Misleading Beer Style Names

And make sure you look at an authoritative history. 95% of what's written about IPA is fantasy. Worth a look:
http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/four-ipa-myths-that-need-to-be-stamped-out-for-ipaday/
http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/more-ipa-myths-that-must-die-on-ipaday/

 

IMHO not even a complete newbie would order something called "Dark IPA" and expect it to be light in color. To note that the "P" in IPA stands for "pale" and is at odds with the word "dark" requires a small amount of knowledge and a large amount of pedantic self-righteousness.

 

I'll point out that KFC makes "Tender Roast" and Dunkin' Donuts makes "Frozen Hot Chocolate" and no one complains that these product names are misleading.

 

We only have these arbitrary terms for beer styles to communicate with each other. Aside from that function, they're really not important. Sure -- if you nit-pick about the origins of these names, some of them will seem ridiculous. But that's true about a lot of our language, isn't it?

 

There really is only 2 kinds of beers. Ales and lagers. The rest of the styles we have made up are just over the times to not have to say all the colors/flavors/aromas of a beer. If I say a stout you have an idea of what the beer will be like. We put the styles in place and new beers are constantly popping up.

I am brewing now a pumpkin ale using farmhouse yeast and Brettanomyces. Calling it a wild pumpkin ale.

 

Misleading beer style name has to be 'Bitter'. Twenty five years ago the term might have fit but by today's hoptastic standards it might be more accurately called 'Malty'.

 

I think the whole problem here stems from the belief that "pale" in IPA has anything to do with color, when in fact it seems to have more to do with the pale malt used to brew it. I mean, I don't think I can remember the last time I had a truly pale-colored IPA...

As such, there is no dissonance at work when an IPA goes dark with the addition of some roasted malts and whatnot. Now let's all stop overthinking things...

 

I think the problem comes from putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. If the style tasted worth a damn no one would care what it's called

 

As much as I agree, I also feel that is it was a universally-loved style, there'd probably be a huge move to define some sort of universal nomenclature for it, one as specific as possible, wine-style...

 

I've bought a few Imperial Pale Ales thinking at the time they were India Pale Ales.

 

what is an Imperial Pale Ale? Do you mean Imperial India Pale Ale?

 

I think people have tried to fix it -- but there may not be a "correct answer", and maybe the reason there's no perfect solution is because the understood terms we're combining to make a new term don't really mean that much.

I think when someone says "Dark IPA", they're not abbreviating "Dark India Pale Ale"; they're using IPA as its own word, not the words that the acronym originally stood for. Kind of like how AT&T is still called that, even though they don't do much with telegraphs anymore. And you're not going to see MTV change its name to "The Douchebags Fighting and Screwing Channel" Honestly, I don't really like saying Black or Dark IPA, either -- but I do understand what it means...