精酿啤酒风格：为什么它们重要以及何时不重要

2013年10月29日

Imagine your city is abuzz about the newest restaurant in town: Julio Wasabi McMurphy’s Americana Emporium of Fine Dining. All the food bloggers give the menu two cyber thumbs up, whileDerelictmag says it’s sophisticated place for co-eds to co-mingle.

You’re ready for an amazing glutinous experience, but when the menu arrives, it’s full of haughty culinary language and superfluous adjectives: “Enjoy eating greatness? Then this super complex, one of a kind delicacy will indulge your deepest gustatory cravings.” Aside from feeling like you’ve just read a smutty romance novel, you’re a bit confused.

What is the cultural background of this entrée—Greek? Thai? Cuban?

这种开胃菜的关键口味是什么？甜的？酸的？咸？

The fish of the day is wild Arctic grayling—what in the world does that taste like?

迷惑不解，您采样了一些东西，并以嘶嘶作响的身份离开，试图在回家的路上决定在Mibr和鸡圈之间做出决定。

食物Relates to Beer?

Of course it does!

In food, just as in beer, categories and descriptions help us characterize and discern between choices, allowing us to narrow down broad descriptions to specific traits. Milk of Magnesia has a chalky texture and minty flavor, unlike honeydew, which is sweet and light—you’re tongue knows the difference, but words define that intrinsic knowledge.

Through our experiences, we’re able to make generalizations, like Italian food often uses garlic and basil and is good for carb loading. Hispanic foods are spicier, often feature peppers and are usually accompanied by some form of taco-ish thingy. Information like this dictates our decisions as we peruse culinary lingo and sift through cravings to gain sustenance and pleasure from food.

Along the way, we learn food vernacular to support and enhance our appreciation and allow us to talk about our experiences with others. These words help us navigate the perpetual question, “What are you in the mood for?” and give us answers when girls inevitably say “You decide,” and list 37 restaurants they like. Words like spicy, smoky, rich, sweet and delicate are just the outside layer of the onion that is learned food (and beer) dialect.

The Importance of Beer Styles

我最近在酒吧里，天气很合适，我对像Tater Skins这样的优雅之类的东西感到不安。这种情况在像我这样的人的头上造就了一个难题。啤酒。是。完美的。为了。这个。片刻？！我要求我的服务器告诉我菜单上列出的啤酒的风格，该啤酒的描述带有很多单词，但没有给我一个线索，说明我可能要订购的东西。

Our server hunted down the bar’s “beer expert” who came to the table to inform me that styles didn’t matter anymore. Inside I was screaming “WTF!?”—but I kept it cool, because the beer Jedi Force was working within me (read: “Episode V: The Beer Geek Strikes Back“). It’s difficult to make a decision when beers like Dragon’s Breath Ale and Crazy Monkeyduck Hefenlager are on a beer list without descriptions and the resident beer swami tells you that styles are obsolete.

This is all groundwork to say: beer styles are really important.

Education Leads to Appreciation

啤酒风格为了解特定啤酒的基础奠定了基础。历史啤酒风格概述了The World Guide to Beer经过Michael JacksonandThe Essentials of Beer Style弗雷德·埃克哈特（Fred Eckhardt）的作品非常重要。他们的研究除了早期的美国精酿啤酒风格外，还根据欧洲的区域风格和技术对啤酒进行了分类。每种样式都代表基于水中的矿物质含量和成分实验的数百年。

也许更重要的是，精酿啤酒风格立即用信息和描述符，使我们能够在看似无尽的啤酒选择中做出明智的决定。样式及其描述使味蕾动摇，并帮助我们根据自己的心情或可能配对的方式做出选择。

我坚信，说他们不喜欢啤酒的人并没有给它一个公平的射门，只指出了水状的，辅助的啤酒。如果您喜欢口味和食物，而谁不喜欢？ - 一定会成为您会喜欢的啤酒，因为其余美食世界中的许多口味都在啤酒中回荡。

知识是啤酒力量

Our working knowledge of beer styles helps us steer through flavors and preferences to make decisions based on what we currently know. The样式查找器on CraftBeer.com is a great place to start learning about basic styles and how they relate to each another. In addition to basic style information, the Style Finder also provides spot-on commercial examples of each style to help you find beers to taste, because we all know tasting is the fun part!

Each brewery’s Baltic porter will be slightly different, but once you know a few basics about what a Baltic porter is like, you will have expectations, just like you would after ordering a chimichanga. Once that working knowledge is in place, beer ordering becomes an adventure of your preferences and desires to expound on. Learning the lingo of beer beyond light and dark, or hoppy and malty, is a huge part of growing as an educated consumer.

一旦您真正了解样式，只有这样做才是更重要的

所有这些并不是说现代的曲折和实验不起作用，只是在建立历史和样式的基础时，它最有效。一旦完善了基本的啤酒风格，每个酿酒师就可以像酿造的鲍勃·罗斯（Bob Ross）一样绘制自己的“快乐的小树木”（阅读：啤酒），消费者可以享受他们独特的项目。

你应该成为一个好cinnamon-spice如何d mocha porter if you can’t make a good regular porter? Breweries like Dogfish Head, Stone and Rogue spearheaded the movement of taking classic styles and adding their own special twists in the ’90s and early 2000s. Prior to that, breweries in the ’80s were being experimental by making hop-forward beers with more aggressive American hops compared to the earthier British and more delicate German/Czech hops. Much of our beer culture today stands on the shoulders of these early American craft breweries, just like they were inspired by the great beers of Europe—it’s the circle of life, Simba.

As usual, I undoubtedly sound like a blowhard at this point, so let’s bring in the highly-decorated brewer Pete Crowley ofHaymarket Pub & Brewery权衡：“向历史和风格以及过去的啤酒厂和啤酒厂致敬很重要。不同的地区及其历史，水化学，可用成分和一年中的时间都在啤酒样式的发展中发挥了作用。美国精酿酿酒师采用了这些出色的风格并与它们一起奔跑，创造了新的啤酒景观。酿酒商正在制作他们想要的东西，而不必担心啤酒应该适合的地方，只要它的味道很好。”

当心纳粹汤！

纳粹汤的角色Seinfeld几乎无法忍受无知的客户的存在。Don’t be that guy when it comes to craft beer!了解啤酒风格（历史，语言和统计数据）是关于个人理解的，使您成为消费者欣赏独特的旋转酿酒商所享受的。

啤酒styles can have many interpretations and everyone has different preferences. However, to assume beer drinking is completely based on each person’s individual tastes is to dismiss history and more practiced palates. Researched minds and great breweries have set these hierarchical sentiments in place; they need only to be tapped into and enjoyed by folks like you and me.

对啤酒风格和历史的了解为您提供了一个坚实的基础，可以根据知识建立自己的啤酒之家，这比在主观性的沙子上建造它要安全得多。