Category: Style and Other Constructs

The other day I read one of the more interesting passages of beery thought that I had read in some time. It’s from a response to a post at Jeff’s Beervana about the wonky less than linear history of beer styles:

While it’s entirely possible that malt bills and hopping rates of many of craft brewing’s “new” styles might have had occurrences in the past for which records are poor, incomplete or just plain lost, historically brewers could NOT have brewed beers that we’d be able to directly compare to some of the popular craft brewing styles today. Why? Ingredients. There are simply varieties of malts and hops available to brewers today that are, in a word, new. These newer varieties are creating flavor profiles that weren’t really available to brewers of yore. Hell, the venerable Cascade hop only came into usage in the 1960’s I believe. Combinations of malt and hops in the way they are used today, but using instead the varieties (including malting techniques) of, say, a hundred years ago, would have yielded beers that are so dramatically different that we’d say that they were different styles. IPA is a simple example. One of the key characteristics of the “American IPA” is not just how much hops are used, but the fact that the bitterness, flavor and aromatic profile is centered around newer American varieties of hops.

I like this. It admits that the fashionable brewer is dependent on the new ideas of the maltster and the hop grower. And on new ways of doing things. But we know also the Albany Ale project has proven the opposite is quite true as well. Ingredients (aka stuff) which once were are no more. We have no idea what Cluster was like in 1838 any more than we know what hop will govern in 2038. We live on a river of time where the shock of the new is nothing compared to the disappearance of the past. And, if that all is true, are the style guidelines – like those updated as announced in a press release from the Brewers Association today – really as heinous as we might all quite comfortable suggest to each other? Or do they just express the today we happen to find ourselves facing? Put it this way – if new forms of ingredients and new ways of brewing should come into the market, why shouldn’t new names and concepts of classes be added to describe them as these are woven into our beer?

Let me illustrate the point.with an analogy to the strength of pale ales. The other day when I was doing my drinks free drinks dialogue I discussed how the range was both expanding and filling in. I suggested that I now needed a new word to be coined for me to describe US pale ales between 5.6%-ish and 7.4% or so. Something between a pale and an IPA that might itself be from 7.5% to about 8.5% where the double IPA may start to make merry up on up to 10% before they yield in turn to imperial IPAs. None of that really makes sense when compared to brewing heritage or even recent trendy trends… but if I am having a 6.5% brew, I have no illusions that I am in league with either a 4.9% or a 8%. I want to have words to describe this difference.

If that is the case, is difference based not on strength but on a change in methods or a novel ingredient so wrong? We all know that these style guides are not ultimately important let alone critical to understanding and appreciating beer. We admit that. But are they wrong? Consider the idea of “field beer” at page 30 of the new guidelines for example. Clearly deciding to disassociate itself from the downside of vegetable, it is a splintering off from fruit beer and herb beer. Fern ale might fit in here. Sure we would need someone to pick up and brew the style last described in 1668 but if it not only were brewed but then became the pervasive fashion totally replacing retro light lagers as the preferred drink for the hipsters of 2038 – why not describe it as its own separate style?

Here’s the thing. I don’t like to drink all that much on Sunday and really like to avoid drinking on Monday. It’s not that I plan when I do but have always liked clear days. And, for other reasons, I have to stay clear anyway. But I was asked to present some IPAs to some good beery people tonight and, well, that’s usually too interesting to pass up. So, I am going to get thinking about the stink of beer. I was over in northern NY Friday, bought a bunch of strong if not stenchily aromatic IPAs and plan to do a few experiments in smell-o-logy. I hope to finally prove the speed of smell. I am planning to see if anyone shouts out the word “parsley!!!” without prompting. And I also plan to see if we can find out how long beer people can go without actually sipping.

Should be fun. More later when the results start coming in. Any other experiments you suggest I impose upon the lab rats?

