It's high time that we update Beer Styles!

I'm not sure you can really quote a blog post that describes Golden Ale as "the last new British beer style" as evidence that Golden Ale isn't a British beer style.

But anyway, here's Roger Protz on the same topic, finding a historic precendent for what's normally thought of as a "new style" from the 80s and 90s:
https://protzonbeer.co.uk/features/2014/05/02/golden-ale-beer-style-that-s-a-golden-oldie

And here's a Observer article:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/30/golden-ales-flavour-of-summer

People don't often go into a pub and ask for a "pale n hoppy" either - because generally if they know names for beer styles they can probably name the beer they want as well...

 

I like the term flavored stout better and suggest changing that name.

 

Again, the name Dry Hopped German Pilsner is better than the term Italian Pilsner because any brewery can make a dry hopped pilsner not just Italian and further, People would be more likely to look for a Dry Hopped German Pilsner than an Italian Pilsner. Dry hopped is more descriptive.

 

Along the lines of American Pastry Stout, I think anything that adds flavor (other than water, malt, hops, yeast) should be considered "flavored". If it's a strawberry IPA, then it's a "flavored IPA". Coffee added to stout--"Flavored stout".

I think that if a beer has coffee or chocolate flavors coming only from the malt, then that deserves a category separate than beers in which coffee/chocolate are added. Same with fruit flavors from hops and not from the fruits.

You can list them under an entirely new category: "Flavored Beers" and break them down under that: Stout, IPA, Sour....

 

That's a common misunderstanding of the beer purity law. The Reinheitsgebot was more of a predecessor for a beer purity law and the actual purity law stated that hop extracts couldn't be used after the kettle, but did not state that dry hopping couldn't be performed. Recently, the law was clarified to say that dry hopping is allowed which a lot of Americans have interpreted to mean that dry hopping was legalized at that point, but that's not the case. It was a clarification that dry hopping was legal the whole time as long as it was in the form of natural hops, not powders, oils, or extracts. There's Weihenstephan textbooks that go back at least to 1901 that detail dry hopping techniques. You're unlikely to find breweries that advertise their use of the hops because German breweries rarely tell anything about the brewing process other than generic descriptions of how beer is brewed, but not their individual techniques. The one beer that I'm fairly certain (having been told by one of my German professors that worked at the brewery) to use dry hopping in a Pilsner is Augustiner. I also heard from a German professor that Uerige occasionally dry hops beers.

One last thing with the purity law, it's not like breweries are always following the law... breaking or bending the purity law is as traditional as brewing itself in Germany.

 

I agree, Black IPA should be its own category. I'm not entirely clear on what distinguishes a "black ale" from a porter though. Is it darker? Thinner? Seems like a matter of opinion to me.

As a matter of fact, if you want to get ahead of the game (and I'm quite surprised no one has mentioned this yet) there are a few old Latin American "beer" styles that are making a rapid comeback, namely:

Pulque (A Aztec/Mexican style brewed from agave and corn)
Chicha (An Incan/Peruvian style with chewed blue corn)
Xocolatl (A cacao drink spiced with chilies that can be fermented into something like a porter)

The closest existing category to any of these is "American Adjunct Lager" which would be a terribly generic (and regionally inaccurate) description of all. Some may say these should not be considered beer at all, but if not, then where should a guy go to talk about them?

I also second the change from "Leipzig Gose" to the new plain old "Gose." All the ones I've had have been from America anyway. On that note, I think adding the name of the country in front of the style name should only be done when other countries create a radically different kind of brew that somehow ended up with the same exact name. Like there's no reason to call something a "Bohemian" or "German" Pilsner. Can't it just be called a Pilsner? If it's a pale lager with noble hops and it tastes like a pilsner, call it a pilsner, no? Why does it matter where it's from? There's already a "From:" section that tells you what country it was brewed in.

I'm also a little conflicted on the concept of a MIPA category. Lactose in an IPA is a sin against nature, and should be discouraged. But if people need to have their fun, I would prefer to be warned somehow if it has been done. Perhaps a compromise exists. Maybe add a section above Notes for "Allergens", such as wheat, lactose, tree nuts, habanero chili peppers, etc?

