In the UK Scottish Ales quite often just get amended to Bitter. And EPA to Golden/Pale.
Sounds very wise
Sam Adams is releasing a NEIPA for broad distro fyi, so certainly seems to be catching on somewhat.
The use of subcategory styles was proposed at one time, but the idea was axed in favor of tags. Tags, however have evolved into a convoluted mess and are nearly unusable. Perhaps its time to revisit the concept of assigning beers a primary style category and possible secondary sub category(s). Hopefully one day we will stop being so concerned with silly site cosmetics and get around to the business of beer.
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There has been no decision to axe the substyles in favour of tags.
But moving into substyles requires an enormous amount of work, while tags were already available.
Indeed, to complete the picture, we needed also to add functionalities around tags (for example the ability to search by tag, and to do a combined search style+tag or tag+tag); once again, resources have never been allocated for this either.
And here we are.
If you populate the tags today, the information can be used in the future, whenever we allocate resources to implement one solution.
Good to hear the sub-style idea isnāt dead, but wow, it has been years since we discussed it.
With a substyle system IPA can be the primary category and WC,NE, Black, White, Session, etcā¦ can all be sub-categories.
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Itās probably been a few dozen posts since this has been said, but: maybe recruit the dedicated users that have been volunteering to admin to help out. That decisions get made because theyāre easy is a shame.
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How about a sub-style IPA IPA? 
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Without anything weird, I like it. We could use this for RIS too: āhereās a heavy stout sir!ā - Thanks, is it barrel aged? āNoā. Does it have cocoa in it? āNoā. Peppers? Cucumber? A complete oak tree? An indigenous tribeās sacred urine? āNo itās just a good strong stout sirā. Oh wow Iāve never tried anything like this before!
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NEIPA seems to be going down as the biggest category update miss for the site yet. I would wager that we will see tons of beers labeled as NE or DDH IPA this year.
So a real questionā¦would you call the style Double Dry Hopped or New England? Iād go New England but donāt really like it.
More about developers than admins workload; thatās the scarce resource
UT recognizes it as a style.
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So does BA
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Neither. Itās just an IPA thatās hazy and fairly non-bitter. Done. Style = IPA, tag it with #hazy or #neipa
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Same could be said about an IIPA, just as an IPA, but with more alcohol and body. Or bipa, like an IPA thatās black. I think the question is when a type of beer is distinctive enough to be a style of its own.
Itās distinct enough, being barely classifiable as ābeerā at all, from other beer styles that I donāt object to it as a new āstyleā. HOWEVER, get rid of 3 utterly freaking useless styles first.
And am I the only one who remembers what European Strong Lager tastes like? You know - the malty thing with bugger all hopping.
Why? Itās a fermented malt-based beverage, aka ābeerā.
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When it comes to imperial itās a matter of ABV (in general). Not a style difference indeed, but the distinction is made for a number of other reasons Iām sure. For instance the fact that Imperials almost in every style receive higher scores than non-imperial. Others can explain those reasons much better than I can Iām sure.
The question you ask is correct, although Iād phrase it slightly different. Question is when a beer that diverts slightly from the usual āoutlinesā / borders of a style, has moved away from that style AND other styles far enough to be considered a new style.
Imo, thatās not the case. Neither was it the case when IPL was introduced.
Or kvass.
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But itās not listed as a style on BA.
