The Protected Geographic Indication (PGI) Beer Style Guidelines

Daft Eejit Brewing?

 

Ron (@patto1ro),

I noticed in the linked PGI Beer Style Guidelines that Märzen is not just a strength designation but a definition for a specific beer type:

“Märzen

OG °P: 13.2 – 14.0
% ABV: 5.3 – 6.2
EBC: 8.0 – 32.5
IBU: 21.0 – 25.0

Very mellow, palatable, mild, altbayerisch aroma to malty aroma, very mild bitterness.”

What are your thoughts here?

Cheers!

 

Think we can do better than this

By all means, nice effort, but with those NA beer definitions I might have to look for another hobby...this could have been accurate in 1992 though.

 

I think BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) is what you're looking for:

https://www.bjcp.org/bjcp-style-guidelines/

 

"Bundlesome" is my favorite Festus T Haggen addition to common parlance. Played by famed jazz singer Ken Curtis, Fetus T. Haggen is a brilliant comedic character of the beloved western Gunsmoke.

 

Not to mention the fact that apparently they've de-funded the BJCP Beer Police! No records of any arrests that I can find, anyway.
__________

The early proposed regulations under the post-Repeal Federal Alcohol Administration Act in the US had much stricter definitions - called "standards of identity" - for some beer styles. Take for instance this one:

But the brewers objected. "We gotta use what kind of yeast? How much barley malt + adjuncts? We can't make it darker? Gotta be how strong? Ah, c'mon - this is America, our ancestors came here for the freedom to brew anything they wanted and call it by whatever name that sells - where's our freedom!
(PS - Thanks for gettin' rid of Prohibition. Did we mention that?)"

So, we now have this legal (and vague) definition of Ale:

 

Andreas Krennmair commented towards the end of the post (with emphasis in bold by me):

“The next question is of course: how would any of this be enforced? Several of the official documents list contact addresses for fraudulent usage of the PGI term, but what would be fraudulent here? If a Bavarian brewed a 45 IBU Pils and put a Bavarian Beer PGI logo on their bottles, would that constitute fraud and a misuse of the PGI logo? Or are these style descriptions just vague suggestions? That’s been entirely unclear to me.”

I suspect that the PGI has the same level of ‘police force’ as the BJCP, i.e., none.

Cheers!

 

Yes, yes I am.

Another case of poor legislation/law? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Cheers!

 

At least within the EU these are legally enforced labeling conventions. Similar to champaign, balsamic from Modena, and Parmigiano. I believe it's the exact same program actually.