Random pet peeve

[Prymal]

I have become increasingly aware that lots of commercial breweries use the same yeast strain for every beer they make. I totally understand this from a cost and convieniance prespective. My pet peeve is when they name a beer after a certain style and don't care to use the yeast that is the backbone of that style. For instance calling a beer a Saison but using 1056 with a bunch of spices, or calling it High 5 Hefe but using 1056 and Wheat malt. I don't care if you dont want to "brew to style" just dont call it something it isn't. All they are doing is poorly respresenting fantasic styles that many craft beer drinkers don't understand the complexity of.

There is a local Nano that their best seller is called Biere De Garde but it is fermented with WLP029 German Ale and the brewer/owner has never even tried a Biere De Garde other then his own.

 

[BobBailey]

That's the beauty of home brewing and craft brewing. Unless you are entering a competition, anything goes. Probably the best thing that ever happened to brewing. If not for this, many great beers would never have been born.

Bob

 

[bja]

I have become increasingly aware that lots of commercial breweries use the same yeast strain for every beer they make. I totally understand this from a cost and convieniance prespective. My pet peeve is when they name a beer after a certain style and don't care to use the yeast that is the backbone of that style. For instance calling a beer a Saison but using 1056 with a bunch of spices, or calling it High 5 Hefe but using 1056 and Wheat malt. I don't care if you dont want to "brew to style" just dont call it something it isn't. All they are doing is poorly respresenting fantasic styles that many craft beer drinkers don't understand the complexity of.

There is a local Nano that their best seller is called Biere De Garde but it is fermented with WLP029 German Ale and the brewer/owner has never even tried a Biere De Garde other then his own.

Don't buy their beer. That'll teach them.

 

[AnOldUR]

I agree with the OP. Brew whatever you want, but give it a name that accurately describes it.

If you order a hamburger from a menu, you wouldn't be happy getting a veggie burger.

Names are there for a reason; so that as a customer you can communicate what you want and so that as a retailer you can indicate what you're selling.

 

[Gameface]

The saddest part will be when Bud IPA becomes 90% of the IPA market and the average consumer expects every IPA to taste like Bud IPA, which will just be regular Budweiser with 2x the hops...so like 18 IBUs.

 

[RainyDay]

While I do agree that there are a lot of liberties being taken with style guidelines, I really dont care. That's where new and exciting brews come from.

 

[RainyDay]

The saddest part will be when Bud IPA becomes 90% of the IPA market and the average consumer expects every IPA to taste like Bud IPA, which will just be regular Budweiser with 2x the hops...so like 18 IBUs.

Dont joke about such things!!!

 

[ktblunden]

I remember getting a Saison (don't remember which brewery it was) and it having absolutely no aspects of a Saison. I recall wondering if they'd just used a regular yeast with some Pilsen malt.

 

[amandabab]

The saddest part will be when Bud IPA becomes 90% of the IPA market and the average consumer expects every IPA to taste like Bud IPA, which will just be regular Budweiser with 2x the hops...so like 18 IBUs.

Saving the IPA style is a lost cause.
The current commercial craft hop water isn't anything like a pale ale with a slightly higher abv and more hops.
Home brew versions are even worse, some english hops in an IPA would be a novel idea instead of hops from the latest battery acid bush.

 

[ajwillys]

There are some beer styles where yeast is not that important because you are interested in a specific attenuation and not the esters, etc... For these styles, any yeast works as long as it attenuates properly. This is especially true when other flavors (100+ ibu's or heaps of dark malts, for instance) will overpower anything the yeast will add anyway. Other styles, yeast is very important. Pretty much anything hailing from Belgium, yeast style is very important. There's a few others as well (kolsch, for instance).

 

[AnOldUR]

Saving the IPA style is a lost cause.
The current commercial craft hop water isn't anything like a pale ale with a slightly higher abv and more hops.
Home brew versions are even worse, some english hops in an IPA would be a novel idea instead of hops from the latest battery acid bush.

You do know that there are three sub-categories in the IPA style?

 

[Prymal]

I agree with the OP. Brew whatever you want, but give it a name that accurately describes it.

If you order a hamburger from a menu, you wouldn't be happy getting a veggie burger.

Names are there for a reason; so that as a customer you can communicate what you want and so that as a retailer you can indicate what you're selling.

That is exactly what I was trying to say. Brew whatever you want, if it tastes good I'll drink it just don't call it something that it is not because it could possibly alienate a style of beer in someone's mind because they had a bad representation of what it should be. Would you call a beer a kriek if all you did was add cherries in secondary to a pale ale, NO.

 

[RCCOLA]

some english hops in an IPA would be a novel idea instead of hops from the latest battery acid bush.

I love all IPAs and think your comment is short-sighted.

That being said, I will point you to a delicious English-style IPA-->Left Hand 400 Pound Monkey http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/left-hand-400-pound-monkey/91991/

Don't pay any attention to those reviews. They were all rating it like it was a West-Coast IPA. This beer is really nice and balanced and I think it's just what you are looking for.

 

[phenry]

There is a local Nano that their best seller is called Biere De Garde but it is fermented with WLP029 German Ale and the brewer/owner has never even tried a Biere De Garde other then his own.

What's wrong with fermenting a Biere de Garde with German Ale yeast? There really isn't supposed to be much of a yeast profile at all for the style. The few that I had in my short stay in Brussels this summer were all very malt oriented. Nothing near like a typical Saison.

 

[lowtones84]

I remember getting a Saison (don't remember which brewery it was) and it having absolutely no aspects of a Saison. I recall wondering if they'd just used a regular yeast with some Pilsen malt.

I don't know if I got a bad bottle or what, but that's exactly what I thought when I had Golden Cap Saison from New Holland. I've heard that other people think it's good, but the one I had practically tasted like a lager, which I would kind of consider the antithesis of saison...

 

[pohldogg]

I'm with the OP, you haven't experienced disappointment until you've been given a saison brewed with Notty.