Black
"I don't brew to style! I'm brewing a lager, but... it's BLACK!"
"You're brewing a schwarzbier, then..."
So goes the opening of an episode from the Brewing Network's Sunday Session. Style has nearly always been around the block before. Some are direct descendants. Others are distant country cousins. A few are the product of drunken incest and ought to have been strangled at birth.
The question of style has bugged me for years. From way back when I used to add new brews into the ratebeer database; is it bitter or premium bitter? I didn't care for the differentiation then, I'm even less inclined now. IPA? Applied to everything from 3.6% dishwater to 10% bitter-riddled kettle juice. As for Black IPA... annoyingly oxymoronic.
Yet I've learned to love the misinterpretation and misuse. But the one conundrum remaining for me is this:
United States brewers are at the forefront of experimentation in beer - old styles revived and respun, trends dissected and restitched, envelopes pushed out of shape into Möbius strip territory. And what happens when they get a brew that dares to be different?
It's codified and parameterised and straight jacketed so it can be judged in the future.
Born in the land of the free: shackled by BJCP. Don't brew to style. More importantly, don't make up the guidelines. Be free to brew what you wanna brew. Get loaded and have a good time...
and for the version of Black that still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, click here
>
"You're brewing a schwarzbier, then..."
So goes the opening of an episode from the Brewing Network's Sunday Session. Style has nearly always been around the block before. Some are direct descendants. Others are distant country cousins. A few are the product of drunken incest and ought to have been strangled at birth.
The question of style has bugged me for years. From way back when I used to add new brews into the ratebeer database; is it bitter or premium bitter? I didn't care for the differentiation then, I'm even less inclined now. IPA? Applied to everything from 3.6% dishwater to 10% bitter-riddled kettle juice. As for Black IPA... annoyingly oxymoronic.
Yet I've learned to love the misinterpretation and misuse. But the one conundrum remaining for me is this:
United States brewers are at the forefront of experimentation in beer - old styles revived and respun, trends dissected and restitched, envelopes pushed out of shape into Möbius strip territory. And what happens when they get a brew that dares to be different?
It's codified and parameterised and straight jacketed so it can be judged in the future.
Born in the land of the free: shackled by BJCP. Don't brew to style. More importantly, don't make up the guidelines. Be free to brew what you wanna brew. Get loaded and have a good time...
and for the version of Black that still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, click here
>
