Maybe I’m somehow messing up the batch sparging, or the other factors are at play. I do prefer batch sparging otherwise and I never noticed a difference with most styles.
Which is why I say it might be confirmation bias. You did something you thought would make a change, so you taste the change, whether you do or not! 
Or perhaps something else was changed, added, or just went wrong? Maybe as simple as yeast or fermentation temp…the only way to truly meaningfully compare would be side by side identical ingredient batches tested in blind triangle tests. But make your beer however you prefer best, and enjoy!
In my opinion, those styles would be those with strong malt presence like helles, pilsner, bock, etc.
Don’t drink or brew helles, so no experience there, but I have brewed the others batch sparge many times and found no problems with them.
what about the opposite? (though still helles in mind)
entering this thread i tried to remember what i could about fly sparging (i have never done it), but a perfectly done fly sparge vs. an average/high quality batch sparge could have slightly reduced grain tannins in the wort?
While I have always continuous (a.k.a. “fly”) sparged, I definitely buy Martin’s argument for Helles or any other delicately flavored, malt-forward beer styles like American light lager and cream ale. Cardboard/paper can be a major problem with these beer styles and that oxidized flavor development occurs in the mash. With hop-forward styles like West Coast-style IPA, one can cover up a host of brewing and fermentation sins with dry hopping. That being said, I am going to bow out of this discussion because it is a mine field.
I don’t believe so. Why would it?
Mark, if that occurred in that mash, why haven’t I or other batch spargers encountered it? I make a lot of pils, tripel, and other “delicate” styles.
Confirmation bias works both ways. You do something that you don’t think makes a difference, and so you don’t taste a difference.
I am not insinuating that it occurs. I am merely stating that care has to be taken with oxidizing the mash with lightly flavored beer styles, which do not appear to be your forte. I actually like adjunct American lager and cream ale. However, it is a love/hate relationship when brewing because any technical error sticks out like a sore thumb.
That is the problem with confirmation bias. One of the reasons why I posted my “Shaken, not Stirred” method was to see how well it stood the test of time with other brewers. I knew that it worked for me, but was it conformation bias, or did the method provide an easier, effective way to make a starter? At this point, I am fairly certain that what I thought may have been confirmation bias is actually real. I think that as a whole, we need to be open to testing what people put forth. That is how science works; namely, does the experiment hold when conducted by other people? I am a firm believer that everything matters with delicately-flavored beers.
I brew American and Int’l pale lagers all the time via batch sparging. Some of these have won awards. I don’t go to any unusual lengths to prevent oxidizing the mash. Neither I, nor judges, nor other experienced palates have never tasted cardboard from the dreaded E-2-nonenal. That said, perhaps if I fly-sparged these beers they’d be even better–although I don’t really consider non-European pale lager styles such as American lager to be malt-forward styles. Point is, I need to test for myself via side-by-side brews whether batch sparging dampens “freshness” in malt-forward styles such as helles (my favorite style of all time). I can’t argue that one type of sparging is better than the other in terms of the finished product until I have my own empirical observations in hand.
Okay then!
I have to admit that it takes very little to negate any possibility of producing the strong malty flavors that are found in fresh beer from some German breweries. With my extremely tight brewing system and methodology, I can now produce that malt flavor.
While anyone can make ‘beer’, sometimes extraordinary measures are necessary to achieve certain results.