New BJCP Style Guidelines

[alikocho]

Presentation on the new style guidelines:

http://www.bjcp.org/docs/NHC2014-styles.pdf

[Aleman]

Wow!

That looks to be a well thought out revision of the guides, addresses a lot of the issues that some have with the BJCP style guides and categories.

[Jim]

Thanks for that Ali - interesting stuff.

[Belter]

What's a black ipa....

[Aleman]

What's a black ipa....

The one thing they left alone that should have been changed IMO . . .along with RED and White IPA

[alikocho]

What's a black ipa....

The one thing they left alone that should have been changed IMO . . .along with RED and White IPA

Remember what these guidelines are for - judging homebrew competitions. People do enter these things....and there are many more competitions in the US.

[Aleman]

[50quidsoundboy]

is anyone else worried about what these new "hopped" ales could do to the UK's bog myrtle industry?? Join the Campaign for Real Gruit! Pictish beer for Pictish workers! JUST SAY NO TO "BLACK IPA"!!!!

[YeastWhisperer]

What's a black ipa....

A contradiction of terms! Any style that has black and pale in its name gets the stupid beer name of the year award. A lot of Americans brewers hate that name as well as the fact that IPA has become a marketing term. What's next, Dirty Socks IPA?

[50quidsoundboy]

What's a black ipa....

A contradiction of terms! Any style that has black and pale in its name gets the stupid beer name of the year award.

it beats calling them "Cascadian dark ales" as has previously been suggested, since while it may satisfy the pedants, it sounds like arse. if someone says "black IPA" then i have a pretty good idea what to expect from that beer, so as a style descriptor it does its job perfectly.

anyway this is all moot, since so many black IPAs are now on the market and labelled as such, it's impossible to argue that it doesn't exist as a style.

(use of the word "pale" in beer names is interesting in itself of course - there's a reason that Bateman's XXXB, which is brown, has "pale ale" written on the bottle, whereas Carling Black Label, which is pale yellow, does not)

[PhilB]

What's a black ipa....

A contradiction of terms! Any style that has black and pale in its name gets the stupid beer name of the year award.

... if someone says "black IPA" then i have a pretty good idea what to expect from that beer, so as a style descriptor it does its job perfectly.

... which is exactly why such beer was first described in such terms such a long time ago, the earliest documentary evidence being from 1888 as Ron Pattinson explains there (link) ... well before the modern, craft brewers of Cascadia started playing around with the idea

Cheers, PhilB

{EDIT: missed off the link ... oops ... added now}

[legion]

Cascadian dark ales are a separate style to black IPA

[alikocho]

Cascadian dark ales are a separate style to black IPA

Again, I feel the need to remind people that these guidelines are to facilitate judging homebrew competitions. They are not the absolute on what is what and isn't a style in beer. And in large part, the revisions recognise a need to categorise things that get entered in home brew competitions.

At the UK National last year, 17 beers in Specialty had no more than Black IPA as an explanation of why they were specialty beers. I'd say that that suggests that people entering competitions have something in mind. And beers are judged against what a brewer suggests their intention was when brewing.

[Graham]

What's a black ipa....

A contradiction of terms! Any style that has black and pale in its name gets the stupid beer name of the year award.

... if someone says "black IPA" then i have a pretty good idea what to expect from that beer, so as a style descriptor it does its job perfectly.

... which is exactly why such beer was first described in such terms such a long time ago, the earliest documentary evidence being from 1888 as Ron Pattinson explains there (link) ... well before the modern, craft brewers of Cascadia started playing around with the idea

Cheers, PhilB

I have to say that it is my impression that Ron Pattinson depends too much upon labels; if Guinness slapped a pale ale label on their famous stout, to Mr Pattinnson it would be a genuine pale ale. Porter in the early 20th century was basically a bog-standard mild with a porter label slapped on it; it was nothing like the archetypical porter, but to Mr P it was a porter because that is what it said on the label. Indeed, many stout drinkers in the 1960s to the 1990s would unknowingly have been drinking a "black pale ale". It was standard practice for a brewery to brew two or three pale ales of differing gravities, from a standard grist and "convert" them into brown ales, mild ales, porters, stouts, winter warmers and old ales by colouring them with caramel additions. So it is certain that many stout drinkers in the bad old days were drinking a pale ale coloured to look like a stout; a fake in fact. The same stuff without the colorant would have been sold as a pale ale or best bitter. It is no wonder that dark beers died out, the imbibers were not fooled; the demise of dark beers had little to do with old-fashioned images of cloth caps and whippets, but more to do with the imbibers cottoning on to the knavery that brewers were trying to impose upon them.

[alikocho]

What's a black ipa....

A contradiction of terms! Any style that has black and pale in its name gets the stupid beer name of the year award.

... if someone says "black IPA" then i have a pretty good idea what to expect from that beer, so as a style descriptor it does its job perfectly.

... which is exactly why such beer was first described in such terms such a long time ago, the earliest documentary evidence being from 1888 as Ron Pattinson explains there (link) ... well before the modern, craft brewers of Cascadia started playing around with the idea

Cheers, PhilB

I have to say that it is my impression that Ron Pattinson depends too much upon labels; if Guinness slapped a pale ale label on their famous stout, to Mr Pattinnson it would be a genuine pale ale. Porter in the early 20th century was basically a bog-standard mild with a porter label slapped on it; it was nothing like the archetypical porter, but to Mr P it was a porter because that is what it said on the label. Indeed, many stout drinkers in the 1960s to the 1990s would unknowingly have been drinking a "black pale ale". It was standard practice for a brewery to brew two or three pale ales of differing gravities, from a standard grist and "convert" them into brown ales, mild ales, porters, stouts, winter warmers and old ales by colouring them with caramel additions. So it is certain that many stout drinkers in the bad old days were drinking a pale ale coloured to look like a stout; a fake in fact. The same stuff without the colorant would have been sold as a pale ale or best bitter. It is no wonder that dark beers died out, the imbibers were not fooled; the demise of dark beers had little to do with old-fashioned images of cloth caps and whippets, but more to do with the imbibers cottoning on to the knavery that brewers were trying to impose upon them.

Yes, Ron Pattinson is disingenuous at times. And still has yet to respond to me calling him out on his errors on Russian Imperial Stout in his book (which surprised me, given how quick he is to criticise others). But his particular style, does seem to captivate and convince the casual reader.