Beer styles, geography and history in relation to beer taxonomy/nomenc

[good4whatAlesU]

Colour is just the first component of the taxonomy. We then need to develop as you say the other levels of hierarchical taxonomy (flavour mainly).

Geography can be easily covered by a simple code for hops/malt/yeast. E.g. Aus/Aus/Aus for an all Australian beer. Eng/Amr/Aus or whatever. If multiple hops or malts from several countries then simply an Int. (or International code).

Flavour is harder.

 

[peteru]

Totally agree that colour (and from my point of view clarity as well) is hardly an indicator of anything but appearance and should be a minor aspect in evaluating a beer. Then again, I believe that each beer should stand on it's own merit and trying to shoehorn beers into narrowly defined categories is counter-productive. It is helpful to know if you are picking up a sour wheat beer or a thick porter, but that is something that a brewer is very likely to indicate on the label.

I personally really like beers that give you the list of the key ingredients and some basic stats. For example, Tuatara ITI has this description, which gives a good deal of useful information and certainly had me excited even before I opened the bottle:


ITI

Little Big Hop APA
ITI (te reo Maori for “small”) uses US hops base but its lighter malt base showcases the hop flavour and brings the beer in at a very friendly 3.3% alc/vol, creating the perfect sessionable APA.
Taste: Refreshing citris notes, good malt body with appealing bitterness.
Look: Golden amber
Aroma: Mango and sweet citrus
Try With: Bangers & mash
Hops: Amarillo, Cascade, Chinook, Nelson Sauvin.
Malt: NZ Lager, NZ Ale, NZ Light Crystal, NZ Medium Crystal
Alcohol (ABV): 3.3%
Bitterness (IBU): 25

 

[good4whatAlesU]

If only all beer labels were as informative! However I must say some of it is without doubt marketing ploy "appealing bitterness" and "friendly alc/vol" and "refreshing citris" ... Sounds great but not entirely scientific / objective.

I'm currently reading up on and wrapping my brain around BU/GU ratios and the inherent limitations due to confounding malt flavours over-riding these values it's not simple...

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Relative Bitterness Ratio (RBR) looks a good index: http://www.madalchemist.com/relative_bitterness.html

But does not take into account the confounding effect of the malt flavour (roasting degree/ caramelisation). This might be estimated on colour except it's non-linear (i.e. the middle roasted malts are sweeter than the higher roasted malts (?) and length of malting etc. so some sort of algorithm based on a non-linear curve along which the different malts are placed, and then a (edit: weighted) percentage of each of those malts in the grain bill.

It's complicated. Each small error to the algorithm adds up to a big error at the end.

 

[MHB]

Been following and thinking about this, my conclusion is that its impossible!

I suspect that what we are dealing with is a "Complex System" there are too many components to the problem for it to be subject to a simple categorisation.
The only way I can see to move forward is to define the original question better, in the OP it was mainly a focus on historical names, which has its uses and limitations.

Step back and try to define what you are trying to achieve.
Mark

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Sound advice there and probably right! Absolutely complex. I guess I'm just new to learning about beer and tackling in my own mind a classification system one step at a time to work out something that is relatively universal. The marketing of various geographic and historical"styles" in the modern context is quite difficult to wrap the brain around for the newbie. Working on "Styles" seems decidedly 1960's the work in most fields have progressed onto taxonomic systems. Of course food and drink (e.g. wine) and sensory related products are going to be the most difficult of things to work on (given the historical factor and the differing senses from person to person in taste) and the money and marketing involved.

My mind is telling me that any objective classification would take on some basic characteristics (senses) already well known about in beer characterisation and taste. . then shoehorn these into a six or seven coded graphic that could present on a label:

Colour
Bitterness
Sweetness
Saltiness
Sourness
Dominant flavours
Smell etc. (?)

Hence taking it a step at a time. Firstly colour, now the interest in bitterness (an important one - but from my reading I don't think there is consensus that IBU's (or BU/GU ratio's) catch the full story (?).

Having said all this history is still very interesting to me (and many people nowadays) with the advent of Google a little knowledge can be dangerous.

Anyway this has not really clarified anything (more confused the situation I guess), it mostly it just gives me a reason to read stuff about beer and learn about it. So that's good and when people say something about a "Style" e.g. I want to brew an "Australian Indian Pale Ale" - it makes me think .. hmmm exactly how would that be classified (?), taste like, differ from other products on the market, and how/does it warrant being called what it is .. and how does my own limited knowledge of history make me interpret (if at all) that product.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

In summary I think the Simpsons stonecutters song keeps playing in my head when i (a newbie) think about the current beer style system:

"Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do, we do
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do, we do
Who holds back the elctric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do, we do
Who robs gamefish of their site?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do, we do!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZI_aEalijE

 

[peteru]

A well defined labelling system is unlikely to be voluntarily adopted by any marketing department at a brewery. From their point of view it's all about differentiation, not conformity. So, any idea of a consistent taxonomy being visible at the consumer level is pretty much dead in the water, even before it gets defined.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Anything is dead in the water until the consumers start preferencing products with that type of label.

