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Our friends at the Brewers Association just released the 2017 Beer Style Guidelines. Designed to help the brewers and beer competition organizers keep up with craft beer’s fluid style landscape. The BA revises this list annually…but that doesn’t mean they got everything right.
Included in the 2017 Style Guidelines….
Understanding that so many in the craft beer community are either nursing a hangover, or well on their way to a new one, this year’s style guide sports a revitalized new look.
Designed as a more user-friendly experience and to be more easily understood without the use of amphetamines, this year’s guidelines features a concise new formatting that removes redundantly, redundant language, so it’s not repeated repeatedly.
Underscoring the balance between classic beer definitions and current marketplace trends, this year’s style guidelines also feature hundreds of updates to existing beer styles, though we can’t help but think they overlooked some beer categories that need to be addressed…
The “Overly Ambitious” Beer Category
With brewers seemingly in a race to craft beers with a menu increasingly unusual ingredients we need a style category which announces that “enough is enough” and that this madness has entered a concerning new stage.
We expect that the Overly Ambitious Beer category would be hugely popular and extremely competitive.
The “Shit Beer” Category
We’ve been actively espousing this sorely overlooked beer style category for years and once again the Brewers Association has chosen to look the other way.
It’s time to address the 800-pound gorilla in the room and formalize this reality. After all, who among us has never sampled “shit beer?”
The “No Style” Style
Some brewers seem to take a particular pleasure in creating beer hybrids that seem deliberately brewed to defy easy categorization.
And we think we need an official beer style that recognizes the intentionally difficult and for brewers trying to cover their ass when their Brown Ale veers dangerously close to a cinnamon Barleywine.
