Style FAQ

TechMyst wrote: : I was able to find parts I and II of the Style FAQ which were posted / : started in 1995. : : Were the remaining parts ever written?? Part III is where the actual types : of beer were looked at...any help would be greatly appreciated! : : TM : :

Try this....

Part III was at least started. The only version I found during a quick Google search was here:

In case anyone is interested, the best place to find Parts I and II is probably here:

FWIW, of the people on the contributors list, I still communicate, at least to some extent, with Binkley, Brockington, Frane, and Stewart. Binkley is still around, and may still have the definitive version somewhere. Assuming he doesn't read this, I'll ask.

There's no definitive version. The Web's eclipsing of Usenet neatly coincided with Mike Stewart and I getting busy as hell with other things, and so it died a quiet and unremarked death.

Indeed. I don't have any version sitting around, much less a definitive version.

And I'm still busy as hell. Otherwise I might be tempted to make some inflammatory comments about Ringwood yeast and its prevalance in certain geographical regions. Since I'm just back from a trip to Maine and have a lot of work to catch up on, I'll avoid starting a protracted flamewar by staying discreetly silent on what part of the country I am thinking of.

Mike Stewart! Holy crap! We thought you wuz dead.

Being stuck out hear in the land of perpetually clean-burning yeast, I am woefully ignorant of the good/bad aspects of Ringwood. I take it that you are in the camp that holds it is inherently EVIL, and incapable of being managed well enough to ever produce GOOD?

I recently drank with another SNOB, currently residing in Ringwoodland, who holds that it can do GOOD if properly managed.

If I got out more, maybe I could decide for myself, but I must content myself for now with Traveling the World by Bottle (TM).

Presumably the California Clean Air Act keeps Ringwood out of the state.

My SNOBBISH view is that it can be OK if properly managed. I could probably even enjoy Ringwood beers at a quota of about three bottles a month. However when I go to a place like Maine I find myself quickly over my Ringwood enjoyment quota. Possibly I am not looking hard enough; it was not a particularly beer oriented trip.

I'll have to try that sometime. It can't be more cramped than coach.

Having had Ringwood beers from the, uh, Ringwood brewery (GBBF three years back), as well as several NE US beers using said yeast, I'm convinced that the Yanks have done the same thing to Ringwood that they've done to everything else English when it comes to beer: turn the volume up to 111, because goddammit, we're Amerkuns and we can't have none of that subtlty shit. What the PNW did to hops in formerly English styles, several (there are some exceptions) of the ANE breweries have done to the yeast. Actual Ringwood tastes nothing like a butterscotch bomb.

-Steve

Could be. My understanding was that Ringwood yeast tends to flocculate and settle out before metabolizing the diacetyl. It could also simply be that some American brewers don't rouse the yeast or do whatever extra work is required to avoid butterscotch. I would be amazed to hear that anyone is deranged enough to deliberately make a butterscotch beer. But then I am often amazed.

Even if the butterscotch is kept under control, Ringwood is still a highly distinctive yeast. Some people like the flavor profile and some don't. I'm on the fence, but I do get tired of Ringwood yeast very quickly.

Never beena fan of the diacetyl-laden Ringwood bombs that seem to represent the vast majority of American examples. Back in the early 90s, when Howie Faircloth was doing the brewing at Wharf Rat in Baltimore, he managed to keep the popcorn butter character muted and the beers were exceptional examples. The same can not be said of other producers, then or now, that I've sampled.

CG

I have had Geary's Pale Ale fairly often when vacationing in Maine. The butter seems mostly under control unless you are pickier about it than I am. But it still has all the other Ringwood signature flavors. It's the 600lb gorilla of ale yeasts.

I haven't been there in a long time, but Wharf Rat is probably the best example I have had.

Maine is Ringwood Central ... tough to avoid it there. Atlantic Brewing and Bar Harbor Brewing will keep the RW at bay; Allagash is all Belgian-stylee, and damn good at it too.

Outside of Maine, Ringwood has been beaten into several tame and odd formats: at Long Trail, it's used to ferment very-clean-indeed altbiers (and this summer, a damn credible weizen; yes, I was very surprised), and given that the head brewer's last job before LT was Zum Uerige, he oughta know. Magic Hat lets RW show up in some beers but not others ... but when they age at all, the butter starts peeking out. Luckily, there's more non-RW yeasts running around this neck of the woods (heh) these days.

Lordy lordy, the responder list here takes me back a decade or so.

-- Andy Ager