MdV: Merchant du Vin beer e-newsletter – Tuesday, November 22, 2005: Beer Names

This newsletter is from Merchant du Vin, America’s Premier Specialty Beer Importer Since 1978, and regional craft brewery Pike Brewing, producing handcrafted ales in the heart of Seattle since 1989. Each month, we provide beer info, history, trends, and news that we hope is of interest to anyone who sells, buys, or drinks beer.

Feel free to forward this; if you received it as a forward you can sign yourself up at:

http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/guestbook.html

We keep an archive of previous issues at:

http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/enews_archive.html

Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome Ale 2005-2006 – the first British Winter Warmer ever imported to the US – is available now at great bars, restaurants, and stores. More at:

http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/5_breweries/samsmith_winter_welcome.html

Beer festivals, dinners, and events are offering beer lovers all across America a chance to discover the classic styles; fine beer coverage in the media continues to grow . . . Full national news & event listing at:

http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/news.html

Beer Chat from the Beer Court Jester: Beer names

Any beer is a result of ingredients, recipes, techniques, equipment, brewer’s skill . . . sometimes history, regional tradition, local ingredients, and magic even play a role. But when the beer is packaged, shipped & ready to drink, it has become a product. In a universe of products, people have come up with ways to distinguish them, to ship them, to sell them . . . . and to find them again, or again and again.

Beers have country of origin; they are ales or lagers; they are made in a traditional or a new style; they may be a regional specialty. Beers also have a named brewer – a commercial entity that made it – and each variety made by that brewery has a brand name.

-Country of Origin:

In the US, beer labels must show the beer’s country of origin. “Made in England” or “Product of Belgium” begin to tell a consumer something about the product.

-Ale vs. Lager:

Ales can be light or dark in color, bitter or mild, strong or low in alcohol. Ales are fermented by ale yeast, at relatively warm temperatures and relatively quickly. Lagers too can be light or dark in color, bitter or mild, strong or low in alcohol. Lagers are fermented at cool temperatures for longer periods. (In the state of Texas, “ale” has a specific legal meaning: it means a lager or ale over a certain alcoholic strength.)

-Style:

Styles are widely-accepted, specific ranges of flavor, aroma, color, and body that indicate a type of beer. They help consumers buy what they feel like drinking: asking for a “stout” is easier than asking for a beer that is “dark in color, opaque; has roasty notes in the aroma and a quenching astringency from dark-roasted malts; has low hop bitterness and a fruity finish from an ale yeast fermentation, and medium levels of alcohol.” For style names, many professional US brewers follow the Brewer’s Association categories – the 2006 World Beer Cup has a concise listing at:

http://www.beertown.org/events/wbc/competition/reg_info/style_guide.html .

We’ve noticed with a smile a current trend in American breweries: take any style, turn up the alcohol, turn up the flavors, and call it “Imperial.” We enjoy these Imperial beers and are anxiously awaiting the first Imperial Berliner Weisse . . .

(Styles can be made in any country, but we disagree with using the term “Belgian” as a style: some American breweries make and sell what they call “Belgian Ale” in the US. We think that term specifically means “made in Belgium” and is far too broad to substitute as a style name. As importers for four excellent Belgian breweries, we’re aware that we are of course biased, but we applaud American brewers and organizations that remember to add “-style” to their “Belgian-style” beers.)

-Specific regional or controlled style:

Some beers have a close association with a limited region, such as Bavarian hefeweizen or Baltic porter. Other styles can only be made in a specific region: lambics, the famous wild-fermented beers of the Senne River Valley in Flanders, Belgium, are brewed and fermented in a region that is about 75 by 15 miles in area. Wild, airborne, multi-strain yeast is the key element in the flavor of a lambic, so beers brewed outside this region aren’t lambics. Style guidelines call beers in this style but brewed elsewhere “Belgian-style lambics” and many American homebrewers call their versions of the lambic style “plambic” for “pseudo-lambic.”

The European Union has instituted a rank of designations to identify products with unique properties and made in specific locations. The EU “Protected Geographical Indication” logo can be seen on the back label of Ayinger beers, classic Bavarian specialties brewed in Bavaria.

-Trappist beers:

Neither a style nor a region, “Trappist” means beers made within the walls of a Cistercian monastery, under ownership and supervision by monks of that order. The world’s seven Trappist breweries (six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands) make ales of differing styles, and the term “Trappist” is an appellation – a name that specifically means “made by a member of this group.” The six-sided Trappist logo on the label is the consumer’s guarantee.

-Brewery Name:

This is the name of the brewer – Samuel Smith, Lindemans, Traquair House. A brewery is a business ranging from small to enormous; interestingly, an actual physical brewery is not required – “contract” brewers take advantage of efficiencies by having their beer brewed at a brewery that they don’t own. Most brewers make a number of styles (Orval is an exception, making only one beer) and each style has a name of its own.

-Label name or variety:

This is the specific beer made by a specific brewer. Sometimes, it’s the style name; other times it is a unique, registered name: other times it is a combination: Pale Ale, Brau-Weisse, Taddy Porter, Jacobite Ale. And a beer sold in the US must have its name and label approved at the Federal level, and also in many states. While it has gotten easier to get approval on labels in recent years, you may not see a beer on shelves named “Synapse Thrasher” or “Road Rage Monster” soon – government agencies review every single beer label before it can be sold.

So enjoy your Ayinger (brewer) Brau-Weisse (variety), a Bavarian (region) hefe-weizen (style) ale from Germany. Or kick back with your Samuel Smith (brewer) Taddy (variety) Porter (style). Or select a Lindemans (brewer) Peche (variety) lambic (regional style) to go with your white-tablecloth dinner. The beer is great, and hopefully now the label might be a little less mysterious.

Merchant du Vin, America’s Premier Specialty Beer Importer Since 1978

www.merchantduvin.com