Beer aficionados may have to add some new vocabulary to their lexicon this year.
Four new beer styles were added to the 2021 Beer Style Guide from Boulder, CO-based The Brewers Association, a not for profit trade group for small and independent craft brewers.
New beer styles are on tap at The Brewers Association.
gettyOne of the beer styles is from an area that may be more commonly associated with bourbon than beer by some drinkers. Kentucky Common Beer is a newly recognized remnant from the Civil War era until Prohibition, according to the guidelines. “Corn grits or flakes were commonly used at a rate or 25-35% of the total grist. Minerally attributes resulted from the use of hard brewing water,” reads the Kentucky Common Beer entry in the style guide. “These beers were consumed very young, going from brewhouse to consumer in as little as one week. Early 20th century brewing literature mentions a slight tartness developing during fermentation as a characteristic attribute of this style. If tartness is present in modern versions, it should be at very low levels.” Although casual beer consumers may not be as familiar with this style, the beer rating/logging site Untappd shows 45 entries for Kentucky Common style beers currently being produced by Louisville area breweries and beyond.
New Zealand may also be a surprising area to those who don’t follow the saga of hops production, but the addition of New Zealand-Style Pale Ale and India Pale Ale to the style guide is an interesting one. New Zealand hops aren’t mentioned in the new styles, observes Mike Pomranz in Food & Wine—a deliberate omission. “Several hop aroma and flavor forward beer styles were updated in 2021 to remove reference to the origin of the hops used," Chris Swersey, Brewers Association competition manager, told Food & Wine. "Two primary drivers for this include enormous innovation in hop breeding around the world, and brewer creativity with a hugely expanded pallet of hop varieties. As recently as five-to-ten years ago, the aroma and flavor experience provided by hops from individual countries carved out much narrower lanes and largely defined the flavor experience offered by beers from those countries, whereas today hops from the U.S., Germany, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand all offer much wider flavor and aroma experiences which can and do often overlap.”
The last addition, Belgian-Style Session Ale, offers new alternatives for beers in the Belgian and French Origin Ale Styles category that recognize the uniqueness and traditions of Belgian brewing, but do not hew to any other classic or “Other” Belgian-style categories defined in these guidelines,” writes the association. This style of beer has a lower alcohol content, with only 2.1 to 5% ABV. “These beers can be lower gravity formulations of their own, or can be produced from second run wort from the production of higher gravity beers,” says the entry in the style guide. “Balance is a key component when assessing these beers. Wood- and barrel-aged versions which exhibit attributes of wood aging should be categorized as wood- and barrel-aged beers. Fruited versions are categorized as Belgian-style fruit beers.”
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According to the association, 8,275 craft breweries were operating as of the end of 2019, representing a retail dollar value of craft beer estimated at $29.3 billion.
February 26, 2021 at 10:59AM
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Four New Beer Styles Added To The Brewers Association Style Guide For 2021 - Forbes
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