Beer Styles in Their Native Habitat
I am a bit more than a month out from turning in my manuscript on the cider book and, as a consequence, blogging has been thin and will get thinner still. (Perhaps you noticed.) Indeed, yesterday I had no time to blog but I did spend ten minutes in a Twitter debate which, thanks to short time, I'm about to recycle as blog content. Wheee! (This is one of those times when I point out that you get what you pay for.)
The thread started with this post at Focus on the Beer arguing that hoppy sour ales are a burgeoning regional specialty of Colorado:
We are forever attempting to associate places in the US with certain styles of beer. But for regional style to mean anything, it must include enduring popularity. For about 18 months, the city of Portland was home to something like four local goses (well, more than that, because Cascade was making four). Was this a "regional specialty" or a fad? Go try to find a gose now. No one is claiming it's a regional Portland specialty. (I one-linered back to the Twittersphere, "When hoppy sours are as common in CO as helles in Bavaria, then we can talk.")
But then Stan Hieronymus reminded me that there is something typical in Oregon: cloudy beers. They are so ubiquitous that I had just misplaced the information. That is actually a recognizable local feature of Oregon beer that is unique to the region. (And that's mostly just an Oregon thing, not a Pacific Northwest thing.) Cloudy beers are as common in Oregon as hellesbier in Bavaria.
(And that led Dave Marliave and I down a rabbit hole that got us arguing about the nature of kvasnicové pivo and ... well, that's what happens on Twitter.)
So after this meandering and unenlightening ramble, I leave you with a question. Oregon has cloudy beer. Probably this hoppy sour thing is a bit early to designate as regional style, but I would argue that Colorado does have a particular take on the IPA, which is thick and cakey and super caramelly. Are there others? Criteria: must be widespread and particular to a region and a trend that has lasted more than five minutes.
Any candidates?
The thread started with this post at Focus on the Beer arguing that hoppy sour ales are a burgeoning regional specialty of Colorado:
Every brewery strives to have a unique style that helps define them. Certain regions of the country are known for influencing unique styles of beer. Granted, this does not mean they were the inventors or even originators of a style, but due to the unique and popular nature of the beer in that region, the names stuck.
So, what is Colorado’s regional style?... It’s a merging of the last big popular style (IPA) and the current/upcoming style (sours/wild ales), and we’re on the forefront of this new trend in brewing. We propose to call the style: Colorado Wild IPA, a tour de force of hoppy bite and sour pucker playfully captivating our taste buds in balanced harmony.
 |
| Source |
But then Stan Hieronymus reminded me that there is something typical in Oregon: cloudy beers. They are so ubiquitous that I had just misplaced the information. That is actually a recognizable local feature of Oregon beer that is unique to the region. (And that's mostly just an Oregon thing, not a Pacific Northwest thing.) Cloudy beers are as common in Oregon as hellesbier in Bavaria.
(And that led Dave Marliave and I down a rabbit hole that got us arguing about the nature of kvasnicové pivo and ... well, that's what happens on Twitter.)
So after this meandering and unenlightening ramble, I leave you with a question. Oregon has cloudy beer. Probably this hoppy sour thing is a bit early to designate as regional style, but I would argue that Colorado does have a particular take on the IPA, which is thick and cakey and super caramelly. Are there others? Criteria: must be widespread and particular to a region and a trend that has lasted more than five minutes.
Any candidates?