Under appreciated beer styles

Hey guys and gals. I know there is a thread on most under appreciated individual beers, but the search function didn't show one for most under appreciated styles. So, what have you? I say schwarzbier!

Anything that is low alcohol. Even if Schwarzbier is rarer than most, many get good reviews. Bitters virtually never get good reviews. American adjunct lagers don't either, but I can kinda understand that one. At least bitters taste good.

My favorite is the "Scavenger Ale" that uses whatever you have leftover from previous recipes. Just balance the malt & hops and style be dammed.

I have brewed some very tasty beers this way.

I really love to see a mild in brewpubs and tap rooms. Surly had one on tap when I was there (Minneapolis) and it's really a great style that most people don't even think about.

The Sprecher pub in the town over from me has a mild on tap that blew me away the first time I tried it. I think English styles in general get the shaft when compared to American, Belgian or German styles.

Yooper said:

I really love to see a mild in brewpubs and tap rooms. Surly had one on tap when I was there (Minneapolis) and it's really a great style that most people don't even think about.

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There was an Aleheads podcast a where they were talking about this exact question, and that was the one they all agreed on. I don't think I've ever even HAD a mild.

I second the schwarzbier. My neighbor who's "a dark beer guy" (read Guinness) never heard of the stuff! Needless to say he loved the couple bottles of Köstritzer I gave him.

Helles

Qhrumphf said:

There was an Aleheads podcast a where they were talking about this exact question, and that was the one they all agreed on. I don't think I've ever even HAD a mild.

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I've had 1 commercial version at World of Beer (forget if I even liked it) and Orfy's Mild, Reapers Mild and Reapers Mild with different yeast. Very nice style.

Southern Brown is great style to drink it is a great session beer. I have heard no one makes a commercial brew of this in the US.

Belgian Pale Ale (swmbo's favorite style) seems to be forgotten. Dubbels, Tripels, Saisons, Wits, and Lambics tend to garner most of the attention within the Belgian styles.

I may be biased because I've been researching them for a new recipe, but the lighter Scottish ales seem underrepresented. Comercially, Scottish Lights aren't even exported afaik.

Anything that isn't super high-gravity or aggressively hopped.

I notice that most of these are low ABV styles. This hardly supprises me since every day or two it seems someone makes a post about how to increase the alcohol in there beer. It seems we have are more concerned about the ABV than the taste. I even find myself doing this sometimes. Although I have been trying to stop even looking at the ABV on beersmith when I ammaking a new recipe.

American IPA....




... Hahahhhhhh. I second the notion that low Abv styles are underappreciated. I wish I saw more Kolsches brewed.

dougdecinces said:

Anything that isn't super high-gravity or aggressively hopped.

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This. I'm constantly tempted not to even look at Beeradvocate anymore. Almost every single beer on that top 100 list is an quad, imperial ipa, or imperial stout. None but maybe two or three are south of 8 abv.

iv_hokie12 said:

This. I'm constantly tempted not to even look at Beeradvocate anymore. Almost every single beer on that top 100 list is an quad, imperial ipa, or imperial stout. None but maybe two or three are south of 8 abv.

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I feel about beeradvocate like I feel about rotten tomatoes. A good rating doesn't necessarily mean quality. And top 100 doesn't mean a damn thing. But a bad rating 99% of the time means terrible.

urbanmyth said:

The Sprecher pub in the town over from me has a mild on tap that blew me away the first time I tried it. I think English styles in general get the shaft when compared to American, Belgian or German styles.

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You don't think there's a lot of recognition for stout? Even porter gets a lot of attention.

I would agree with you about lower ABV English styles. I would also include the lower ABV Scottish beers.

Berliner Weisse hands down. Perfect warm weather beer. One day some American brewery will mass brew this, change the name to something more 'merican, market it triple hop brewed and its gonna take over! Or so I tell myself....

Carter5112 said:

Berliner Weisse hands down. Perfect warm weather beer. One day some American brewery will mass brew this, change the name to something more 'merican, market it triple hop brewed and its gonna take over! Or so I tell myself....

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I love me some Oarsman!

Berliner Weisse

:cross:

Definitely want to see more hoppy session beers like Stone Levitation, 10 Barrel's ISA and Founders' All Day IPA.

I would say Altbeirs, and Bière de Garde

Though I do like the Berliner Weisse that I made...

Brett-less sours

My favorite style ever is Zoigl, which I had the good fortune to try when on a work trip to Bavaria some years ago. Apparently it's only brewed in five towns these days, one of which we happened to be staying in.

Anyone ever try to brew this style? I can't find any sort of authentic recipe for it online...

Sahti!

I feel like a lot of people know about it but haven't tasted or tried to brew it... I get a lot of "I don't like gin" responses when I say it has juniper. It really is fantastic with some rye malt and a bit of grains of paradise to compliment the juniper and absolutely tastes nothing like gin.

