Should Festbier and Märzen be two separate categories?

My first reaction was no, I only have four left to try! If you are keeping the same styles, but combining them differently and reducing the total, then I'm all for that. I haven't been into craft long enough to understand the history that has led to so many styles, or who feels/takes ownership of "the list", but the classification criteria for designating styles is all over the map. Criteria seem to include color, taste, country/region of production, country/region of target market, ABV, adjuncts, brewing method, etc.

This leads to ambiguity - such as how to classify a pumpkin beer. Sure, it belongs in Pumpkin Ale, but it why not make it Herb/Spiced if there is no real pumpkin, otherwise Fruit/vegetable. The label/name will tell us it's a pumpkin ale, we don't need the style to.

Seems like as soon as some style variation catches on, such as NEIPA, folks want a new style for it. Hey - I like Rum Barrel Aged Imperial Pumpkin Stout - let's make that a style too! In the case of NEIPA, let's just call it an IPA and they can add the NE on the label. Anyway, really looking forward to seeing how you handle this difficult challenge.

 

I'm happy with Festbier being a category and golden or pale being variations.

 

The Deutscher Brauer Bund (the German brewer's association does):

Märzen
Mindestens 13 (Oktoberfestbier mindestens 13,5)
http://www.brauer-bund.de/index.php?id=137&ageverify=16&PHPSESSID=760e6ee84cd77267192aa195194bacd6

It's from their definition of Märzen, where they're saying what the OG should be in degrees Plato. This is a translation:

Märzen
At least 13 (Oktoberfestbier at least 13.5)

 

There are a lot of other style changes that need to be made before we worry about Marzens..