Under appreciated beer styles

[Hikeon3]

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

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.

 

[TwoGunz]

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.

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

 

[Bradinator]

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.

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.

 

[N3rdM3t4l]

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)

 

[Braufessor]

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.

 

[trumpetbeard]

Sahti!

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.

 

[signpost]

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.

 

[TNGabe]

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?

 

[KraphtBier]

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.

 

[Zabuza]

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.

 

[AmandaK]

Rauchbier
Mild
Bitters
Berliner Weiss
CAP
True lambics
Low abv Saison

 

[BeerFather Brewing]

Mild ale - I am still excited at the thought of having one from a firkin in the UK some day.

Best bitters - nice, easy drinking session beer.

These are so simple to brew on a 3.5g BIAB all-electric set-up it is almost insane. I use a 9g pot with a 1650w element & a brew pot controller from KegKits. Get great efficiency & can easily handle the brew on my own. My favorite styles & my new favorite way to brew them.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

I love a good California Common. Most people I know don't even know of the style unless they brew and only a few brewers I know have even made one.

 

[Jakeintoledo]

English beers served at English temperatures are quickly becoming my favorite beer to drink. I like an IPA as much as the next guy, but crimony, man, the sun don't rise and set at the hop vine.

 

[AndrewD]

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 can occasionally get a 4 pack of DeKoninck here for about 12-15 bucks. I think it's getting here pretty fresh because I always keep my eye out for it. It is definitely one of my favorite commercial beers.

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

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

I just had some Red Hook Pilsner from the variety pack and wow was I impressed. It was a quintessential summer beer that helped me through an entire hot day of cooking.

 

[thisgoestoeleven]

Dark milds are fantastic, so are bitters.

 

[signpost]

I just had some Red Hook Pilsner from the variety pack and wow was I impressed. It was a quintessential summer beer that helped me through an entire hot day of cooking.

I just recently had that same variety pack and really enjoyed the pilsner. More flavorful than any pilsner I remember drinking any time recently.

 

[billf2112]

Good old Irish Red Ale, maltier than the American taste bud and not so high on the ABV chart. Just a tasty brew.

 

[BillBeer247]

kolsch and baltic porter

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I think this depends in part on where you live and what's generally popular there. I was down in Austin this week and there were lots of German-influenced beers. It seems like everybody produces an alt, whether they call it an alt or an amber. This seems to be a trend coming up to Dallas with the new brewers in the area. However, it was rare to find any English or Scottish beers other than an imperial stout. A lot of that can be undoubtedly connected to the rich history of German and Czech immigrants to south and central Austin.

A lot also just depends on what people want to buy. When drinkers have hard ons for high ABV/hoppy/sour/barrel aged beers, that's what is going to get produced a lot. However, in the past couple years there has been growing attention towards lower ABV styles so I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of brewers shifting focus towards making lower ABV beers a larger part of the regular line up and higher ABV beers start to go into the limited or seasonal releases. It's a particularly smart move for new breweries because it's easier to keep costs down selling a $5 pint of 4% ABV/balanced beer instead of a $5 pint of 7% ABV/super hoppy beer.

 

[MisterTipsy]

Zwickel is under appreciated.

 

[duckmanco]

Ordinary bitter, or anything sub 5% in most of American Craft beer, but ordinary bitter, even a fake a** American version, which they (breweries) seem to call ESB and make it with either Cal ale or a super clean English strain and Cascade hops... I'd rather it be more closer to the real, but still, when I'm at a place to drink, I'd like to settle in and drink a few, not get hammered after 3 pints.

Long winded answer to a simple question.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Gose!

It's a nice low-ABV session beer, and the tartness and salinity make it quite interesting for beer geeks but it's been (surprisingly) a crowd-pleaser to a lot of people I've served it to that don't drink a lot of beer. Perfect for a hot summer's day.

I've made a 10-gallon batch each of the past two summers... This summer I learned something -- I need to make 2 10-gallon batches per year. I ran out too quickly this year!

 

[Eco]

Altbiers have been my passion. its what I have primary brewed since the beginning. out of my last 100 brews probably 50 of them have been altbier variations. When I say altbier to people they look at you sideways. I say to the East coast people a commercial example is Long Trail and to the WC people I cite Alaska Amber as an example. I love every thing about altbiers, the taste, sessionability, profile, style. I identified it early on as underappreciated and decided to own it as my personal style and share this niche beer with my community.

 

[Teromous]

Kristallweizen. In the US it seems there's a rampant misconception that German wheat beers are all cloudy.

 

[Beernik]

Schwarzbier
Bitters
Vienna
Dort Export - it's a good alternative to making pilsners if you have minerally water.
Kolsch

I'm looking forward to making a dampfbier this year. It's a non-wheat beer with hefeweizen yeast.

 

[Spartan1979]

Anything German.

 

[timrox1212]

I think ill o with the rest of you and say schwartzbier and mild's. I love both styles but most people when I hand them a beer and tell them it's a schwartzbier they give me a funny look


Sent from my iPhone

 

[Qhrumphf]

Wow. Since I posted in this thread initially Mild has become one of my favorite styles, and one of my house beers.

Session beers in general seem to be underappreciated. But I'd love to see more Milds and Bitters available.

 

[bstacy1974]

I've never had a bitter, but I want to brew up a small batch. For inspiration, I thought I'd pickup a 20oz bottle at the liquor store. Nothing was labeled as a bitter or ESB. The closest style I could find was a Organic Pale Ale by Samuel Smith. So, I'd say bitters are definitely on this list. A new craft brewery in town keeps a mild in there general rotation. It's awesome too! More love for the milds our there!

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