If I’m to understand things right, this “pale ale” category is meant to be for hazy or new england pale ales, extra pale ales, and german pale ales? Or like, say, a Rwandan pale ale? Is that what it is?
And if so, are we supposed to move all pale ales that fit those descriptions into that category?
Yes.
This is interesting actually. The addition of NE pale ales to the Pale Ale style seems to be, unless I’ve missed a related discussion within the style discussions, a decision by a single admin who decided to take style wrangling (and much more) on himself without informing others. Which is a fine notion, apart from the whole “not informing others / not consulting with others” thing. Because of that, as others, largely not knowing about that notion, added such beers as APAs, which was the universal compromise beforehand, now we have a New England Pale Ale tag with 748 such beers put under APA, 181 under NEIPA and only 154 as “Pale Ale”.
If someone can point out where the addition of hazy/NE pale ales to the Pale Ale style was decided and confirmed by multiple admins and not a random single-person decision implemented by the same person as a “rule” by editing style and tag descriptions, I’d be grateful and will go along with the notion in the future (until Pale Ale - Hazy/New England is introduced). Otherwise we might need to check for more things like this and discuss them again backstage, as I’m not sure all will agree with this, seemingly random, arrangement.
Yes … just catching up on this … I see ‘Pale Ale’ as a place for the more hop neutral / non hop heavy (or unknown hops) type of beers.
A hazy / NE is ordinarily just as hoppy as an APA so should sit with them.
@explosivedog is not wrong in his statement when looking at the style guide for pale ale but the style guide (as @marko ) has touched on was never ratified by multiple admins and seems to have slipped through the net until this thread appeared.
How would you differentiate this from the golden/blande category though? Maybe neutral malt in pale ale compared to some malt in a gold?
I do think there’s quite a few pale ale categories that overlap, are causing confusion and could be ditched including this catch-all Pale Ale and (obviously) English Pale Ale. However, given the profusion of low strength hazies on the market I think there’s a strong argument for a hazy/NE Pale Ale category with an ABV cut-off to distinguish this from NE IPAs.
However, I’d quite like to see the regions exercise done before it’s derailed by a return to the neverending styles debate!
I still don’t understand the difference between Dark Lager - International / Premium and Dark Lager - Dunkel / Tmavy…
I for one was always using this for what solidfunk refers to German Pale Ales or Rwandan pale ales. Basically randohop pale ales that cannot be fairly added to APA or even EPA. Plenty of those around. Like pale ale attempts with local malt profile/technique/maybe even hops that don’t stress they are APAs.
I’m pretty sure this must have been discussed, as it was the understanding I had and I also never saw the style descriptions before they went live. Of course, it was two and a half years ago, with discussion over a number of threads and a google sheet etc, so I would have no idea where to look.
Because of these numbers, I think a long discussion about this is a waste of everybody’s time… Perhaps it is time to get the ball rolling on this.
By the way, there is also a ‘hazy pale ale’ tag with significantly more beers. Is there a reason we need both?
I know - no reason for you to pull that info out of nowhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was mentioned, but with 30 things pushed at the same time on all fronts in certain periods, things slipped through the cracks. So far you’re the first one (apart, ostensibly, from the one that did the changes) to be aware of that. Not saying you’re the only one, but so far it’s 7-8 admins I’ve spoken with at least who were using APA…
Maybe you saw the tag description that was copied? Or the file with the descriptions? Dunno. Funnily enough, I found the initial style descriptions that were suggested publicly - the NE/hazy part wasn’t there, meaning it was added to Pale Ale after that suggestion in some form. Also, zero likes on the suggestion, only one admin other than the one who suggested them commenting with corrections. Went “nowhere”… and then on the site.
Still worth a discussion in the back. Not a particularly long one though.
As for hazy - not everything that’s hazy is NE (though nearly all NE that’s not hazy is unintentionally so 
) , though the two overlap frequently. Hazies can be strong on the bitterness front for example… I’ve had brewers insist something’s not NE but hazy too. Would keep that.
Right, 907 APAs on the “Hazy Pale Ale” tag, 230 Pale Ales, 206 NEIPAs.
The “Pale Ale” line was definitely only followed by a huge minority.
As an admin and a beer adder, I have generally been putting them in the APA category but would be open to following either generic pale ale or NEAPA were such a category created.
Ya I see these sometimes but typically feel like exceptions to the rule don’t really disprove the rule. There are hazy beers out there branded as west coast IPA. I add them as IPA rather than NEIPA, because hazy is more of an idea than a strict comment on the cloudiness. AKA we all know what we mean by hazy IPA. If a beer tastes like Stone IPA and has some haze but calls itself west coast, should definitely be west coast/IPA, at least in my thinking.
Regarding the largest question on pale ales, it’s kind of a stupid category I think, though I’m one of those that support all the new styles we have for the most part. The only argument I’d have for taking the @explosivedog route is that at least if we move all NE/Hazy pale ales over to this otherwise mostly empty category, it’ll be easier to split them off into that hazy/NE pale category once we decide to do so in a couple years when decide we need more styles.
The last bit is not really an argument, as that’s already being done through the tag. Tags were used previously to split things off as well.
About hazies - hazy pale ale is a descriptor tag more than a style just because it’s too hard to make a sensible style out of it.
If and when tags are used.
I would love to use tags, but I’m boycotting them until I can add them when I add new beer.
But anyway, I don’t have a strong opinion either way about it, just as long as we get a clear idea of what we should be adding as regular pale ales.
The category isn’t even “mostly empty” anyway, plenty of completely different pale ales in it, but maybe not from your neck of woods, that’s true. Tags are certainly the way to go here, as they were in the past.
If you wish to have such a feature introduced - and it sure would be damn helpful - it would be great if you started a website feature suggestion thread about it (or resurrect an existing one) so we can tag services and see how likely it is to be implemented.
I think I’ve done it like twice in the past already and mentioned multiple times elsewhere, so kind of gave up. Plus, I’m more focused on beating the drum on regions now anyway, even though that small change of adding tags when you add beers would make tags like 400% more relevant and useful.
That said you did start the region splitting, so maybe you got the magic touch with (@)services…
Technically it was @Viper666.Qc this time who started that thread on regions for all countries. Everybody ignored me when I said it for like the past 5 years. So it’s likely him that has the magic touch
When I brought up splitting more regions on the JoeT thread about “if Ratebeer could add one big thing” I remember other users mocking for not answering fix the bugs. I do appreciate you pushing this through since doing it would’ve happened elseways.
Any one had thoughts on the Dark Lager - international and also the hoppy dark lager categories. I think top rated on site has like 8 hoppy dark lagers not that distinguishes a style.
You just want 10 of each style and Hoppy Dark makes it impossible! I do not even have one!
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