Beer Style Question

I am fairly new to making beer and I have a question about beer styles. What makes the different styles what they are? For example if you do a search for Belgium Trippel to will find hundreds of recipes with a large variance in ingredients. What is it that makes it a Trippel? I find this for every style I have come across. Is there a site out there that will clarify this. I have the Brewers Association document on Beer Styles but it is pretty vague in this respect. I find this with all of the sites and documents I have come across. someone enlighten me or please point me in the right direction.

Reply to
Walter Venables
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Beer styles are defined at

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The Belgian Tripel is defined at

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If I were going through the efforts to make a Belgian Tripel, I would go further and make a Belgian Dark Strong Ale - specifically a Chimay Grande Reserve clone.

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Dick

Reply to
Dick Adams

Get the book "Designing Great Beers" by Ray Daniels. It's a good place to start.

Reply to
BierNewbie

Trippels are pretty easy. Use a good Belgian yeast strain and all pale malts. Tripples are named (though there is some debate) because they are generally triple the strength of a more normal beer.

Use all 2 row, or pale malt extract. Shoot for about 1.080-90, but dont do that will all malt. Shoot for about 1.050 with malt and add corn sugar to the boil to boost the gravity. Use promash to do the calculations...or email me with your desired batch size and I'll do it for you. The corn sugar will make a drier beer.

Use plenty of oxygen before you pitch the yeast for a vigorous ferment and allow it to ferment warm...around 80 or so. This will highlight the phenolics and esthers of the belgian yeast strain. I prefer Wyeast

3944.

Walter Venables wrote:

Reply to
harvestwind_73

Only for the purposes of American brewing companies. The Belgians would be highly unlikely to agree with that definition.

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

The character of the resulting beer. And, no joke, whatever the brewer calls it, within reason. It's like asking what makes French bread what it is?

You've chosen a particularly problematic example. There is no definition of tripel, and historically there was no choesive style. The name was a simple indicator of strength, reflecting the older brewing technique of pulling multiple worts from the same mash. If, for example, three worts would be pulled, the first (and therefore strongest) would be called tripel.

In modern times, it tends to follow the example set by Westmalle and their tripel. But historically (and IIRC there are some extant modern Belgian examples) a tripel didn't have to be light-colored, relatively dry and having a light character for its alcohol content due to the use of a significant portion of sugar in the boil.

That's because outside of competitions, some homebrewers, and some excessively anal beer geeks, nobody is terribly concerned with nailing down styles with absolute precision. Take porter and stout: in general, the only things the names will tell you is to expect a dark beer with varying degrees of roast character, and that within the same brewery the stout is likely to be the stronger of the two. But beyond that, whatever the brewer decides to call it is what it is.

That's not to say that the broad styles don't have meaning: an IPA that tasted like a doppelbock would be a crap IPA. But trying to make a firm distinction between an IPA and a pale ale is like trying to decide how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Here's the best enlightenment I can give you: brew beer you like to drink and that tastes good to you. That's far more important, and rewarding, than trying to shoehorn it into what are in many cases totally arbitrary style definitions.

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

I've heard the same thing. The Belgians are blessed with such good yeast that they don't subscribe to any one description for a particular beer style. They just make whatever tastes good (which is darn near everything).

Reply to
David M. Taylor

Hey, a few of us resemble that remark. Well, I don't know about "excessively", but a little anal perhaps. And for good reason, I think.

I agree with you on the porter vs. stout thing. However, I can call a feather "macaroni" and it still doesn't make it macaroni to anyone but myself.

Ha! You must be talking about McEwan's IPA. Nothing like an IPA, nothing like it at all, English or otherwise. Very little hops to speak of. But still a splendid beer.

I tend to agree with you, that if it tastes good to you, then it is good, for you. However, I do think there is a good reason for specific style guidelines. The main reason for categorization of beers is so you can tell an outsider with confidence, before they try it, "This is an English IPA," where if they're knowledgeable at all about beer, they're expecting a certain thing... an elevated degree of floral English hops balanced by caramel malt or whatever. If you instead handed them an American IPA, with a blast of grapefruity, resiny hop flavor and aroma, that just ain't right. There is a huge difference between the two, and lumping it all together and just calling it "IPA", or even "good beer", is not fair to the beer enthusiast. We need these definitions so we have a general sense of what we're getting. And Lord knows, when you're spending, for example, $8, whether it be for a 6-pack or even a single bottle of beer (and occasionally even more than that), it sure would be nice to have a general idea in advance of whether you'd like it or not.

