Originally posted by omhper
Originally posted by HenrikSoegaard
It should be Trad. Ale. Same as the Scandinavian "Hvidtøl".
It is Danish admins that made their own decisions, contrary to existing guidelines.
Thus, you certainly cannot use the Danish part of the database an example for other countries.
LOL. Many people feel that the "existing guidelines" _in general_ have very little meaning as well (and I tend to agree). Those guidelines were written for judging homebrew, and have little relevance to commercial beer.
"Traditional" is as good a category to lump it into, if that’s your thing. ;-) |
Originally posted by SilkTork
Low alcohol and Traditional ale are not styles as such, they are crude descriptors which allow us to hold beers which don’t fit any other RateBeer style guidelines. We tend to use Traditional ale for older styles which are still brewed but which for one reason or another we don’t have a style guideline. Low alcohol catches those beers which are low abv but which don’t fit into any other RateBeer style guidelines. Sometimes, a beer can go into either, though if a beer is an older style, for me it makes sense for the Traditional one to be preferred, as I would regard that as the more note worthy aspect of the beer. It’s interesting, as omhper points out, that the Low alcohol descriptor includes some older styles that folks may think of more as traditional than low alcohol., especially as it names Skibsøl, and a search for Skibsøl on RateBeer gives nine results, only one of which is under 3%. Most of them appear to be listed under Smoked. It also names oud bruin, which is another beer that turns out to be mostly over 3%, and that is listed on the site either as a Sour, if it’s over 3%, or a low alcohol if it’s under 3%.
Abv can be a deciding factor in what style a beer is. We have various categories for stout, depending on abv. And bitter/pale ale in the UK is regarded as session, best, premium or ale, strong ale, then barley wine, depending entirely on abv.
We talked some years ago about having a slightly different approach to categorising our database, and one option discussed was of having more than one criteria to which a beer could be classed - so abv would be one criteria, and colour another, and hop levels another, for example. Since then in the UK a similar idea was developed to describe beers, it’s called Cyclops: http://www.cyclopsbeer.co.uk/ - personally I don’t like it as it’s using subjective taste opinions which influence the drinker, but it does indicate that a number of folks would like something a bit more helpful than a beer style name or category to give them information about a beer. Especially as some beer styles have a certain selling power, so brewers often use style names to sell a beer, even when the beer properly does not belong to that style or have that provenance. Think Champagne and sparkling wine; Lambic and sour ale; Pilsner and pale lager, etc.
I recall a few years ago we talked about allowing primary and secondary styles for beers that fit more than one category.For example a smoked porter could be listed both as smoke and porter, and Kvass could be Traditional Ale and Low Alc.. I thought this was a very good idea then, time to revive it? |
Kvass is not a beer at all. Most commercial examples are sugary soft drinks (soda / pop) with a bread content about 0.6% or something. So I think it really does not belong here at all - but as it is here already, and probably will stay, kvass should have a category of its own, like the other non-beer categories: cider, perry, mead and sake. Kvass has absolutely nada in common with Danish hvidtøl. |
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Originally posted by peepthesot
LOL. Many people feel that the "existing guidelines" _in general_ have very little meaning as well (and I tend to agree). Those guidelines were written for judging homebrew, and have little relevance to commercial beer.
LOL indeed. Those guidelined were written by Oakes for the exact purpose of determining what beers goes where on Ratebeer. |
Originally posted by SilkTork
It also names oud bruin, which is another beer that turns out to be mostly over 3%, and that is listed on the site either as a Sour, if it’s over 3%, or a low alcohol if it’s under 3%.
There’s two styles called ’oud bruin’. The Dutch one is definately a low alcohol beer (and very sweet instead of sour). |
Originally posted by Sigmund
Kvass is not a beer at all. Most commercial examples are sugary soft drinks (soda / pop) with a bread content about 0.6% or something. So I think it really does not belong here at all - but as it is here already, and probably will stay, kvass should have a category of its own, like the other non-beer categories: cider, perry, mead and sake. Kvass has absolutely nada in common with Danish hvidtøl.
Let me paraphrase your post:
I’ve never had a real kvass, but I want to pontificate on the internet about it regardless. |
Originally posted by Sigmund
Kvass is not a beer at all. Most commercial examples are sugary soft drinks (soda / pop) with a bread content about 0.6% or something. So I think it really does not belong here at all - but as it is here already, and probably will stay, kvass should have a category of its own, like the other non-beer categories: cider, perry, mead and sake. Kvass has absolutely nada in common with Danish hvidtøl.
Am I missing something here? In making beer, we have the fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal grains, wheat, corn, rye and rice among others. What do they make bread out of? Is kvass not a beer because the starch has already been converted by baking the bread? Just curious. BTW, since I love kvass, I’d really like to try a good example of hvidtøl. Also, I’m confounded, it says hvidtol is a white beer but the picture shows a dark beer? |
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It is quite confusing that "Hvidtøl" is called "White" beer in Danish but they are all dark and very very sweet. This is a historical thing. I cant remember the ecsact history but I will look it up. Hvidtøl have been brewed for centurys and was the beer to drink to avoid poluted Water and not get drunk (too much). It actually improoves with cellaring and I have a few in the "basement". In Denmark we usualy drink it at Christmas.
And for the database discusion. I actually thought that the Low alc definition was changed, but it isnt apparently. Suggestion: 2 Low alc styles.: "The pales" (with Alcohol removed) and "the sweets". Radler/Shandy allready has its own. Originally posted by cheap
Originally posted by Sigmund
Kvass is not a beer at all. Most commercial examples are sugary soft drinks (soda / pop) with a bread content about 0.6% or something. So I think it really does not belong here at all - but as it is here already, and probably will stay, kvass should have a category of its own, like the other non-beer categories: cider, perry, mead and sake. Kvass has absolutely nada in common with Danish hvidtøl.
Am I missing something here? In making beer, we have the fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal grains, wheat, corn, rye and rice among others. What do they make bread out of? Is kvass not a beer because the starch has already been converted by baking the bread? Just curious.
BTW, since I love kvass, I’d really like to try a good example of hvidtøl. Also, I’m confounded, it says hvidtol is a white beer but the picture shows a dark beer?
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This is a perfect example of why we should go to "broad category-style tag" system that’s already partially in place:
Category (not style): Traditional Ale
Style#: Kvass |
Without looking at any particular examples:
1) That sounds like a lot of kvass in the DB - I’ll bet there’s ones that shouldn’t be here. The stuff under 1% shouldn’t be listed, as it is a soft drink (and viewed as such in its markets). I drink kvas regularly in ex-USSR countries, and wouldn’t list very many of the ones I’ve had.
2) Assuming I’m wrong and everything listed should be listed, we should be consistent in our
placement
3) Most kvass fits better in "low alcohol" than traditional, mostly because most kvass is not made using any sort of traditional methods. Most of it is quite industrial.
4) Definitely willing to accept Traditional Ale for anything made using traditional methods. I assume there’s at least of few of these out there. These would be exceptions.
That’s a pretty unscientific take, but the OP is right, we should be consistent as reasonable in our treatment of kvas.
And yes, cross-listing of styles/categories makes a lot of sense. Could be 25-30% of listings that you could cross-list. |
