Create a "Doesn't Adhere To Style" Style

If I were a brewery I'd simply chuck the notion of "styles" into the dustbin and rely on simple flavor descriptors (Many already do, hence the birth of Black IPA and such) Got a hoppy wheat beer? call it a wheat IPA, I think Lagunitas nails it sometimes with their beers, giving the beer a catchy name then describing the flavors.

 

I'm not into coddling pre-conceived notions. It's honestly their loss for not being flexible. Educate your customers. Do not re-educate. i.e. confuse yourself. This is our moment to define what American beer is. Use it wisely, and do not give into someone's preconceived narrowcast notion.

 

I fail to see how your example works with your idea, but maybe I'm misreading you. In your example, if the beer is a kolsch, then the beer would be listed as a "kolsch" rather than an "IPA" - problem solved. Calling it a "DATS" might even make the customer more inclined to compare it to an IPA.

While I do think that problems arise when we try to fit every beer into a box, every system will be imperfect. Your "DATS" idea is interesting, but I can imagine that it might be more detrimental than useful. Theoretically, a "DATS" category has the potential for being absolutely huge. Beers in this category could be: a pilsner with Galaxy, a 9% ABV saison, an IPA with mango juice, a plain ol' AAL, a bourbon barrel aged anything, a brown stout, a malty brown ale made with maple syrup, a "historically accurate" IPA with brett, a hoppy black ale made with Belgian yeast, and so on.

Let's look at Allagash Curieux, a tripel aged in bourbon barrels. This beer is listed here as a tripel. This beer "doesn't adhere to style." Note that Allagash doesn't even call it a tripel on the label, they call it an "ale aged in oak bourbon barrels"... it's made by aging their tripel. BA does not have a "spirit barrel aged beer" style. Its listing as a tripel along with its commercial description provides the reader with some useful information. If it was in a "DATS" category, it might share the company in the paragraph above (not very useful). Now let's look at BA's "top rated tripels" - since Curieux isn't exactly a tripel, it's unsurprisingly the highest rated US tripel. ... I can see how the scope of beers under one category can bother some people, but it is what it is.

 

Since you brought up the Kolsch example. A brand new brewery near me just opened and their first flagship is a Citra hopped Kolsch. It is basically an APA or lighter IPA, and is very good but is in no way a Kolsch. I say people should just describe what their experience is in the review. There does not need to be a box, category, or extra numbers to rate. Not everything will fit into a box. By the way, I reviewed the Citra Kolsch a 3.8+, saying it is very good but not to expect it being anything close to style. I think that should be all there is.

 

I'm trying to reckon this with what I have fermenting about ten feet away from me in my studio. I call it a mole porter. But, I'm using Belgian yeast, and it's full of adjunct grains, tequila and has a host of misc other things added into it to badly emulate a delicious mole sauce and give you rasiny chocolat-isch and warmingly spicy 10% kick in the mouth. Under the bcjp guidelines, it more or less falls into the spice / herbed beer category. So. These are some of the free-for all zones we have for beer which falls between the cracks of a style.
If a beer, otherwise, slips into the cracks. Just say that outright. Another beer I recently brewed was a smoked session ale. It seemed like a good idea to try to brew a 4.2% pale ale with 6 row and just enough smokiness to bring out the berry fruitiness of the hops a bit more. Crushable, and now I want to brew it with california lager yeast. Tell the story about it, and why the lines are being colored outside.
Styles are only important when it comes to judging them. Otherwise, just put it out there that this is what it is and because of that, it's American as kcuf.

 

I am confused, you are asking for beers that don't adhere to style, but as an example you use a customer who mistakes a Kolsch for an IPA, both of which are definite styles.

In your example, there is no need to state that the beer "Doesn't Adhere To Style" because you stated that is is a "phenomenal Kolsch" but the customer was expecting an IPA.

