Brewers Association Announces 2012 Style Guidelines, adds new "Indigenous" category.

**Revvy** · 02-08-2012, 08:31 PM

This is interesting.

Quote:

Boulder, CO • February 8, 2012—The Brewers Association (BA) recently released its 2012 Beer Style Guidelines. Updated annually, the guidelines currently describe 140 styles of beer and are used in prestigious beer competitions, including the Great American Beer Festival® and the World Beer Cup®.

For this year, a new beer style has been added-the Indigenous Beer Category. The guidelines specify that this beer must contain "at least one regional combination of ingredients and/or techniques must be unique and differentiated from ingredients and/or techniques commonly used by brewers throughout the world...Examples of indigenous beers might include current day versions of highly regional and/or historic styles which are not represented elsewhere in these guidelines, such as Finnish-style sahti, South American chicha, African sorghum based beers, and others." For competitions, brewers will provide 100-word descriptions of why their entry is relevant to the category, to aid judges in their evaluation.

Since 1979 the BA has provided beer style descriptions as a reference for brewers and beer competition organizers. The beer style guidelines developed by the BA use sources from the commercial brewing industry, beer analyses, and consultations with beer industry experts and knowledgeable beer enthusiasts as resources for information. Much of the early work was based on the assistance and contributions of beer journalist Michael Jackson. For 2012, revisions were aided by over 100 comments and suggestions from Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup judges, as well as other beer industry members.

"These guidelines help to illustrate the growth of craft brewers in the United States and also offer insight and a foundation for helping appreciate the hundreds of beer types brewed for the beer lover," said Charlie Papazian, president of the Brewers Association.

The 2012 Beer Style Guidelines are available for download in the Publications section of BrewersAssociation.org.

**david_42** · 02-09-2012, 01:05 AM

A really good move, much better than lumping them in 'Specialty'. And just in time for all those Mayan New Year beers.

Doomsday · 02-09-2012, 01:54 AM

Very interesting. Cant wait to see the outcome.

Whippy · 02-09-2012, 01:55 AM

Time to brew up a batch of my famous Chitlin Stout!

**BBKing** · 02-09-2012, 03:01 AM

I would assume that indigenous yeast would count one in for the Indigenous Beer category? No mention of native yeast was made.

**Zamial** · 02-09-2012, 03:22 AM

I have been thinking on how to reply to this and keep deleting what I write...

In short this is going to be a mess and confuse people badly. It sounds like if you wanted to make a Mayan like beer or a buckwheat/millet African style beer this would be the right cat to enter into.IMO this is meant for those beers that have a special origin that do not fall into an existing cat well/at all.

I do not think this is meant for a "look I grew it all myself" type beer. Arguably one can claim American Light Lager as the indigenous beer of America (unless there is a Native American one I do not know of and it is an example anyways...) but should get entered into the cat that already exists for it.

I honestly would have thought they would have added sub cats for the India Black Ale instead of this but it is cool that those beers now have a place to be entered and I can only hope right?

McHaven · 02-09-2012, 04:36 AM

Dear god, I hope no one makes chicha.

For those of you unaware, Chicha is the native and preferred drink of the Shuar people of the Amazon. It is made from maize or quinoa. In Shuar culture, it may only be prepared by women. The Shuar women chew up the corn, mixing it with their saliva, and spit it into vessels. The vessels are left to sit for a few days, fermenting the natural sugars of the corn mixed with spit. Then, the men may drink. However, chicha must be served by women. The chica may only touch a man's lips.

nasty stuff. Got to try some when I was in Ecuador and nearly vomited.

**GuldTuborg** · 02-09-2012, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whippy

Time to brew up a batch of my famous Chitlin Stout!

Sounds, um...delicious. Now excuse me, I'll be dry heaving in the corner.

SPLASTiK · 02-09-2012, 04:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by McHaven

Dear god, I hope no one makes chicha.

For those of you unaware, Chicha is the native and preferred drink of the Shuar people of the Amazon. It is made from maize or quinoa. In Shuar culture, it may only be prepared by women. The Shuar women chew up the corn, mixing it with their saliva, and spit it into vessels. The vessels are left to sit for a few days, fermenting the natural sugars of the corn mixed with spit. Then, the men may drink. However, chicha must be served by women. The chica may only touch a man's lips.

nasty stuff. Got to try some when I was in Ecuador and nearly vomited.

Dogfish Head already has...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zamial

I honestly would have thought they would have added sub cats for the India Black Ale instead of this but it is cool that those beers now have a place to be entered and I can only hope right?

Black IPA was added in 2010. This is for the Brewers Association Guidelines that the Pros use for competitions, which is a different set of guidelines from the BJCP that homebrewers use. Unless you're meaning you'd think they'd add a Double Black IPA category or something and I misunderstood...

**Zamial** · 02-09-2012, 05:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SPLASTiK

Dogfish Head already has...

Black IPA was added in 2010. This is for the Brewers Association Guidelines that the Pros use for competitions, which is a different set of guidelines from the BJCP that homebrewers use. Unless you're meaning you'd think they'd add a Double Black IPA category or something and I misunderstood...

No, I misunderstood...I was past my 3rd beer at that point...