I also could support the idea of there being a different category for "Flavored Beers" and MIPAs Milk Stouts, Pastry Stouts, Fruited Sours, etc. could all go into there.

In general, I side with adding most of the styles that are being considered. But consolidation and simplification are important to consider too.

 

What about changing “low alcohol beer” to Low Alcohol/Gluten Free beers (combo) Gluten Free beers should get some recognition and categorization for people looking for them (and they are becoming pretty popular). Maybe it’s a trend that will die off soon but then there is the Brut IPA so there we always have that as a flash in the pan style.

 

For a brewery, doesn't anything they label the beer constitute marketing? If they changed "Bohemian" to "Czech Pale Lager", isn't that marketing?

Cheers!

 

Sure, that works.

But if you're gonna go that way, then Dry Irish Stout is really a roasty English Porter, there's honestly no difference between Quads and Belgian Strong Dark Ales, a Belgian IPA is just a hoppy Tripel...

You could cut the whole thing down to 20 styles or so, but I don't think that's where BA is headed.

 

Zum Uerige always dry hops their Sticke version of Altbier but that beer is not a regularly brewed beer - only brewed a couple times a year as I understand it. So, yeah "occasionally' would be consistent with this brewing practice.

Cheers!

 

I apologize, wasn’t trying to be snarky. I don’t think I really understood the addition of the country label to a style name, but @dbrauneis has cleared this up for me with this post.

If in fact this is what the purpose is, I agree with that, and it makes sense to me.

I hear ya, and I do agree and have thought of that myself.

Our local Notch added “Black Lager” to the label for their beer “černé pivo”, which translates to “black beer”. This was so people would understand what the beer was.

So perhaps we could label Czech beers on here as Czech Pale Light Lager, Czech Dark Light Lager, Czech Pale Lager, Czech Dark Lager...etc.

 

We have gone back & forth quite a bit. I personally have zero issue with the terminology of "Bohemian Pilsner" and I have detailed in prior posts the 100+ year history & momentum here. I have homebrewed a batch of Bohemian Pilsner every year for the past 20-ish years and every one of those batches were 'branded' as "Bohemian Pilsner". I am not a commercial brewery so no "marketing" here.This terminology makes sense and works for me.

Na Zdravi!

 

From the list above, I would definitely encourage you to establish both a Pastry Stout and Milkshake category. Both of these styles are specialties but they both divert from the standard style radically which makes them hard to compare and contrast.

Also, I'd like to see the emergence of an Imperial Brown category. Classic browns, even American Browns, such as Old Brown Dog or Tumbler are hard to compare to the high abv malt-bomb browns such as Palo Santo and the Founders Mountain series.

Finally, I'd add a category of Barrel Aged Stouts. I understand that you can barrel age many styles. But clearly high abv stouts are the prime candidates for barrel aging. With all the big BA stouts out there, it's hard to compare standard fare stouts, even high abv ones, to them.

 

Look man I totally get your point and would normally agree with you if this was a thread about simplifying styles. However, I’m just following the parameters of the original post which asked about expanding styles. My rationale is that if there are so many sub styles of IPA, for example, it is so that it can provide context for fair comparisons. Thus, I feel it would be unfair for me to compare say Heady Topper with Founders All Day IPA since each is intended for such a different purpose and it seems just plain wrong to plainly call them both IPA. This is why I brought up the notion that it would be hard for me to think of say a 14% ABV Pumpkin Stout (doesn’t Avery make one?) and a moderate ABV pale malt Pumpkin as the same style.
That is all. Regardless, I’m not losing any sleep over it.
Cheers!

 

I don't know if you agree, but beer styles are based on tradition and a little bit of politics (in its broader definition), so they are generally subjective (nothing wrong with that). For the people familiar with the science of beer, do you know if beer scientists have objective ways to classify styles?

Objectives methods to classify styles that come to mind include clustering techniques and there are all sort of machine learning methods that could also be applied. Just curious