Hazy IPA’s & Pale Ales Dominate The Brewers Association New Style Guidelines

, Hazy IPA’s & Pale Ales Dominate The Brewers Association New Style GuidelinesThe Brewers Association just released their updated style-guidelines for 2018 but one thing’s for sure, they’ve made way for the whole Hazy, Juicy, New England IPA trend in a big way.

Here’s the deal…

Every year the Boulder-based, Brewers Association issues new guidelines that serve as a resource for brewers, beer judges and competition organizers, and celebrate the great diversity of beer around the world.

And since these new additions (and subtractions) to their list of “official” styles speaks to dominant trends in the ever-changing world of craft brewing, we always get a kick out of what they decide to do.

This year’s guidelines features hundreds of revisions, edits, format changes including multiple updates to existing beer styles and the creation of new categories that showcase craft beers hottest brewing directions including Hazy/Juicy Pale Ales and IPAs…

They also adjusted for the growing popularity of the American Pilsner and the Contemporary Gose and addressed the growing diversity in the Australian-Style Pale Ale categories…

  • Juicy or Hazy Ale Styles: The addition of this trio of styles include representation of what may be referred to as New England IPAs or West Coast Hazy IPAs. The styles will be identified in the guidelines and Brewers Association competitions as “Juicy or Hazy Pale Ale,” “Juicy or Hazy IPA” and “Juicy or Hazy Double IPA.”
  • Contemporary American-Style Pilsener: The addition of this new category addresses marketplace expansion and provides space for sessionable craft brew lager beers with higher hop aroma than found in pre-prohibition style beers.
  • Classic Australian-Style Pale Ale and Australian-Style Pale Ale: This split from one to two Australian-Style Pale Ale categories reflects tremendous diversity in the Australian craft beer market and authoritative input from the technical committee of the Independent Brewers Association. Classic Australian-Style Pale Ale can run slightly darker and typically exhibits relatively lower hop aroma. The Australian-Style Pale Ale category provides ample room for a range of somewhat paler, more hop aroma- and flavor-forward beers being produced today by hundreds of breweries in Australia.
  • Gose and Contemporary Gose: Predominantly technical tweaks were made to create more differentiation between these two categories.

And while the Brewers Association is still holding off on instituting a Cannabis Ale category we’ve no doubt that ii came up in the their discussions if only as a joke…a joke they may eventually have to make way for.

The updated 2018 Beer Style Guidelines, which will officially take effect for the 2018 Great American Beer Festival competition, are available HERE.

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 All images courtesy of the Brewers Association

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