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As reported by Charlie Papazian, in recent days the U.S. Brewers Association has released the latest revision of Beer Style Guidelines, i.e. a set of detailed guidelines set out to catalog the different beer styles in the world. It’s always a very interesting document, which is also used as reference for the annual contest connected to the Great American Beer Festival, the most important brewing event in the US. In the document (downloadable in pdf format ) are listed a good 140 different styles, some of which belong to the great classics of the world brewing art, though often these are simple variations on the theme, with so slight differences that it is natural to ask what meaning certain distinctions may have.

The publication is divided into top and low fermented beers, begins with British and Irish Ales, among which are well known styles, such as IPA, Porter, Stout, Bitter, Old Ale, etc… For many of them there are further subdivisions: for example Stout are not mentioned as a whole but divided in Sweet, Oatmeal, Dry and Export Stout. Nothing new so far, apart from some particular solution as the reference to Heavy Ale or the partition into Pale and Dark Mild (dark and light, practically).

Turning to North American styles, there is a strong presence of classic styles reinterpretation, though acquiring a certain independence. A list including American-Style Sour Ale, American-Style Brown Ale, American-style Stout and so on. No doubt the American beer culture has often reproposed classic styles with slightly different features, but it makes sense to reach this level of differentiation? It is probably useful to talk about American IPA or American Barley Wine, treating them as styles in their own right, but for most others I have some concerns. Can a small change in a classical style, perhaps limited to a few beers, define a completely new one?

With Germany and Belgium we return to top fermented more meaningfully named styles, while entering the Lager universe the approach is very similar to that of Ale as far as the U.S. are concerned. The final chapter, where hybrid styles are mentioned, is quite controversial in my opinion. This is the kingdom of spices, of unusual or special ingredients and techniques: fruit, pumpkin, chocolate, rye, coffee, honey brewed beers achieve the style status. Gluten-free beer, Session Beer, experimental beers, etc.. are identified as categories too, even if anyone would hardly consider them as proper styles. The attempt to categorize the different types of wood aging (there are 5 different styles) it’s moving, but I think it’s an exercise of no use. This final chapter is then configured as a large cauldron in which proper styles, difficult to classify categories and even vague beer concepts live together.

Some like publications like this and other hate them, perhaps smiling at the attempt to include any beer in a well-defined style. But rather than focus on this aspect, I am interested in your opinion on two issues: which of the listed American styles do you think are worth considering? Are there Italian interpretations of classic styles, so that it would be useful to talk about an Italian-version of a style? By the way, the Brewers Association document never mentions chestnuts as a brewing ingredient…