JP wrote:It would do best in the specialty category, because that's what it is. And I feel Oat stouts are separate because the oats change the beer in the mouthfeel and head retention, as well as flavor to a certain extent. in Black IPA's all you get is a color change.
Michael Kane's 2009 Silver Medal Dry stout had a substantial amount of oats. It scored fairly poorly in several local comps (low 30s) as an oatmeal stout because it was way too dry. It's not just the addition of oats that makes it an oatmeal stout.
JP wrote:Dort Export is named from the region it was developed in and was a different beer than the others, I assume. If you expand Pils to include Dorts then you are muddling the Pils cat because those beers are different enough that you can tell without having to look at them. Again, the major diff between IPA's and a Black IPA is the color. Is that really enough to warrant it's own style?
How can you tell without looking at them? It's like a slightly bigger version of a helles to slightly less bitter and bigger version of a pils. One could say those are stylistic changes. In fact no one who spoke about beer strongly considered them a seperate style until Fred Eckart wrote about them in 1969. I've read this in a couple BYO/Zymurgy articles. It's also shown here in wikipedia, even though we know that's not the most authoritative source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dortmunder_Export
So no, it isn't intrinsically it's own style. People decided to separate it. Just the same way I think one could make an argument that Tripels and Golden Strongs are extensions of the same style, though there are some subtle differences.
JP wrote:When you say "overt roastiness", are you talking about these Black IPA's? Because my understanding is the roastiness is low to none. And there are plenty of IPA's that have low maltiness to med maltiness that are still IPAs, so I think that argument is out the window, too.
So you're agreeing with me that most IPAs have low to medium maltiness? That celebration ale and santa's little helper style beers are the exception? And that little to no roastiness so they can't be considered porters or stouts which have high maltiness and med to high roastiness? Glad to know.
JP wrote:So the main differences between an IPA and a BIPA are the color and a hint of roastiness ... how does that transcend into a new category? I just don't see it.
They are currently specialty beers, because they would be dinged heavily in all existing categories. Specifically for IPA they would be dinged for color (too dark) aroma and flavor (any roastiness is too much). Why they deserve their own style? If enough beers are brewed to this specification, then yes they deserve a style, simply because people are brewing a beer that can't fit into other categories but can themselves be grouped into their own category. I don't understand the hard part.
