Some Thoughts on Brewing to Style

In one of my earlier posts, I talked about my plan to brew a handful of extract recipes from Brewing Classic Styles this winter. Part of the reason the "classic styles" the BJCP recognizes evolved was the water supplies in different brewing cities. (This is a logical extension of my post yesterday.)

It's an example of human ingenuity allowing our predecessors to adapt to their surroundings. I'm pretty sure that some Irishman way back in the day didn't say to himself "Hmmm. I'd really like to make a jet-black, roasty but balanced beer." or "I bet if I throw a bunch of this malt that I accidentally burned the crap out of while trying to dry it out into my standard recipe it'll taste better." Someone just did it by accident or out of necessity and noticed that it tasted better than the way they were brewing before. I haven't done extensive research on the topic, but my guess is that the styles evolved out of necessity.

So I have to ask the question - what's with the obsession with style? I get that having a common framework to talk about our beers makes sense. Hell, I've been brewing a handful of the styles lately to get a better sense for what works in a recipe. I want to know what flavors a single grain, hop variety or yeast strain contribute to a beer. It's really helpful to know what ingredients or process make two beers that look very similar on paper taste completely different. That makes me a better brewer.

But when it comes to designing new recipes or classifying some of my absolute favorite commercial beers, the importance of style starts to fade. The Citra IPA Jeremy and I recently brewed was amazing and did fit into the IPA guidelines, but it wasn't quite bitter enough for his tastes. Firestone's Double Barrel Ale is an amazingly executed "English Pale Ale", but it doesn't come close to fitting any of the classic English Pale Styles. Lagunitas's Little Sumpin Sumpin is an undeniably delicious beer that doesn't come close to anything in the BJCP.

There's even a budding category that the BJCP is going to have to recognize soon - the Black IPA (or cascadian dark ale, the heavily pacific hopped robust porter, or whatever it is you want to call it.) And that's my point. The collective knowledge of brewing science has evolved far beyond what the Bavarians knew in the 1500's when they developed some of the styles that have made their way into what we recognize today or what the monks in Belgium understood. We have universities studying fermentation science. We have better malts, new hop varieties and a far greater understanding of the chemistry involved in the brewing process. We have the ability to brew beers that simply couldn't have existed a hundred or five hundred years ago. So brew like a homebrewer and don't be afraid to experiment. Throw some Pacific coast hops into your German Pilsner or use that Belgian yeast in your porter. Let your palate tell you whether the end result is great or not so good. Use the styles as a framework, but don't be constrained by them.

(Image used under the creative commons license. Original is here. You have to love Flickr.)