How are styles determined

Reads 2245 • Replies 34 • Started Tuesday, July 1, 2008 12:31:01 PM CT

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Message Oakes P admin beers 30681 º places 1135 º 18:03 Tue 7/1/2008 Originally posted by kp Originally posted by urbeer So as an artist, I only, have the right to say what my creation really is, the rest only can guess. RateBeer has a history of ignoring the style set forth by the brewer in favor of what style the admins believe it to be. There are many examples where the style is part of the name of the beer, yet it gets classified elsewhere. Not defending or condemning, just saying. This is a gross misstatement. When in doubt, the brewer’s views supercede the opinion of any admin. That policy goes back to the Alpha King decision of 2002. When there is no doubt, we supercede the brewer’s take. The most blatant example is Alexander Keith’s India Pale Ale, which bears not one single attribute of that style. The most common are with American brewers calling their bog standard goldens ales "Kolsch". If a brewer is going to try to pass off a beer as being in a style it isn’t for the purposes of marketing cachet, we will call them on it. You see this with alt as well, and with pilsner in macrobrews. We do try to provide the consumer with useful information. If the brewer is definitely not providing accurate information on their label, we do our best to fill the void.
Message Cletus beers 6349 º places 233 º 18:38 Tue 7/1/2008 Originally posted by urbeer I have a problem, a big problem. We @ Struise do not brew to styles, we dear say, due to our excentric Struise signature, we create our own new styles, like a lot of other creative brewers do. But the above issue does not make any sense in the world of Ratebeer, Michael Jackson, Tim Webb, etc... How come? As out of the box brewers, we should have the authorisation, to defend our case, when we think, a new style is born. I will give you an example, regarding Black Albert. To our knowledge, Ba is not a RIS, but an RBS. As the style does not exist, it should be qualified as a Belgian Ale, because there you put all the ales that do not fit into any other style. Same problem with Dirty horse, qualified as a sour ale to Ratebeer, but in fact it is a marriage between a Lambic and a sour ale. And I could go on and on and on. So yes to my superior brewing knowledge, Scottish ale, is a style of its own. One of the styles, I really enjoy over anything else, but that I do not dear to brew up to know, this due to lack of superior brewing logic. Urbain @ Struise One of the problems is that a lot of people assume when they see the styles listed here that it is intended to be a rigid system everything must conform to. That’s not the case at all. In a nutshell, the different styles listed here are a guide and are categories that are open to interpretation. They provide a basic framework in helping the casual reader figure out roughly what to expect in a particular beer. Does it really make any difference at all if something is a sour a lambic or a marriage of the two? Isn’t the important point to get across that the beer is acidic and likely tarte as opposed to caramelly and roasty? In general, I think that the style guide here as it exists, while not perfect, is a valuable tool that helps us figure out what it is we seek in a beer.
Message JoeMcPhee P beers 12098 º places 543 º 20:57 Tue 7/1/2008 Originally posted by urbeer wrong again my dear Joe. Please look to the ratings of your collegues and you will see that BA definatley does not fit in the category of a Ris. Do not forget that I brewed the Dirty horse. Which was a typical lambic grist bill, that I treated like a Lambic until six months old, and then I gave it a Flemish sour twist. So as an artist, I only, have the right to say what my creation really is, the rest only can guess. Do you capture my thoughts? Urbain @ struise You can call it whatever you want... that doesn’t necessarily make it helpful to someone who is less initiated. I appreciate that you are pushing style-guidelines, and while I appreciate that, I don’t really get your point though... you’re never going to be happy with a classification unless we make a category with only your beer in it, so what’s the point of that? I know that you brewed the beer... you make that fact pretty well-known around these parts. There are loads of beers on here that don’t strictly fall into any category and there are lots of categories that are more catchalls for a beers with very diverse characteristics (think Belgian Ale, American Strong Ale, and Belgian Strong Ale). Do you capture my thoughts?