American Pilsner. I think more of these need to be brewed. Victory and New Glarus can't continue standing alone on this.

Yooper said:

I really love to see a mild in brewpubs and tap rooms. Surly had one on tap when I was there (Minneapolis) and it's really a great style that most people don't even think about.

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Mild and bitters. I've been on a kick for a few weeks.

Hikeon3 said:

American Pilsner. I think more of these need to be brewed. Victory and New Glarus can't continue standing alone on this.

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They're not alone, Oskar Blues, Full Sail, Red Hook, Fort George, Bayern...etc.

Altbier + Kolsch. No idea why these are so uncommon.

Mongrel said:

They're not alone, Oskar Blues, Full Sail, Red Hook, Fort George, Bayern...etc.

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Absolutely right. All fine examples of the style.

Perhaps I feel as if it is more underappreciated than underbrewed. The craft industry associates Pilsners with bad beer thanks to the mighty commercial players.

Hikeon3 said:

Absolutely right. All fine examples of the style.

Perhaps I feel as if it is more underappreciated than underbrewed. The craft industry associates Pilsners with bad beer thanks to the mighty commercial players.

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A good pilsner is fantastic. I enjoy Brooklyn Pils a lot.

Reno_eNVy said:

Sahti!

I feel like a lot of people know about it but haven't tasted or tried to brew it... I get a lot of "I don't like gin" responses when I say it has juniper. It really is fantastic with some rye malt and a bit of grains of paradise to compliment the juniper and absolutely tastes nothing like gin.

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I have never heard of this this style but it sounds very interesting. I think I know exactly what I am going to brew next time. I wish I knew about this style before Saturday because I could have brewed one instead of the mild. I have Juniper and everything.

I am a dark beer kinda guy. Porters and stouts, 90/, and dubbles. but not for the abv, I just love 'em. Although I am a big fan of alts and kolsch. Was happy to see 10barrels have a kolsch summer seasonal and now widmer has okto out. And soon Ninkasi will put out Sleigh'r dark double alt which is one of my all time faves.

seems lower abv styles are underappreciated because people prefer to get drunk rather than taste the beer. And hop heads ignore everything but hops (may as well just make hop tea)

Pretty much all of my favorite styles seem to be rather underappreciated in my opinion - Amber ale, brown ale, bitters, pilsner, alt - I just love medium gravity, smooth, easy drinking beers. Often, anymore, seems like unless it has 100 IBU's, 8% alcohol or is soured it is not considered to be as worthwhile.

Reno_eNVy said:

Sahti!

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I love me some Sahti! Definitely an underrated style.

Easier to find in the states than Finland, though. It was all about the light lagers like Karhu, Lapin Kulta, or Olvi or straight Koskenkorva.

That said I think real pilsners are underrated among people who call themselves beer geeks (read: snobs), but not as much with the casual craft beer drinker. Just my observation.

I had never had a Bitter or a Kolsch before this past spring. I ordered a kit for each of those from Northern Brewer, because I wanted to try something new and they were cheap. Bitters are my new favorite style since brewing that batch, and the kolsch (their version with honey) really grew on me as I drank through the batch.

BTW, is there a distinctive difference between Bitters and Milds? The descriptions I've heard/read have seemed very similar.

I'm guessing the most under-represented styles won't make this list. Seems like their are a number of beers, once popular for years or decades, that have faded into obscurity and oblivion.

I've been wondering if 'Kentucky Common' was a real beer or is some sort of distiller's myth - was it really small beer from the tail runnings of a sour mash?

Berliner weisse, bitters (ordinary/best/extra special), baltic porter, roggenbier, and rauchbier. All of these are amazing styles of beer that I can't find enough examples of. I work in a bottle shop and order from a ton of different distributors and still can't seem to find hardly any of these styles.

ESB is definitely a beer style that doesn't get enough love, especially given the hop craze and the fact that they tend to be hoppy. They tend to be medium strength (ok, high end of medium) and are extremely drinkable - I've been doing some alts of ESB for a while now.

My absolute favorite, though, has got to be a Wee Heavy. Most of the other styles people have mentioned don't even come close to how under represented this style is. Every single person I have mentioned this style to thinks it is nasty or (90% of the time) has never even heard of it. Talk about going against popular trends, these beers don't even have enough hops to cover all the malt.

This might sound a bit ridiculous, but if you don't like wee heavies, you don't really like malt....as far as I'm concerned, that means you don't really like beer. The complexities of these beers are insane and definitely rival the "king" Belgian beers. Always thought hops were kinda superficial - IPAs have had some great surgery done to fix what's underneath, but wee heavies are like the Heidi Klums/Stacy Keiblers/Halle Berry's of the world.