Update: A fairly focused range of beers can still illustrate a wide range of concepts about beer. I brought Oskar Blues Dales Pale Ale, Sixpoint Bengali Tiger, Stone Arrogant Bastard, Firestone Walker Double Jack, Anderson Valley Imperial IPA and Stoudt Double IPA. Beau’s poured its Beaver River I.P.Eh. So here is some of what we thought about:

♦ Brand theme. Stone was compared to Sixpoint. Both have very iconic imagery but Stone conveys all that gargoyle content while Sixpoint is much more subtle… not hard while you think of it. Both identify but only one irritates. But does it matter as long as it identifies? Anderson Valley looked like a 70s album cover but we were unclear on Zep or Yes.
♦ Price point. The Sixpoint was the cheapest beer (at $5.00 per litre) but stood out with the Firestone Walker (at $12 per litre) as the more tasty two of the set. This got is us into a conversation about who is the market for beer that go from $12 to $20 per litre and beyond.
♦ Regionalist tastes. Stoudt at 10% had a butter note that got us into diacetyl while the Anderson Valley gave us hard water. I suggested this might be an east coast v. west coast phenomenon. We talked about some of the earthy notes in Quebec beers that you don’t see elsewhere, too.
♦ Speed of smell. I clocked it at about 4 inches a second.
♦ Memory and taste. I wondered how much of taste and memory is the mind triggering taste associations as much as tastes and smell takes us back to a former place. I thought we unpack the mix of flavours in a given beer – and one that is very similar to the last and next beers – and our brain seeks to differentiate through distinguishing associations.

Finally, what I really learned is that you can lead a tasting without tasting. You get to ask questions and listen. I find that usually much more interesting than hearing what I think.

This week, I received Brewery History, No. 139, in the mail. A freebie. It was gratefully received as so few packets and packages come my way these days. Time was the mail brought cheques for ads, couriered samples of beer, love letters, job offers. It’s been too quiet lately. More mail would be good. But, ripping open the UK postmarked brown paper envelope, I had a sense that other things had arrived – ideas. No. 139 is the special issue of Brewery History dedicated to Michael Jackson. “Yow-za!” thought I. “This’ll be good.” And, as Hemingway and the God of the Old Testament have told us before, it was good.

Yet, something twigged. That bit of priggery I hate yet carry like a fault of DNA. That little desire to ask “is that really correct?” and, worse, to ask it out loud. Here is my problem:

…certain classical examples within each group, and some of them have given rise to generally accepted styles… If a brewer specifically has the intention of reproducing a classical beer, then he is working within a style. If his beer merely bears a general similarity to others, then it may be regarded as being of their type.

That is a quotation of Michael Jackson’s included in Martyn Cornell’s article “Michael Jackson and beer styles” found at pages 12 to 18 of good old No 139. The associated footnote states: “15. Jackson, M. (ed.)(1977) The World Guide to Beer. London: Mitchell Beazley, p. 14.” I have that book. You know, I don’t have all the books but I do have that one… albeit a Canadian first edition. Here is the whole quotation to a section of the book entitled “The classical beer-styles” (note that hyphen):

Beer fall into three broad categories: those which are top-fermented; those which are brewed with some wheat content (they are also top-fermented); and those which are bottom-fermented. There are certain classical examples within each group, and some of these have given rise to generally-accepted styles, whether regional or international. If a brewer specifically has the intention of reproducing a classical beer, then he is working within a style. If his beer merely bears a general similarity to others, then it may be regarded as being of their type. Such distinctions can never be definitive internationally, since the understandings of terminology varies between different parts of the world.

Now, let’s be clear. I am not suggesting Martyn has done something wrong. I am also really not saying that Jackson did not describe styles. I just think he has actually done something more than we have noticed. He has defined at least three classes: categories, styles andtypes. And, then, he organizes those classes. On pages 14 and 15 of his second book, Jackson goes on to describe 23 styles of beer under those three classes up there. Yet, has he really done what he says he has done? As far as I can see, he has not described “classical examples within each group, and some of them have given rise to generally-accepted styles.” He offers no examples. In fact, because he adds that fourth classifying word “group” out of which these “examples” come, well, it is not clear what he has done. And he includes definitions like “Ur-, Urtyp” that are not of the same class of concept (whether “type” or “style”) as the others. It’s all a bit of a mix.

It’s now thirty four years since Jackson’s paragraph was published. What it really represents, as Martyn’s article points out, is the beginning of a concept that he and others used to go on to define how we beer nerds think about beer. Yet, as far as I can tell, what we now call “styles” were really, in 1977, “types” to him. Consider this: these days the general convention is that 100% of beer brands need to fall into one style or another. There is no room left over for un-styled beer. Back then, by contrast, styles were not all the wedges on a pie graph. They were classic examples arising from groups. And groups related to types. For Jackson, at the outset, “styles” were still something of a hybrid idea somewhere between “type” and a further fifth category which he went on to call “classics” – which is an idea, from my reading, which leaned heavily towards the singular rather than the class. Perhaps archetypes. Or maybe just best beers ever. All very good ideas in itself to be sure. But ideas that were not yet fully formed.