Monthly Archives: October 2013

My Favorite Brew?

There are three different brews that I have made the statement “this could be the best beer I have ever had.”  The first one was 1554 Enlightened Black Ale from New Belgium Brewing, or better known as the makers of Fat Tire. 1554 falls in the category of Belgian Dark Ale.  The second one I made that statement about was Turbodog  Dark Brown Ale from Abita Brewing. Turbodog is classified as an English Brown Ale. The final one I boasted about was Yuengling Porter from Yuengling brewery.  This is considered an American Porter.

So how could I make a statement like that when they were all from different categories of styles? Is it possible to really like different styles of beer? Sure it is. So what is my favorite style of beer? Good question. I started looking at how many styles are classified. Depending on where you look, there are a lot of styles to choose from.  The Brewers Association Style Guidelines which categorizes beer for the Great American Beer Festival and the World Cup of Beer lists 84 categories plus 58 subcategories for a total of 142. That’s quite a lot of styles.

How do you know what category the beer you are drinking falls into? It can be difficult. Beer makers often use a more marketing-friendly term such as the 1554 which uses Enlightened Black Ale instead of the correct category name of Belgian Dark Ale. Sometimes it takes a little research to find the right classification. Good resources to use are TotalWine.com, CraftBeer.com, or BeerAdvocate.com

So which one was my favorite? I did a blind taste test and the results were:

1)    Turbodog Dark Brown Ale

2)    1554 Enlightened Black Ale

3)    Yuengling Porter