Beer Style Question

Definitely. There is certainly a point of utter inaccuracy or absurdity, where the name has little to nothing to do with what most people will generally conceive of what a certain name represents. Like, oh, say Cranberry Lambic.

It's all about context, in my opinion. Yes, there are good reasons. If you're looking for objective evaluation, or you're running a competition, there are enormously good reasons to define things pretty firmly. But even then, it's important to realize that there will always be a degree of arbitrariness, such as very fine subdivisions of popular styles so as to avoid having one category have 200 entries instead of a more typical 50 (to make numbers up).

I do think that beer makers, home or commercial, should find names that are in the right neighborhood of what they made. I'd be dismayed if I bought something labeled hefeweizen and got a copper-colored hop bomb that smacked me upside the head with centennials, even if the beer was brewed with wheat and was bottle conditioned. But if someone gave me something they called a bitter and it tasted to me more like a pale ale? Eh. Those two are so close together that there's no good dividing line. And that occurs with a lot of the style categories that are out there.

I think you've come up with an excellent example of where context becomes really important. If someone did go out of their way to point out that their beer was an English IPA, and that's what I got, I might be a little disappointed. If someone just gave me an IPA, and I found it to be one or the other, frankly, that's fine with me. Unless I were judging or something like that. Then the distinction matters more.

When I say just brew what's good, don't worry too much about what style it fits, I'm talking in the context of everyday drinking, when you just want to enjoy a good product. And I think in most cases, that's what people are looking for commercially as well. Give me a name that gives me a reasonably good expectation of what I'm going to get, and I'll decide from there whether I like it or not. The real fine-tuned distinctions, and the honest-to-god discussions I've heard from people who will say "well, it tastes fine but I don't like it because it's not really a proper ____" frankly gets in the way of simply appreciating a well-crafted beer.

Totally agreed. The devil's in the details of how precise one needs to get to achieve that.

And I agree with that. Where I differ not necessarily with you, but with those I've run into who think that these distinctions should apply in all circumstances, is that it's necessary to define and evaluate things that precisely all the time. I went through a stage of that when I first started exploring good beer and when I started brewing my own. I don't know if it's because I stopped brewing, or other factors, but most of the time now, I just want to enjoy a good beer. And as long as you're not steering me wrong by giving me something dramatically different than what the label says, as long as you're giving me a good beer, I'll be happy.

-Steve

I think you're taking the path of the discussion out to a bit of an extreme.

However, I can see where in particular what I wrote may appear to be way too loose for what you're trying to learn. Going back to your original post, I'm guessing that you're looking for info on what are the typical characteristics of a certain style, and how do you replicate it in your brewing.

I'll echo a couple other people's suggestions in a second, and add in an additional resource or two, but before I do, I'll offer up this bit of advice:

Still keep in mind that what's important is brewing beer that you enjoy drinking, and that others enjoy drinking. It's really easy to get so caught up in nailing such a tiny target that you can drive yourself crazy and lose sight of what makes this enjoyable (although, there are some people who do get enjoyment out of trying to hit a very precise target; if that's you, you can safely ignore pretty much everything I'm saying on this subject). As you read up and research various styles, pay more attention to the broad scope of a style, rather than its finely tuned substyles. Learn about porter, what makes it so, and don't worry so much about whether it's a robust porter or a brown porter or a Baltic porter.

OK, some resources:

Ray Daniels' book "Designing Great Beers." When I did brew, I learned more about how to craft a recipe than from any other source. Not just the basics, but for various styles.

Michael Jackson's Beer Companion. FOr your purposes, I'd say this is better than his World Guide, as the Companion is organized around styles, instead of the World Guide's geography. He talks about the overall character, the typical ingredients and processes, and gives good commercial examples. (Well, mostly good; there are a few in there that frankly are way off, like Alaskan Amber as a Düsseldorfer altbier.)

Lastly, and this is the best one,, both in terms of effectiveness as well as enjoyment: drink. Find the good examples, and taste them. Take notes on them if you want, and not what you get out of them. As you brew more, you'll start to recognize those elements in your beer, start to learn how you got those elements, and can make adjustments accordingly. And you can get to see just how much range you can get in a given style.

-Steve

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rec.crafts.brewing:451218

Good words of wisdom.

I guess I feel that the sites I have found to be vague is that there are so many types of malt, etc. out there to choose from how do you know what and how much to use to use. None of the sites state the type of malt, etc. that is best for a particular style. Do you just ignore the ingredients and worry about the starting and ending S.G.'s?

This is where I am most confused. Too many ingredients to choose from and I guess not enough knowledge.

Walter

You need to look up actual brewing recipes. Also, some breweries give brewing info. See Sierra Nevada Brewing.

nb

You probably need a good recipe resource.

Dick

There are a lot of potential ingredients. My advice is to start simple, and use ingredients from the country the recipe comes from. E.g., use something like a nice Maris Otter, a touch of British crystal, East Kent Goldings, and a British-style yeast for a bitter. Use German pilsner malt, a touch of German light crystal, and a good lager yeast for a German pils. Use the style guidelines for O.G., BU, and some idea of additional ingredients that may be needed. Start simple. Brew as often as reasonable. You'll soon learn enough about the ingredients to get comfortable. Also, buy a book or two. Don't just get a recipe book, get something like Ray Daniels' _Designing Great Beers_. You'll learn how to design your own recipes in whatever style you like (except Belgians; for that get the recent series of three books from the AHA, by Markowski, Hieronymus, and Sparrow).

I think you probably want a book with actual recipes. I like a number of the Classic Styles books (all of which have recipes), although some of these books are really better than others.

The Ray Daniels book "Designing Great Beers" would be really good for this. That's pretty much the kind of stuff he talks about.

John.

In article , Walter Venables writes

I can sympathise completely. My recommendation is to do that which many of us have had to do: a quarter of a century of devoted, focussed and determined quaffing of ales, beers, lagers, stouts, etc. from draught, bottled, and cash-conditioned in pubs, bars, at home, in the homes of others, at home and abroad.

I feel that with such intense and thorough research, I am starting to get the hang of what names people tend to use for what drinks. I still have a few questions, though, so my quest continues...

(And the only conclusion I have come to so far is that if it comes from a large brewery, I probably won't enjoy it very much.)

Get yourself some good recipe books, or Ray Daniels "Designing Great Beers". Look through the BJCP guidelenes, and when you see a beer style that looks interesting, go gte some of the commercial examples of it listed in the style guidelines. Drink the beer while you read the guidelines and try to see if you can taste what's mentioned there. Then, look up various recipes for the style and see what components contribute the flavors you tasted.

----------->Denny

-- Life begins at 60...1.060, that is.