Beer Styles

by Bryan Gros

There has been a lot of discussion on the Homebrew Digest lately about beer styles. The questions basically involve whether the description of a historical style, like IPA, is an accurate description and, if a modernized version of the style is used, isn't this fairly arbitrary? I guess the more basic question is whether a rigid set of guidelines should be used to judge beers or whether they should be judged as being a great beer or not.

There is a good consensus as to whether the styles should be trashed or not. Styles, or guidelines, are necessary in judging. If someone is a good brewer, then you can just give him the styles to reproduce and see how close he or she gets. Presumably, when people brew, they have an idea of what they want to make. A judge can only help the brewer if they know what the brewer was shooting for, and these commonly used "goals" are the styles. Of course the styles are only needed for competitions. A brewer can brew great beers that might not fall into a particular category. But to avoid trying to compare apples and oranges, the styles give a common yardstick with which to judge a group of beers.

As to where the styles came from, that's a different story. Many styles have a historic basis, which were defined by geography, location relative to malt and hops, water supply, etc. Some of the styles have died and been resurrected. While a lot is known about the history of some of the styles, the version published by the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) is a modern version of the style. After all, the malts and hops have all changed in the last two hundred years as well as our understanding of the brewing process. So naturally the beers have changed as well. And the styles will further change as they are interpreted by brewpubs in this country and abroad.

Which brings us to changing and inventing styles. If we accept that rigid style guidelines are needed for competitions, they should be difficult to change. But there does need to be a process to change them when it is needed. This area is one that the AHA should address, if their goal is to serve their membership. As the national homebrewing body, the AHA should maintain a list of styles as well as a means to modify them. (They could also choose to pass this responsibility off to the new judges organization that will replace the BJCP). Homebrewers are always inventive; many of us brew to make beers that are not available in any store, but that is why many competitions have a "specialty" category.

The Great American Beer Festival seems to have a slightly different set of styles. There are five substyles of American Lager, perhaps so that the brewers who make the majority of beers sold in this country can enter. Those don't even include Dark Lager and American Ale/Lager (Cream Ale)! There are no categories for the popular "red ale" beers, and for some reason they were put in the American Brown ale category rather than the American Amber ale category. The winners in the Bock category were all Doppelbocks; this result could be due to the vast array of beers in America which have "bock" in the name. So, while winning a medal is great for advertising, it doesn't always tell the consumer what he or she needs to know. After all, professional brewers should be using style names to help their customers know what to expect when they try their beers.