http://www.beersyndicate.com/blog/six-new-beer-styles-2018/
Per the BJCP: "These styles are considered draft, but may be used by competitions as official styles. Suggested groupings are included with the styles.
Competition software should allow for these styles to be mentioned in a comment field, and judges should use these style definitions as a reference during judging.
Hopefully this will make it easier for entrants and judges to use a common definition for these new styles."
Should NEIPA/NEPA be in 21 or 18? Based on bitterness, it would fit more in line with an American Pale Ale. But the focus is clearly only on hops, where pale ales usually at least pretend to have some malt character. I do feel like many of these beers have a sharp aftertaste from the hop acids though. I’d love for them to throw some more commercial examples, most of those beers aren’t available in the middle of the country.
A NZ pilsner sounds great. Is there any point where they’ll remove or combine styles from the list?
I think it’s interesting that there’s a list that contains the only ‘approved’ styles of beer. …and now we can enter these ‘new’ beers in competition. I get that there has to be standards by which to group and judge beer, but I imagine over the day or two of brewing there are many, many more beers that creative brewers have regionally developed that do not fit within the style guidelines. I guess the law follows the crime.
Jesus, I sure hope so. Amen.
Any competition can set their own style guidelines even if they are not listed and defined in the BJCP Guidelines. Many competitions do just that. The point being there is no ‘approved’ style list of beers.
Now that I read more closely, I see that “they are not meant to be rigorously-applied specifications that are used to punish slightly unusual examples.” I have a better understanding now that it’s not ‘the law’.
Indeed. For the Sasquatch comp here, I wrote guidelines for a style called Glenn Beer, to honor Glenn Falconer. Years later, it’s still in use for that comp.
Should NEIPA/NEPA be in 21 or 18? Based on bitterness, it would fit more in line with an American Pale Ale.
IMO neither. I find the majority of NE / hazy “IPAs” to be nowhere near bitter enough to label as IPA, and they’re typically less bitter than an APA too. To me they represent an entirely new (albeit derivative) style creation of modern American craft brewers, and should be named as such.
The originators of the style, most notably Heady Topper, are far more bitter than what typifies the style today.
It’s 6 styles now that may or may not be added? Thought it was only 4 - NEIPA, Burton ale, NZ Pils and Catharina sour.
The Mexican lager and Grisette I don’t recall being considered before…
THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!
But… isn’t IPA just another word for “beer”, now, in the 21st century? Isn’t everything just some form of IPA?!?
College friend from New England used to crack me up: “You want a Coke? Yeah, what kind – Pepsi, 7Up, root beer…?” Now I realize these are the same folks who started with the “Black IPA” and so on… If you want a nice sessionable IPA I’ve got some PBR in the fridge… But seriously, you’re on to something. The letters have nothing to do with “India,” “pale,” or maybe even “ale” anymore. But we seem to be coalescing some idea of what it does mean. And I don’t think my PBR will be included. Surely it signals a very hop forward beer, whether that means in terms of bitterness or flavor/ aroma?
Ever had McEwan’s IPA?! ;D ;D ;D ;D
Kind of my point. The name doesn’t mean what it did. Maybe it’s meant several things over time. Like long ago “beer” had hops and “ale” didn’t, or “mild” meant not affected by Brett and lacto (that was “stale,”) words are used with changing referents. I think that with respect to craft beer, IPA has taken on a meaning that is clear enough, maybe moreso to non-supergeek, casual bar or supermarket patrons. We get hung up on categories and subcategories. They have a fair idea how they will perceive something labeled IPA, at least in relation to other broad categories like stout, amber or red anything without IPA appended, etc.
I thought only Texans genericized pop/soda that way…
These have been added now into the most recent update of the BCOE&M software. We had people enter both NEIPA and NZ Pils in our comp this past weekend. Just be aware for future comps you’ll have to print out the style guidelines for those since they aren’t in the 2015 Guide.