Shipyard "Double ESB"-Is a Double ESB really still a Bitter?

Nope...that be an English Barleywine...much like Firestone's Double DBA, which is called an 'Imperial Special Bitter'...


PS, long live Pattinson and Cornell!

 

Don't get wrapped up in semantics, just buy it if it's good and don't if it's not. Styles are vague and sometimes meaningless, and the same beer brewed by different people could get called different styles.

 

I stopped reading after Shipyard. Garbage in, garbage out.

 

Yea the double dba is definitely more like an American strong ale to me than an ESB

 

To be fair here, I have a glass of the regular (non barrel aged) Double ESB and it was absolutely awful. Probably the worst beer I've had all year, maybe even ever.

If I had to classify this and the Double Old Thumper, I would say it fits more in the style of a barleywine. They can call it whatever they like, but the beer itself bares little resemble to any type of bitter IMO.

 

Firestone Double DBA probably would've sold out quicker if it was labeled English Barleywine. I know 2 guys who passed on it because they were scared of the "Bitter" part of the name. Stuff is outstanding!

 

We have a local beer from No-Li brewery called "Crystal Bitter." I was chatting with their brewery rep and he said they were thinking of changing the name because the "bitter" part threw people off, but they think maybe they are stuck with it since it's been called that for so long. Well then wouldn't you know it wins gold at the GABF this year so I guess they're really stuck with it now.

 

The same thing happened to mild in this country-being associated with old men with flat caps and whippets they had become unfashionable.I had one last week, described on the pump clip as a "dark bitter"
Problem with styles is that they have got confused with names. Different parties used different names for the same thing in many cases.Bitter, Pale Ale, IPA could well all be used by different people to describe the same thing.Bitter was what the retail trade (pubs) called the beer that the breweries labelled Pale Ale.Bass never sold their IPA as IPA, always as Pale Ale. Nobody cared, it simply didn't matter.Fuller's named one of their beers "Extra Special Bitter" or ESB. Just a good marketing name. Not that different though stronger than most at the time but just a name.Now it's regarded as a style which is nonsense.In fact bitter never has been defined properly and neither can it be as the genie is out of the bottle.It has been around for too long and in too many forms for that.Usually these days bitter is relatively low gravity so a bitter of 13.2% ABV would be a bit of an anachronism.Unusual but not wrong.Strong Ale or Old Ale or barleywine might be a more helpful description (and it's a brave man who thinks he knows the difference between those three)

 

What about Imperial Pale Ales vs. Strong Pale Ales? Are they IPA's? Or are they different? And what about Apples? Are they still Oranges?