 

OP, let me see if I'm reading you right. Brewery makes a hoppy Kolsch. They call the beer a Kolsch, but it seems like an IPA to the people drinking it. Are you suggesting that it be listed here as Kolsch (DATS)? That the DATS be added to a beers page here and be used as a heads up in reviews?

Personally, I like the use of styles. If a brewery wants to make a beer that isn't right to style, they should just make up another name. If some brewery makes a super hoppy Kolsch, when I try it, I'm going to ding it a bunch of points for coloring outside the lines. If it were just called an APA (or even APL) I'd give it more leeway.

 

The fact that beers do not always adhere to style only underscores how important it is that folks review as accurately as possible. While I do not hold every person's ability to review to the same standards as some major heavy hitters out there (goodness knows that I am usually a craptastic reviewer myself, and have also on occasion engaged in rating instead of reviewing...) , I still appreciate any information that someone can add. For instance, if even the most novice reviewer mentions "bleh! this IPA smelled like a farm!" than i know that when the brewery added Bret to the IPA, they weren't joking, therefore this PARTICULAR American IPA may not be for me. Same goes for most any other beer that has any tooling that makes it different from it's style brethren. Through thorough and honest reviews, we are able to zero in on what makes a beer drift from it's listed style and make decisions based on what we read.

I don't mean to shoot down the OP's suggestion in a critical way. I'm merely trying to reinforce the importance of user based input on this user based database of sorts.

 

Fort Point IPA.

whoops, I mean Pale Ale... i swear...

 

From the standpoint of a site user, I don't see this "not to style" category as working well.

Beers are typically entered into the database by BAs and there seem to be some of them can't get the style right in the first place. That beer will most likely stay miscategorized until some one notices it, which sometimes can be a few years. Also the judgment of "not to style" is being made by lots of us amateur "judges," some of whom can't be bothered to even read the style description they are supposed to be rating to. Finally, many BAs reject the idea they should rate to style and do their scores on the how much they personally enjoy the beer and don't worry much about the style category. So it seems to me creating a "not to style" category is just inviting a huge number of miscategorizations and creating a "pile of odds and ends" category.

So I'd suggest that the real solution to the problem you raise is to have a clear description on the bottle of what are the goals and target of the brewer in making the beer and indicate such things as "this beer is doppelbock that is made with American hops rather than noble hops." Then the person entering the beer and the reviewers who pay attention to keeping style in mind will know perfectly well where it should go and what to expect. Being sure the web site description of the beer matches the label and both are up to date increases the likelihood a beer will be treated as a legitimate variation within a style.

 

I had the impression from your title and OP you were not talking about creating an entirely new style but rather talking about examples of some style that have enough difference from the normal examples that it could be dinged for not adhering to style.

If what you are looking at is the creation of an entirely brand new style then perhaps the proposed new catch all category should be something like "No particular style" or "New style beer" rather than "Not to Style?" Certainly for me, as with the example I gave of a doppelbock made with American Hops is that is one that is not to style, rather than being a brand new style.

 

I can appreciate that. I don't think changing the categories on Beer Advocate would help in that specific circumstance. I think this is more about the marketing on the brewer's end. (I'm not suggesting that there's anything right or wrong with that brewer's marketing). The brewery called the beer a "hoppy Oktoberfest." The blogger is most likely reacting to that. He/she put much more weight on the second half of the label rather than the first half. You can't please everybody. If the brewer called the beer a "hoppy amber lager" or a "hoppy fall lager," then the blogger would react differently. The brewery is shaping expectations. I obviously don't know if the blogger's opinion negatively influences beer sales in a way that's greater than the influence that "hoppy Oktoberfest" has on the hop and/or Oktoberfest loving public. It's up to the brewery if they think that any of this matters and they should have some knowledge of their market to determine this.

I agree that consumer expectations will impact their reaction to the beer. Setting those expectations has more to do with the name and description given by the brewer. If the brewer calls the beer an Oktoberfest, then chances are it will be categorized as an Oktoberfest here.

I do feel your pain when I feel like a beer is mis-categorized here and the reviewers on this site react to the beer badly because of this.