It's high time that we update Beer Styles!

BTW, what the heck is an English Golden Ale and how is it different from an English Pale Ale. Specifically, beyond difference in color, how is the flavor or ingredients markedly different?

 

Yes. Saison Dupont is one example but there are many others.

Cheers!

 

English Pale Ale

• pale malt + crystal malt
• estery English ale yeast
• traditional English hops
• amber, medium bodied

English Golden Ale

• extra pale or lager malt, no crystal
• clean(er) English ale yeast
• new English or New World hops
• pale gold, light-bodied

 

Thanks for this info. Yeah, I didn’t think of Saison DuPont or Fantome Saison, my bad. But apart from these two, what others do you recommend? For the most part, I only seem to find American made Saisons here in the States.

 

I was a little surprised by this one as well. Fortunately, there is an amazing grocery store in SF’s Japantown and they had a selection to choose from.

My remaining styles right now are all from beers I’ve had but never bothered to review. I used to see bottles of Deus or a krystalweisse collecting dust. Now that I’m trying to complete the list, however, they’ve proven rather elusive!

 

Great description! Are there any commercial examples I can easily find in the U.S?

 

Yeah I totally forgot that one and Fantome Saison. I can’t seem to find much else in the U.S.

 

As they say: The more the merrier! Cheers!

 

Did anyone mention session IPA?

 

Yeah, generally agree with this. The same is probably true of Biere de Garde - putting something like Abbaye De Saint Bon-Chien is in the same category of beers as Trois Monts is like classing Cantillon Gueuze as Belgian Witbier. Maybe there needs to be a bit of fiddling with the actual styles, but to me it feels like the old-world categories describe Dupont-inspired clean-ish saisons and Trois Monts-inspired clean BdG and that the barrel-aged / mixed ferm beers that try to recapture the original spirit of the farmhouse tradition should be considered "American Wild", but that people have had maybe a bit too much respect for what that the brewer writes on the bottle...

 

If the various obscure central European styles are to be added, then I think Lithuanian Keptinis needs to be added as well.

 

I just ran across a new beer type I have never seen before- German style pale ale. Should this be a seperate category or merged into another style?

 

They're better on cask, and even in bottle don't travel well.

Tree House Eureka! series seems like some of the only US examples that fall in the right ABV range - these are English session beers meant to be drunk by the pint, so all sub- ~4%.

The nearest thing from American breweries is going to be some of the lighter Session IPAs.
They'll have the pale colour, light body, med-high hop rates, and easy drinking character.
They'll just be missing the stone fruit esters of an English ale yeast.

They're great summer beers.
I recommend Fyne Jarl - a solid hit of Citra at 3.8%.

 

One other Saison that is imported to the US is Brasserie à Vapeur - Saison De Pipaix. There are likely others.

Needless to say but there are many brands of Saison available in Belgium.

Cheers!

 

Yeah I guess that would work too! I like that idea of a catch all term but technically I’d guess that kettle sour works for the vast majority of these releases.

 

I think that New England Pale Ale and Radler/Shandy are both needed due to their popularity. Radlers are really different than other fruit beers. Along those lines I would like to see Grodizskie and Honey Beer added. I have tried several great examples of these styles in the past couple of years, especially when traveling to central Europe.

 

So...in defense of @Gajo74, how does the random guy sitting at a bar with, let's be f'ing honest, no clue about the differences described here, honestly wanting to add a beer to our collective knowledge, make the decision between the two?

Because market-driven breweries are so open about their processes?

Or should we just wait until those of you who know tell us?

 

How would "honey beer" be defined though? Just anything that has honey in it? BA already has Braggot as a style, so unless there are multiple other obscure honey-based sub-styles, I'm not sure a catch-all is necessary. I could see biere de miel getting moved there maybe, but lumping in every IPA with honey added seems weird.