British-German beer style twins

Was it perchance a Brown Ale?

Cheers!

 

Hmmm...I was thinking ESB.

 

Well, the only example I can think of off the top of my head is sorta they one we have been discussing. I regularly home brew an Altbier and for my friends who are unfamiliar with this style I inform them that the literal translation for Altbier is Old Beer (in Germany this refers to the situation that it is brewed like an ale using ale yeast - the way beers were brewed in the German olden day before lager beers became prevalent). I then go on to describe this beer as being a German Brown Ale.

The brewing tradition of Britain was brewing ales and there are not too many German styles that are brewed using ale yeast strains. Furthermore Germans do not utilize the term of "ale" like we English speaking people do. For example the beer styles of Kolsch and Altbier are fermented using ale yeast strains but Germans would not readily describe this beers using the terminology of "ale" but instead might use the terminology of Obergäriges Lagerbier which refers to the fact the beer is brewed with a top fermenting yeast (i.e., the Obergäriges part) but post primary fermentation the beer goes through a cold-conditioning (lagering) phase (i.e., the Lagerbier part). You can read more discussion on the topic of a Kolsch by Ron Pattinson here:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-klsch-ale.html

You even get to read his opinion about American Homebrewers in this treatise.

Another example of a German beer that is brewed using an ale yeast is a Hefeweizen but again the Germans would not use the terminology of "ale" to detail what a Hefeweizen beer is. In all likelihood they would simply state the beer is a Hefeweizen (period).

The top selling beers in Britain right now are Lagers; for example Carling Lager is the number 1 selling beer in the UK. Maybe you might view beers like Carling Lager as being similar to German beers (e.g., Beck's or Warsteiner or...)?

Cheers!

 

I am by no means a Golden Ale expert but I have had a few and the differences I would point out between a Kolsch and a Golden Ale:

Malt flavor
A Kolsch will have a notable bready/cracker-like malt flavor from the Pilsner Malt. In contrast a Golden Ale is brewed with Pale Ale malt as this base malt and it has a quite different flavor.

Yeast produced flavors
The Golden Ales typically (for me) have a notable fruity flavor from the esters produced by the English yeast strains. In contrast the Kolsch ale yeast strain is more constrained in comparison though it may have a subtle white wine like flavor depending on the specific Kolsch ale strain used.

My personal experience is that these two beers are not twins.

Cheers!

 

I can see where an English barleywine and a dopplebock may have some similar characteristics like abv, both are malt forward and can have some bready notes to them

 

Drinking a Barleywine always make me think I want a dopplebock.

 

I was thinking sticke alt and old ale, because they're both strong ales.

 

Personally, I think doppelbock and Scotch ales are more comparable. Barleywines tend to have pronounced hops and fruity esters.

 

Franconian Kellerbiers served young and by gravity are probably the closest analogous things you will find to UK cask ale. I think Ron P has opined on this as well.

 

Scotch ales are more like quad than doppelbock. To my palate Westvleteren 12 is basically a Scotch ale.
Alt = Best Bitter. It’s not like brown ale because English brown ales are sweet beers but a good Alt is intensely hoppy.
Sweet stout could be seen as equivalent to Malzbier although the flavour profile is rather different.

 

I'm sure a lot of the beers brewed in different countries were very similar, in antiquity. Now the concept of styles looks to differentiate them, rather than integrate them, so even though you'll probably find some similarities across the two brewing traditions, you'll probably not find any twin styles.

 

Fresh altbier from Dusseldorf is a unique animal, in my opinion. At least the ones from the smaller places like Fuchschen, Schumacher, Uerige, etc. The closest thing to those would be Belgian ambers like Palm and DeKoninck. Maybe not process-wise, but the mild esters, hoppy bite and slightly biscuity malt.

Similarly if you like Hefeweizen, Witbier isn't too much of a stretch. Again, not necessarily process-wise but the flavor profile has similarities.

 

These are good comments, valid equivalents.

This, not so much.
The tendency toward a likelihood of parallel evolution exists in most processes involving natural components. Brewing at its most basic level is one of those processes, and 'the concept of styles' is what? 30? 40 years old?

 

None that strike me as being particularly similar.

 

Of course. Brewers made the most of their available ingredients , for example the Germans had to deal with high nitrogen local malt which led to decoction mashing whereas British brewers used either local maritime malt or imported barley , allowing infusion mashing.
You are quite right about the concept of styles. Nobody really thought about them really until Michael Jackson used them as a help to explaining the world's beers.
Styles can be quite misleading. Scotch Ales are mentioned in this thread yet at one time these were massively hopped. My mild bears no relationship to what my grandfather drank.Compare a 20th century IPA to a present one.
And of course a big chunk of German brewing history was lost when Reinheitsgebot was imposed in the early 20th century.