STYLES CHANGES (including NEIPA) WORLDWIDE! discussions

You mean like Elephant Beer?
Just a Malt Liquor. No need for European strong lager, I agree.

Since IPL is mentioned, that brings up an interesting thing to note.
IPL was introduced because there was a gap, there were beers that didnā€™t fit in the IPA or Pale Lager description.

Thereā€™s no style gap for ā€˜hazy IPAā€™. ā€˜Hazy IPAā€™ fits into IPA style with no problem.

Just an additional factor to considerā€¦

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Interesting point. But isnā€™t it possible to just see it as a very hoppy lager? Just like a neipa could be a very hazy ipa.

That was pretty much the issue: Dry-hopped lagers were taking up the top spots in pretty much every traditional lager style we had simply because they had bold aroma/flavors, not because they were good examples of the style. So in this case it made sense to lump them together.

It would have been pretty fine in Premium Lager categoryā€¦
I also think that if you take a good example of hoppy IPL and hoppy American IPA and NEIPA, then IPL and AIPA will be actually more similar than NEIPA and AIPAā€¦

Not really no, Premium lager was/is a marketing driven style which was described as being slightly more hoppy, but really wasnā€™t. At the time we created IPL the we also talked about getting rid of Premium Lager since it is pointless. That obviously has not happened yet, but I believe it is on the todo listā€¦

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I always thought the difference was that pale lagers had adjuncts, premium ones were all malt? However, given that I dislike and avoid lagers (unless, obviously, thereā€™s no other ticksā€¦!) Iā€™m happy to stand corrected and donā€™t really care either way anyway.

One question on the murky IPA style worth thinking aboutā€¦ if we create a new style for this, wonā€™t we then need to follow with additional styles when hazy SIPAs, cloudy DIPAs, unfined golden ales, foggy bitters etc when these inevitably follow? Much as I like having lots of styles to help me explore different types of beer, do we really want to head down this road of infinite variations?

I would take a great Lager over any other beer style if I had to pick just one beer.
Iā€™m not saying that everybody must have the same preferences, and for sure itā€™s easier to brew a mediocre Imperial Stout than a great Lager, but donā€™t give up on Lagers :slight_smile:

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IPL has forced me to lower my expectations of anything called lager.

If we simply call the style India Pale, we could even put those happy IPL into that ubiquitous group. The majority do look, smell & taste like IPA anyway; or at least slightly aged IPA.

:wink:

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  1. Pretty sure thatā€™s been discussed and approved. If it hasnā€™t been approved, I canā€™t think of too many reasons not to do so. Premium Lager has proven clunky and confusing.

  2. The bitter one is interesting. I use just one ā€œBitterā€ in my personal db and have forever. But on that, I will defer to Team UK.

  3. Iā€™d rather just do Pale Ale at this point. Most ā€œEnglish Pale Aleā€ would find a natural home here, too.

  4. Saison/Farmhouse/Grisette makes sense to me. Or something like two styles - one to reflect more traditional Saison and one to reflect the American take on the idea.

  5. Joe did that. Talk to him. (fwiw Iā€™m ok with it being here)

The sense I have now is that the past few years the idea of traditional beer styles - as determined by extensive history and place of origin - is falling by the wayside. They still exist, but seem increasingly marginalized, mostly because of the proliferation of breweries bastardizing them, I suppose. It used to be just in America where style terms were losing meaning, but that interpretation of beer is spreading globally now.

But increasing market sophistication and mass experimentation are also doing a number on the idea. So you either adopt infinite complexity or veer towards simplicity. Both have value, just to different consumer groups.

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Yes.

@joet, letā€™s do this (and Hazy IPA).

We went through that whole thing putting fruit cider on here, and left this hanging.

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We need much more Cider styles than just a fruited one.

I want to put together a proposal for multiple possible options that we can discuss then soon, given that all the established Cider raters on here somehow seem to agree that we need more categories there. I just havenā€™t come to it yet.

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Iā€™m not against this.

Obviously thereā€™s things like hopped cider and spiced cider. How we want to parse the different regional variants is a different matter - Iā€™m less interested in historical things that only homebrewers make than about the big ones out there. Spanish, French and British are all quite different.

We tried to parse the industrial from the craft, but thereā€™s a lot of overlap these days so that ends up being a quagmire.

Iā€™d definitely like to hear a proposal.

I assume this reply was to the points I posted rather than Benzai.

A few further thoughts on them thenā€¦

  1. When was the Pale/Premium lager merge discussed and approved? I donā€™t recall seeing anything about it which is why I brought it up. No one seems to be in opposition to it.

  2. I think some of the UK admins already weighed in on this, I forget the reasons they gave but basically they didnā€™t want a merge. I still see them as one and the same though, never been able to tell any difference. I rarely drink the style though so it doesnā€™t really bother me what happens with this.

  3. Yep thatā€™s also a good shout. As I alluded to before, many of the so called ā€œAmericanā€ Pale Ales donā€™t even use any American ingredients. A simple rename to a catch-all ā€œPale Aleā€ style would be sufficient. English Pale Ale could then (optionally) be done away with.

  4. Iā€™d still prefer them separately but would be perfectly happy with a rename to include them.

  5. While I find it fairly useless Iā€™m also ok with it staying, I was merely confused why IPA is the only style itā€™s done for.

Iā€™d still like to see a more in depth style overhaul, something along the lines of what I proposed before (and now canā€™t find, strangely). But if I am understanding correctly then over the past however many years, fuck all has been done on this front due to one reason only: ā€œitā€™s an enormous amount of workā€? Are you kidding meā€¦ I mean I know thereā€™s plenty to be done but Iā€™m shocked that people here have many fantastic ideas dismissed simply due to perceived workload involved. RB is never gonna stay ahead of the game like this :frowning:

Do the BCP, Aha and/or international organizations recognize it as itā€™s own subclass of IPAs?

If yes, then it should definitely be a classification. If no, I still would like to see it.

We havenā€™t followed BCP styles in the past so why should we do that now? In fact, I very much oppose this, as BCP has so many styles with such minimal differences itā€™s useless for a website like this, considering the majority of the users is ā€œa goodwilling amateurā€, not a professional beer judge.

On the other hand, so say ā€œsubclassā€ of IPA. Thatā€™s actually what Iā€™ve suggested at some point as well: to start working with sub-styles.

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More people have suggested this, I thinks this would be a good idea.

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I wasnā€™t necessarily suggesting RB has to follow BJCP. I was wondering if BJCP even recognized it as a class of some sort. If they didnā€™t then I could easily see why places don/t implement it.

I asked people at the local bottle shop about their opinion.

Most didnā€™t see any sense in discussing it. Between them, they were split between ā€œJust do it and get on with it.ā€ and "I donā€™t care."
But as soon as I mentioned that West Coast IPA isnā€™t its own style, the whole discussion was turned and suddenly, everyone went along the lines of ā€œIf West Coast IPA isnā€™t its own style, neither should be NEIPA.ā€

And the longer I think about this, the more Iā€™d agree. So what if NEIPAs dominate the lists of the best IPAs for the next few years? Itā€™s an accurate description of whatā€™s going on. Iā€™m sure this will change in the next few years as well and weā€™ll see other trends. The distinctive factors (hazyness, bitterness) are just too murky** to really account for a clear distinction.

** Sorry about that.

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Much like ā€œWest Coast IPA,ā€ I view ā€œHazy IPAā€/ā€œNE IPAā€/ā€œCloudy IPAā€ as more of a marketing term than an actual style distinction. Although, I would say the same thing about Session and Imperial IPA and those are separate styles here. Itā€™s all just hoppy golden ale, really.

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