Interesting, curious about his thoughts.
I’m not sure spice herb vegetables or fruit beer would be as easy as specialty grains to kill. What category would you put pumpkin beers in for example? (Unfortunately we can’t just nuke them all as well as the category, or fire them into the sun which would be my preference haha). Most specialty beers could be dropped into something, but your average “strawberry ale” or “thai lemongrass” beer would be harder. You could start by just whittling the category down, dropping blood orange IPAs into IPA for example.
For my part, when entering new beer, I always default to the IPA or whatever main category if the beer is an orange ipa, or rye ipa, for example.
I understand that some beers are just missing major details in case of fruits or vegetable beers… what exactly is a pumpkin beer or a strawberry beer… a pale ale with pumpkins ? a stout with strawberries?
For my part I do the same, when I see a Spice/vegetable/fruit/special grain beer with a proper style included in the description, I put the entry in the proper existing style instead of those ragbag styles. The fact that my 4th most-rated style is Fruit beer still bugs me…
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The way I see it is this:
The different ways of categorizing cider arose in different cultures to meet their individual needs. OK, but it leaves us with a choice to approach each country’s cider tradition in its own way, or to try to create something universal in nature. Either way, we still need to decide how finely to parse the categorization. There’s no definitive work on which to base this.
The biggest split I see lies between the modern “craft” cider movement, which has things like Hopped Cider and Fruit Cider, and the more traditional styles. The modern stuff is easy to identify and categorize, as is something like Ice Cider.
The Spanish type seems easiest to separate of the traditional styles.
I know to take Cider, Hopped Cider, Fruit Cider and Ice Cider as the four cider styles (plus Perry) is horribly new world, but it does allow us to set aside the finer debates about each nation’s categorization methods.
Would something like “keeved” be easy to identify?
As for mead, I’d just do what Alex has proposed. I could go either way on Polish and Tej, but Cyser, Braggot, Fruit and Spice are pretty straightforward. If it’s spiced and fruited, I don’t think that’s a big deal. Just pick one.
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This is why we must try to seperate ciders/meads in more generic ways. Spiced/Fruited/Hopped categories could be okay since there are Traditional Cider Styles that are named especially because of the added fruit for example.
Maybe we could at least add the concept of Light (1.5 - 7% abv) vs Hard Ciders (7-15% abv) into that?
Cyser is really just a fruited mead, the same as pyment or morat. I am not against having cyser separate, but it might cause confusion.
Yes, you’re right. Not sure what I was thinking, but the idea is still the same - it is (Anglo-?)American style of classification, that’s why I prefer more neutral one. But I wouldn’t have huge problem with “mead - melomel” neither, as long as it is clear what goes under the style.
If we look at the beer styles, it is huge mixed bag. We have separation by color (IPA vs. BIPA), separation by ABV (SIPA vs. IPA vs. DIPA), separation by yeast (IPA vs. ISL), separation by hops (Czech Pils vs. Pilsner), separation by region (Polotmavy vs. Amber Lager), separation by process (Lambics vs. Wild Ales), separation by ingredients (Wheat beers vs. Barley based styles), separation by what’s just on the label (Pale Lager vs. Premium Lager), separation by some criteria noone understands (styles like Scottish Ale, English Pale Ale) etc.
This has always annoyed me. Separating Duvel and Chimay Blue to different styles makes a lot more sense than separating Chimay Blue and La Trappe quad to different styles. That being said, I would like to keep the beer style discussion in other thread…
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I think the vast majority of commercially produced “hard cider” is 5-7% though. That would be super confusing.
Isn’t “hard cider” just a US term for what the rest of the world calls cider?
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Yeah but like I said, a 2% sparkling cider in a can isn’t the same experience at all than a 14% still cider, there should be a way to separate them somehow…
The rest of the world does not have non-alcoholic cider?
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Non-alcoholic ciders are called Apple Musts
The one they sell in starbucks?
Yes, but it’s called “non-alcoholic cider”, not just “cider”.
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Where I’m from, both alcoholic Cider and non-alcoholic Cider have the exact same name. Sometimes it’s a gamble when you order it at a restaurant.
Tom Oliver just got back. He’s out on tour at the moment (aside from being a cider maker he is also the Tour Manager & Sound Engineer for the Proclaimers!) but will have a think this week and let me know his thoughts this weekend.
Re: non-alcoholic cider. I dont think that should be a category. 2% cider depends. French Doux for example should be under Keeved.
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At least in my part of the US, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic Ciders are just called Cider. No differentiation in name. You have to look the package over for a reference to ABV.
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Yeah i never got that. Most normal ciders in the States are called Hard Cider though, right? Ive never seen apple juice called ‘cider’ anywhere else in the world.
I would say maybe half the time it’s called Hard Cider. In my experience, apple juice is pressed, filtered for clarity, and pasteurized, while cider is only pressed and pasteurized to halt any natural fermentation. One is more flavorful than the other.
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