And, if you're a homebrewer craving a little bit of objective feedback and perhaps the occasional ribbon, I think you deserve to know if your beer is good or bad. We can all make decent beer that makes ourselves happy. But it is another thing to make a brew that someone else agrees is really good. It just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. We all need a little bit of recognition from time to time. Some of us get that feeling in other ways, outside of brewing. Likewise, for some of us, brewing is a significant part of our lives and it's nice to get some recognition that we're not wasting our time giving beer away to friends, who perhaps secretly think it tastes like crap. I would like to know if my beer tastes terrible, and how to improve it for next time. Beer styles provide a basis of comparison for brewers and judges alike. It's an unavoidable means of comparison for people craving just the slightest bit of recognition. Myself included. That's my thought on it.

Reply to
David M. Taylor

The only people who really pay attention to the BJCP styles are homebrewers (even then, not all of them). Most commercial brewers, American or not, tend to pretty much ignore the style definitions and call their beer whatever they want to.

John.

Reply to
John 'Shaggy' Kolesar

I'd disagree with that. Brewers in general label their beers in a way that will not confuse their customers. And while they may not be as limited as judges in a homebrew competition, the main way they do that is to use stylistic designations. For instance, what style if Rogue's Shakespear Stout? Bigfoot Barleywine-style Ale? New Begium Trippel? Now, I'm sure you can come up with a lot of examples of beer that doesn't have a stylistic designation, but that doesn't mean brewers go at it completely at random.

Reply to
Joel

What style is Michelob's "Amber Bock"?

Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

I believe in France they call that a "Mauvais?"

Reply to
Scott L

"Now, I'm sure you can come up with a lot of examples of beer that doesn't have a stylistic designation, but that doesn't mean brewers go at it completely at random."

Reply to
Joel

But Michelob's Amber Bock *does* have a stylistic designation.

Actually, I agree with you for the most part (I was just making a funny), but I think the accuracy of the designation largely depends on how the brewery perceives it's intended audience.

Rouge probably assumes some reasonable level of sophistication on the part of its drinkers; Michelob... not so much. I think in the latter cases, style designations (or the lack thereof) stem more from marketing considerations than anything else.

Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

Eeeh... most small breweries tend to get those straight. Here in the nordic countries, and to an even larger extent in the baltic region and eastern europe, the beer style on the bottle has nothing to do with the content. Here are some examples that are fairly well-used:

Porter:

- Can mean anything from a 4,5% dark lager to a 8% imperial stout Irish ale:

- Look above Pilsner:

- Usually just any pale lager Pale ale:

- I've seen many bitters use this name Doppelbock:

- Usually used for any lager, dark or light, featuring more than 6%. Except in Germany of course Red/amber ale/lager:

- Tend to be just darker lagers British ale:

- Eeh...don't even get me started

This is a wide generalisation. But try countries like Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, Russia and other beer countries and you will see that more often than not, my generalisations are better than those used by "beer freaks", at least when it comes to larger breweries.

M
Reply to
Marcus Räder

What's more, if the inappropriately named beer becomes popular, it starts to seriously alter the market's perception of what that style really is. Case in point: Keith's India Pale Ale from Nova Scotia. Bland, watered-down yellow stuff that never came within 100 feet of a hop. It's actually pretty close to tasting like BudMillerCoors. Ask John Q. Canadian what an IPA tastes like and I guarantee they'll describe that. What's worse, if you serve a real IPA, they'll think

*you're* the one who's nuts.
Reply to
tkcbb77

In the former as well.

To paraphrase a well-known marketing axiom:

Nobody has gone broke underestimating the sophistication of beer-drinkers...

I would imagine the sophisitcation that Rouge is assuming is on the part of beer judges in commercial compititions than that of its drinkers. The mere fact that their marketing uses "if we won medals, you'll like our beer" strategy in their advertising indicates that they aren't all that impressed with the sophisitcation of their drinkers. All they expect from they expect from their drinkers is their money.

ab

Reply to
alebrewer

So basically what I am getting is that there isn't a site out there that will shed light on this subject and all beer is the same??

It would be like if you took any style of pasta add some meat and cheese you could call it lasagna.. Personally I don't think so. There must be some sense to this somewhere. I guess I will just have to keep looking. Thanks to all that have responded.

Reply to
Walter Venables

As others have stated, the BJCP is a good guideline. For ales and a limited number of lagers Daniel's book (Designing Great Beers) is good too - the second half is all about designing according to style guidelines.

(Sorry - been away for a while)

----------------------------------------------- John Bleichert snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net The heat from below can burn your eyes out!!

Reply to
John Bleichert

I guess I'm left unsure of what you feel is lacking in the BJCP style guidelines. I think if they were any more specific they'd be unreasonably so. They are vague on ingredients, but this is because there are lot's of ways to get you to the same style. They are, in other words, *guidelines* to what might be expected in the end product rather than a roadmap to get you there.

There are a number of good books out there that delve into the specifics of brewing to style in greater detail. "Designing Great Beers", many of the Classic Styles books, etc. These may be more of what you're looking for.

Beer styles also aren't really like specific dishes -- there's usually a good bit of variance within a single style. This is particularly true of the eclectic Belgian styles, which strongly resist pigeonholing.

Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

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