer). If you can single those beers out, then there isn't a big problem. None of this accounts for personal preferences within a style, but the only way to know that is by doing the work of sitting down with the beers. There's always going to be some fiction with the idea of a set target for a style.

I do feel your pain though. I think this will get less to your liking over time. When the US beer scene consisted of fewer brewers, more beer fans looked to Europe for inspiration and standards. As the US beer scene grows, more people are coming of age in a landscape that already has a plethora of "hot" brewers... and the local tastes/styles are more defined and codified. There is less of a need or desire to look to those foreign and/or old standards. Taste-making brewers are probably spending more time figuring out how to make a good "NE IPA" than an "authentic" dubbel. The problems that you are experiencing partially come from the notion that many beers are probably being judged by people that know that they already love a certain "hot" US brewer, and they haven't had the "standards." None of this bothers me... EXCEPT that it would bother me when the "two-way street" situation occurs... and the "standards" become reinvented by the ones who make them in order to keep up. In fact, that scenario bothers me even though I know that it's my own fault for buying into the fiction that there is a non-evolving standard.

 

Amen!!

It seems that some folks live in a sort of fantasy world where they select a certain time period and location for 'defining' what an eponymous beer style is.

The first beer served at Oktoberfest was in 1810. Have you ever seen a post by a BA along the lines of: I really was disappointed that this Oktoberfest (Marzen) beer was not consistent with the German brewed Oktoberfest beer of 1810.

There is no real way to unambiguously define a traditional/established/whatever beer style since all beer styles are continually evolving.

Cheers!

 

Since you quoted me, I agree, but sometimes I'm one of those folks regardless.

 

Well many of us have our faults. But you do have at least some redeeming virtues.