BREWERS ASSOCIATION RELEASES NEW STYLE GUIDELINES

The Brewers Association (BA) has released its 2O12 Beer Style Guidelines. Updated annually, the guidelines currently describe 14O styles of beer and are used in prestigious beer competitions, including the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup. For this year, a new beer style has been added: the Indigenous Beer Category. The guidelines specify that this beer must contain “at least one regional combination of ingredients and/or techniques must be unique and differentiated from ingredients and/or techniques commonly used by brewers throughout the world. Examples of indigenous beers might include current day versions of highly regional and/or historic styles which are not represented elsewhere in these guidelines, such as Finnish-style sahti, South American chicha, African sorghum-based beers, and others.” For competitions, brewers will provide 1OO-word descriptions of why their entry is relevant to the category, to aid judges in their evaluation. The beer style guidelines developed by the BA use sources from the commercial brewing industry, beer analyses, and consultations with beer industry experts and knowledgeable beer enthusiasts as resources for information. Much of the early work was based on the assistance and contributions of beer journalist Michael Jackson. For 2O12, revisions were aided by over 1OO comments and suggestions from Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup judges, as well as other beer industry members. The Style Guidelines are available for download in the Publications section of brewersassociation.org.