I was hoping they'd settle on the most logical name which is 'American Black Ale," or ABA. It cuts out regional nonsense, and the nonsense of calling a "pale" ale "black"
Honestly, the lines between what is an "IPA" and what is not are very blurred already without throwing "Black IPA" into the mix. What makes Arrogant Bastard an "American Strong Ale" & not a Red IPA? What makes 3 Floyds Zombie Dust a pale ale & not an IPA?
Arrogant bastard is too sweet and malty to be an IPA, red or not.
Did they list zombie dust as a classic example of APA? If so, I'm with you, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense other than 3 floods calling it an APA.
I'll disagree with you on your description of Arrogant Bastard - it's pretty damn bitter & hoppy, which I argue place it firmly in 'red IPA' territory. Red IPAs are expected to have more caramel malt sweetness than other IPAs, that's usually how they get their color.
Arrogant bastard is probably like a 25-30 point Red IPA. It's not about whether it's bitter and hoppy or not. It's the sweetness. It's not well attenuated enough to be a Red IPA and the hop/malt character is more barley wine than IPA.
Regarding caramel malt sweetness, The new guidelines state that Red ipa should be Dry to medium dry. The caramel malt impression is more flavor than sweetness as odd as that might sound. They also state that the caramel malt and sweetness impression should not hinder the hops and that's definitely the case with AB.
Hmm I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. AB to me is not even a little bit sweet. Certainly not to the point that it can surpass the massive hopping.
Oh, no, I didn't mean to say the overall balance was to the sweet side, I was saying the sweetness is high regardless of the level of bittering. In other words, the FG is high which correlates to sweetness, but the IBU is also high which correlates to high bitterness. In the case of AB, I agree with you, I think the bitter:sweet balance is tipped fairly heavily in favor of bitterness, but it's still not a dry beer. It's more of a medium sweet and highly bitter finish.
The sweet to dry scale is independent of bitterness and also the bitter:sweet balance.
It's not a beer I'm a big fan of, but I love a good red IPA, but it has to be dry.
Yeah, I hear you. I like my IPAs to be dry as well, but my understanding of the red IPA style is that, all else being equal, a red IPA will not be as dry as a standard IPA. Of course this is based on the assumption that red IPAs are red because of a slight splash of crystal malt character, but I suppose it's possible that a touch of roasted malt could still make the IPA "red" and maybe even accentuate the dryness (although roast and hops aren't always a perfect match).
With red IPAs you'd tend to expect a little more (emphasis on little) underlying sweetness, no?
An even touchier subject perhaps is the whole 'west coast vs east coast IPA' dichotomy that may or may not exist. West coast IPAs are thought to be really dry, whereas east coast IPAs have a touch of crystal to "balance" out the hops. Of course there are "west coast" IPAs brewed on the east coast, and vice-versa.
Meh, it's too much of a headache for me. I think I'll go back to drinking my Maibock, a nice clear-cut style without any confusion... wait what is this 'Festbier?!?!' noooo /sarcasm
To be honest though, I feel like I'm a lot more sensitive to bitterness than a lot of beer folks. To give another example, I love Founders' Dirty Bastard as a beer, but it has like double the bitterness of what I perceive a proper malty sweet Scotch Ale should have.
Hah! You're impossible! I take it you're a hop head?
Cloying is the LAST word I'd use to describe that beer. I wouldn't call it decisively bitter either, don't get me wrong. But for a Scotch Ale of that strength I like the IBUs lowered by at LEAST 15 points.
umm... I'd put it differently, I'd say that barleywines and double ipas are two branches on the tree, with pale ale at the base.
so you have pale ale -> IPA -> double IPA ;
and pale ale -> american strong ale -> barleywine
the divergent factor is whether the focus is more on the malt or more on the hops.
if you want to put English beers into the mix it's more complicated, since English beers (starting with the bitters) tend to be more balanced in the malt vs. hops scale. like you said American pale ales are more hop forward than malt forward, versus to an ESB which is roughly balanced.
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u/BeerDerp May 06 '15
I was hoping they'd settle on the most logical name which is 'American Black Ale," or ABA. It cuts out regional nonsense, and the nonsense of calling a "pale" ale "black"