Tag Archives: Paul Gatza

Brewers Association lists 5 new beer styles in just released 2014 guidelines

BA_logo-185Five new beer styles are contained in the Brewers Association’s (BA) newly revised beer style guidelines.

The guidelines, dated March 10, were announced publicly on April 22 in an Examiner.com blog by BA president Charlie Papazian on April 22, almost two weeks since the conclusion of the annual Craft Brewers Conference in Denver, Colorado. Last year, the guidelines were announced in a BA press release a month prior to annual brewers gathering. The BA is a trade group for America’s small and independent craft brewers

The new styles announced are: Belgian-Style Fruit Beer, Australian-Style Pale Ale (spun off from Australasian-Style Pale Ale), Asian-Style Pale Ale (spun off from Australasian-Style Pale Ale), Dutch-Style Kuit (Kuyt, Koyt), Historical Beer (previous part of Indigenous beer) and Wild Beer

In addition, there were substantial revisions to the guidelines for American-Style Fruit Beer and Herb and Spice Beer.

All of the latest guidelines were rewritten to follow a standard format of appearance, aroma, flavor, body, etc., Papazian wrote in his posting. “This format follows the sensory experience,” he explained. “Many style groups were reorganized within historical groups in an order of roughly increasing original gravity and alcohol content. Also, style origins were clarified

BA  guidelines are often changed and new styles get added to the list with almost regularity. But when the BA published its 2013 guidelines  early that year – prior to the annual Craft Brewers Conference – for the Polish beer style Grodzisz, or Grodziske or Grätzer, they set off a loud public debate over ingredients and origin that ultimately resulted in the BA revisiting the guidelines for that style and rewriting them.

Charlie Papazian

Charlie Papazian

Last year, amid the controversy, Papazian told me that the guidelines, which are used to judge beers at the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup, are constantly evolving and that in any give year only a couple of style definitions might be tweaked or as many as a dozen. “The trick is to stay relevant,” he said, explaining that the guidelines try to reflect the innovation that is taking place in the brewing community while preserving traditional styles. “That can be a balancing act. People like to tinker around.”

Papazian with assistance from BA director Paul Gatza and BA technical director Chris Swersey using comments from GABF and World Beer Cup judges, essentially, wrote the guidelines as he has since 1979.

The new style definitions can be found in pdf format at the BA’s web site.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Taps - Beer

Brewers Association, wary of decline in quality, urges homebrewers-turned-pro to boost quality control

Audience at the 2014 Craft Brewers Conference in Denver

Audience at the 2014 Craft Brewers Conference in Denver
(Brewers Association photo)

By Alan J. Wax

The Brewers Association (BA) says its concerned about declining quality of craft beer.

Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association

Paul Gatza

Speaking on April 9 in Denver at the annual Craft Brewers Conference, BA director Paul Gatza said that while the number of breweries, beer production, revenues and exports have climbed, quality has fallen. The Boulder, Colo.-based BA sponsors the conference, which this year attracted about 9,000 attendees.

“It’s a big issue,” Gatza told a media teleconference from the gathering. “We hate to see this segment being brought down with people having bad experiences in their glass when they’re trying craft beer. They’re maybe less likely to try something new in the future if they are having a bad experience from the last brewery they tried.”

Earlier, speaking to the brewers, he told about  visiting a beer fest and sampling a number of poor quality offerings, Gatza told new craft brewers: “Don’t f*ck it up.”   

Gatza said some new professional brewers, among them former home brewers, are not putting out beer quality that reflects well on the whole industry.”

BA_logo-185“A lot of people start in this industry as homebrewers who are told by their friends that they’re making good beer and you should go pro,” Gatza said. “A lot of them do and they try to do it on a shoestring. Try to do it on a small level and get bigger. They get their licenses. They make their first commercial beer and their friends say this is so great. But in truth what people who really know about beer are finding [is] that a lot of these newer brewers are not putting out quality that reflects well on the whole craft community. There are some off flavors at times.

He urged the newcomers need to step back and spend more time on the science of beer making and urged them to use outside labs to measure bacteria counts and other benchmarks.

Not all the blame, he said, falls on the brewers and noted that some fault belongs to retailers who fail to clean their draft lines or don’t clean their glassware property.

Bart Watson

Bart Watson

Brewers Association economist Bart Watson, meanwhile told the conference that the industry’s growth streak continues. The stats are available in an online Power Point presentation.

Craft brewing volume grew 18 percent, to 15.6 million barrels in 2013, up by 2.3 million, even as the overall U.S. beer market declined 2 percent.

Craft beer’s market share, meanwhile, grew to 7.8 percent last year and is predicted to grow further. In dollars, craft beer garnered a 14.3 percent share, $14.3 billion out of a total $100 billion in sales.

The U.S. had 2,768 breweries at the end of 2013, with 1,744 in the planning stages. By the end of last month, the number of operating breweries had grown to 2,866. Of those, 99 percent are craft breweries.

Robert Pease

Robert Pease

BA Chief Operating Officer Robert Pease said U.S. craft brewers exported 282,526 barrels last year, up 49 percent from 2012. The top foreign markets were Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan.

“The word is out that the best beer in the world is being made by American craft brewers,” Pease said.

Gatza said the BA has what he called an “aspirational” goal for the craft brewing industry to hit 20 percent market share by the end of the decade. But it’s not a slam-dunk, he admitted.

2 Comments

Filed under Taps - Beer