If you build it, they will come.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Mucking around today whilst waiting for the boil to finish - noticed that the Relative Bitterness Ratio guy mentioned it would be good to incorporate SRM.

I attempted to make a quick graph and weighing that might be applied albeit a very big assumption that colour is in part an indicator of bitterness buffer.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

On an aside I read with interest the history section of AHB the 'style' "English Pale Ale" as being directly descended from Burtons 1822 Pale Ale.

However a cursory search of historic British (and Welsh) newspapers we see the term "Pale Ale" occurring in many dozens of entries in the 1700's.

The term "Pale Ale" being in use for at least a century prior to 1822 however perhaps without as clear or consistent recipe (?).

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

My mind is telling me that any objective classification would take on some basic characteristics (senses) already well known about in beer characterisation and taste. . then shoehorn these into a six or seven coded graphic that could present on a label:

Colour
Bitterness
Sweetness
Saltiness
Sourness
Dominant flavours
Smell etc. (?)

Basically amounts to constructing an N dimensional vector space and assigning values along the N axes. You could then define a central style locus and acceptable variational radius for each style.

As an example, if the style is within x units of locus Z Z 9 Plural Z Alpha it's an English Bitter.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Hmm a bit out of my league, would that be like a 3 dimensional PCA with each variate along an axis. A statistician once told me PCA's were a bit like reading tea leaves.

If the axis values were real according to a set scale it could work. It would give a unique multidimensional coordinate value for ever 'beer' and that would be interesting. Whether or not interpretable for inclusion on a label....(?). As you say nominal coordinates could be set for"styles' if desired, however there would be some overlap.

The first thing to do is set the vector names, scales and values.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

.example:

 

[Bribie G]

Most beer styles are classified in the BJCP framework which is pretty well USA-centric.

And in many cases they get it wrong or have no idea about the real histories.

I could name lots of UK beers both living and extinct that don't fit into any style guidelines or have been changed over the last few decades.

Example John Smiths bitter represents a fusion between Scottish 70 Shillings and Yorkshire Bitters. Once dark brown it was typical of a whole family of dark or ruby 1040 working mens beers such as Lorimers Scotch, Camerons Stongarm etc.

They were common throughout the North but when you got midway through Yorkshire they butted up against a raft of pale Bitters, many of them base malt only and lager coloured. For a dark beer you would have to step down to a typically 1035 mild.

Stones. Theakston. Tetley. Boddingtons.

Last time I was in the Old Dart I noted that John Smith has been lightened as part of some feelgood mythology built around Yorkshire Bitter and both Theakston and Boddingtons are now darker gold similar to Southern bitters.

I use BJCP for my comp entries but when I have put in a lager coloured bitter or a ruby red Strongarm it's dismissed out of hand as not to style as mandated out of San Diego wherever.

Best of luck but I think you're nailing jelly to the ceiling.

 

[Feldon]

This old bloke was on the right track.



No, not an aging craft brewer, but Dmitri Mendelev.

He, "formulated the Periodic Law, created a farsighted version of the periodic table of elements, and used it to correct the properties of some already discovered elements and also to predict the properties of eight elements yet to be discovered." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev )

Substitute beers for elements and this latter day 'Periodic Table of Beer Styles' can organisie the apparent complexity of beer, its origins etc., into the same straightforward and time-honoured format.



Note the KEY in the bottom lefthand corner.

(Low res pic limited by the AHB upload limit. But go to https://www.google.com.au/search?q=periodic+table+of+beer+styles&biw=1280&bih=866&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjt0ujGsMzPAhUIG5QKHd8aBHYQsAQIGg to find and download this and other versions in higher resolution.)

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Mendelev looks an interesting fellow! Could mistake him for a hipster brewer by his appearance. Won the 'Davy' medal. Now, Davy... there was another smart fellow - discovered quite a few of the elements. Edit: Davy preferred inhaling Nitrous oxide to drinking beer though and nearly blew himself up a few times. Did not live a long life (chemists did not have much WHS back in the day).

Whilst elements and compounds are relatively orderly in nature (few components and set ratio's) believe it or not, beer has a larger range of options and difficult to fit into a 2 dimensional space than elements of the periodic table.

 

[manticle]

Any system you attempt will have limits.
Any limits will get pushed/stepped over/broken.

I think acceptance of blurred boundaries and the natural evolving of parameters is integral to understanding beer and its past, present and future.

If you think craft beer names get ridiculous, have a look at underground music genres - particularly post industrial, extreme metal and techno/dance/house.

I agree - some names are blatantly silly but that's mostly marketing and when has marketing ever been sensible? Shit, attention grabbing gimmicks rule that world.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Actually now reading about it; H Davy was the first to liquefy carbon dioxide in 1823.

In 1800 he also instructed "Robert Southey - the poet, to be on the lookout for Cornish 'White Ale' as a delicacy of that region. So perhaps he enjoyed more than just a whiff of laughing gas.

 

[warra48]

One of my recent brews fits neither the published BJCP styles nor the Periodic Table of Beer Styles.

Dark American Wheat.

Come along to Bitter & Twisted in early November at the Old Maitland Gaol to find out for yourself. It's one of the beers to be used by HUB in our education/popularity sessions.