Should Grisette be its own style?

Kentucky Common should be, so why not grisette?

 

No, there are already too many styles. Every beer variation doesn't deserve a new style.

 

Perhaps Grisette is unique, but the current list of styles being such a propagated mess is no reason to keep tacking on new styles. You could make the same case for dozens of other unique beers. Where are we headed with this, each beer is it's own style? I know that seems extreme, but there are postings on here every few days proposing new styles. Let's clean up the mess, then discuss where we might need new styles.

The real reason for so many styles is the "everyone is a winner" mantra that brought us participation trophies. There are this many styles so that the beer competitions can have many categories, producing more winners. IMHO.

 

Any fans of grisette try out Smuttynose Hayseed.

 

It’s a farmhouse ale, I’m not sure it’s really any different from a Saison. From a regional, cultural, and drinkable perspective, they are very similar.

 

They are similar, but in no way the same and should be a unique style.

http://www.horscategoriebrewing.com/2015/10/what-is-grisette.html

 

Diversity is a good thing. I don't think that as craft beer culture matures that we should contract our definition of beer. We should expand it. That expansion not only involves the creation of new types of beer, but it also involves respecting, and sometimes resurrecting, older, more traditional types. Grisette is one of the latter.

Although this may be the case in competitions like GABF and the World Beer Cup, this is decidedly not why beer styles are proliferating.

 

You can find some lovely discussion about the grisette in a thread called The 750 Saison. I have had only two that listed that nomenclature on the label . I think @zid explained quite a bit of the history in that thread.

 

That article didn't do much for me. It talked about what a grisette is, not how it's different.

Seems basically the same...I'm not picking up the nuance. Wheat based working class beer from the same region of Belgium. Maybe slightly hoppier....but history seems pretty murky on the historical recipes for this resurrected "style"

 

If you like, you can compare and contrast it to what he's researched about saison. I assure you, there is a difference. Might it be more subtle? Sure, but it is a difference none-the-less.

http://www.horscategoriebrewing.com/search/label/Saison

 

I've had a couple, can't remember all of them, but TRVE makes one called Grey Watcher that's really tasty. Light with some subtlety to it.

 

You’ve linked a lot of articles....but can you give me the cliff notes?

If it’s truly a separate style, it shouldn’t be that difficult to explain the difference. I’m not convinced it exists....it’s a variant of Saison/Farmhouse ale.

 

His stuff is a REALLY good read when you have the time.

Maybe the best way to look at it would be as different substyles. I would look at it as the difference between a German Pils and a Czech Pils.

 

There is a very good article entitled "Grisette: A Lost Beer of Wallonian Industry" in the May/June 2018 edition of Zymurgy magazine. It is a worthwhile read.

Also in that magazine is an excellent article about Spruce Beer!

Cheers!

 

Ah, the style question again. Until a few years ago beer drinkers had never heard of styles, largely because they hadn't really been thought of. It is perhaps the result of Michael Jackson's attempts to inform the world about beer.
What we call styles began simply as names used by brewers.If it was brewed using Pale Malt it became a Pale Ale. Beer names became interchangeable (I am making the mistake of calling it beer as that was brewed by a separate industry from Ales but today it is a catch all phrase),there does not exist any authoritative body to assign names.And in any case, bolting the stable door is unhelpful now the horse has gone.

 

OK, as long as we're giving up, a free-for-all-then. I want to see a new style called "Rumbas", which are rum barrel-aged stouts. They are really unique, only a few dozen on the market, and they deserve a style.

But wait, couldn't the Brewers Association take the lead to make some sense of the mess? Yes I realize the BA isn't authoritative, but they are in a position to lead by example.

 

The Grisette is one more in the long list of regional variations of belgian/french farmhouse, and related workers allotment beer which we are going to have to deal with categorizing. The grisette is closer abv. wise to what the actual workers who the grisette was brewed for would've been drinking. It is a distinct regional variation from the Hainaut province of Belgium.
We also have to remember that the ales of old were not the American sized versions more commonly being associated with the umbrella name of the style, and which have been allowed to shape the perception. These were made to be refreshing, and easy to put back. The alcohol in them was not there to make you more awesome.