Message urbeer beers 40 º places 4 º 00:03 Wed 7/2/2008 Do not get me wrong here, I do not accuse anybody of anything, nor condemn anybody either. You all make a point somewhere, but it is not why we and other brewers do not exactly brew to style, that you have to classify certain beers in a category which are miles away from the end result. It is like a body that does not fit in a jacket, and you have to wear the jacket because someone else told you to. I rest my case, no hard feelings. cheers, Urbain
Message Cletus beers 6349 º places 233 º 00:07 Wed 7/2/2008 Originally posted by urbeer Do not get me wrong here, I do not accuse anybody of anything, nor condemn anybody either. You all make a point somewhere, but it is not why we and other brewers do not exactly brew to style, that you have to classify certain beers in a category which are miles away from the end result. It is like a body that does not fit in a jacket, and you have to wear the jacket because someone else told you to. I rest my case, no hard feelings. cheers, Urbain Where would you rather see a beer brewed with wild yeast? In the pale lager category or in the sour ale category? Which would be more useful to someone not as well versed in Belgian beers?
Message Cletus beers 6349 º places 233 º 00:21 Wed 7/2/2008 Originally posted by urbeer Do not get me wrong here, I do not accuse anybody of anything, nor condemn anybody either. You all make a point somewhere, but it is not why we and other brewers do not exactly brew to style, that you have to classify certain beers in a category which are miles away from the end result. It is like a body that does not fit in a jacket, and you have to wear the jacket because someone else told you to. This is also a rather pretentious reply. You say you don’t brew to style. Good for you. Neither do about 100 other brewers out there. What styles exactly are you not brewing to? Who determined said styles? What stylistic governing body are you not adhering to exactly? What artistic movement do you belong to that are redefining the culture of brewing? Enquiring minds would like to know.
Message after4ever P admin beers 8025 º places 322 º 00:37 Wed 7/2/2008 Originally posted by urbeer I have a problem, a big problem. We @ Struise do not brew to styles, we dear say, due to our excentric Struise signature, we create our own new styles, like a lot of other creative brewers do. But the above issue does not make any sense in the world of Ratebeer, Michael Jackson, Tim Webb, etc... How come? As out of the box brewers, we should have the authorisation, to defend our case, when we think, a new style is born. I will give you an example, regarding Black Albert. To our knowledge, Ba is not a RIS, but an RBS. As the style does not exist, it should be qualified as a Belgian Ale, because there you put all the ales that do not fit into any other style. Same problem with Dirty horse, qualified as a sour ale to Ratebeer, but in fact it is a marriage between a Lambic and a sour ale. And I could go on and on and on. So yes to my superior brewing knowledge, Scottish ale, is a style of its own. One of the styles, I really enjoy over anything else, but that I do not dear to brew up to know, this due to lack of superior brewing logic. Urbain @ Struise This is exactly what’s great about brewing, and exactly what’s useless about style guidelines (past a certain point). Styles guidelines help you when you’re first learning, but they stop being interesting after a couple of hundred beers pass your lips. When you’re new to the game and all the different kinds of beer look like this mountain you’ll never climb, styles help you break them all down into manageable chunks you can sample here and there and slowly accumulate knowledge, note differences, start eyeing out different aesthetic philosophies held by different brewers. But once you try enough beers, style’s not even important anymore. Everything keeps getting in the way--ingredient variations, brewing variations, local trends and traditions, cellaring, blending, and, most importantly, artistry on the part of the brewer. It’s useful and worthwhile to slap a style categorization on a beer when you’re loading it with tons of other metadata, as on a beer rating site. It’s just not central to the joys of drinking beer. Compleat drinkers quickly depend on their palates for pleasure before the data.

Message urbeer beers 40 º places 4 º 01:40 Wed 7/2/2008 Originally posted by jjpm74 Originally posted by urbeer Do not get me wrong here, I do not accuse anybody of anything, nor condemn anybody either. You all make a point somewhere, but it is not why we and other brewers do not exactly brew to style, that you have to classify certain beers in a category which are miles away from the end result. It is like a body that does not fit in a jacket, and you have to wear the jacket because someone else told you to. This is also a rather pretentious reply. You say you don’t brew to style. Good for you. Neither do about 100 other brewers out there. What styles exactly are you not brewing to? Who determined said styles? What stylistic governing body are you not adhering to exactly? What artistic movement do you belong to that are redefining the culture of brewing? Enquiring minds would like to know. Why should my reply be pretentious? Having a closer look to the beers, the other 100 brewers and even more, have produced over the years, one could say our brewing culture is continously being redefined, what makes me mostly happy. And you should be too, otherwise we would live in a very boring beer world... Urbain
Message urbeer beers 40 º places 4 º 01:42 Wed 7/2/2008 Originally posted by after4ever This is exactly what’s great about brewing, and exactly what’s useless about style guidelines (past a certain point). Styles guidelines help you when you’re first learning, but they stop being interesting after a couple of hundred beers pass your lips. When you’re new to the game and all the different kinds of beer look like this mountain you’ll never climb, styles help you break them all down into manageable chunks you can sample here and there and slowly accumulate knowledge, note differences, start eyeing out different aesthetic philosophies held by different brewers. But once you try enough beers, style’s not even important anymore. Everything keeps getting in the way--ingredient variations, brewing variations, local trends and traditions, cellaring, blending, and, most importantly, artistry on the part of the brewer. It’s useful and worthwhile to slap a style categorization on a beer when you’re loading it with tons of other metadata, as on a beer rating site. It’s just not central to the joys of drinking beer. Compleat drinkers quickly depend on their palates for pleasure before the data. +10 Urbain
Message SilkTork P beers 7751 º places 111 º 02:47 Wed 7/2/2008 Originally posted by Oakes Originally posted by cgarvieuk Generally this is the realm of the English admin team. My understanding, subject to correction from one of those guys, is this: The idea of "Scottish Ale" as a beer style stems largely from Michael Jackson’s writing. This sums it up perfectly. It’s an odd situation, but most "Scottish Ales" are actually brewed in America. Some Scottish brewers have at times labelled their beers "Scottish Ale", especially when exporting to America, but will call it something else when marketing it in the UK. There was a move by Scottish brewers in the early 70s to market cask versions of keg ales by using the old trade name for the product - that is the value of the cask in shillings. Even though naming the casks by their value in shillings was common in the trade throughout the UK, it was only in Scotland that this terminology was made public. As such in Scotland, milds, session bitters, medium strength bitters and premium bitters became known by their shilling names. This was not ever a different style, simply a different terminology for the same beers. Article: THE HISTORY OF BEER IN SCOTLAND & THE TRUE ORIGINS OF SCOTTISH ALE From doing the research for that article it turned out that Scotland has a more important, stronger and much more modern approach to brewing than the common assumption. The standard view is that Scotland was a primitive, poor country which had barely made it out of the stone ages, and couldn’t afford hops. While the truth is that for a long while Edinburgh was one of the major brewing centres of the World and challenged Burton for the export market. What has surprised me is that given how proud the Scottish are about their history and tradition, that they have accepted the nonsense that has been written about their brewing history (primitive brewing methods and so poor they couldn’t afford hops) - almost as though they don’t care about the beer, and are happy enough with their Whiskey tradition.