Original Gravity
Tangent No. 1
Category 23
On Specialty, Experimental and Historical Beers
Based on my research there is very little literature dedicated to Category 23 Specialty Beers which exists. However, in ‘the spirit’ of Category 23 there is a growing amount of literature, most notably Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing and Sam Calagione’s Extreme Brewing. Mosher’s book revels in offbeat ingredients, techniques and flavor combinations from mushrooms to maple syrup to massive amounts of hops, double and decoction mashing, super long boils, mash hopping and exoctic microorganisms, it’s a long, strange trip from How to Brew, or The Joy of Homebrewing and far more about the art of brewing than the likes of New Lager Brewing.
Several brewers and breweries have gained fame by brewing beyond style guidelines and freeing themselves from tradition. Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewery, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing Company and Adam Avery of Avery Brewing Company have all made names for themselves by brewing some crazy stuff. Harpoon, Allagash, Ommegang, Flat Branch, Bell’s, Founder’s, Pizza Port, Ale Smith, Three Floyds, New Glarus and even Boston Beer Company and New Belgium have gained fame and all important ‘street cred’ by creating daring and engaging brews, as well as their (sometimes) standard lineups.
Before we can really discuss Cateogry 23, its related categories should be addressed, in turn. Category 16E Belgian Specialty Ales is a catch-all category for any Belgian-style beer not fitting any other Belgian style category according to the BJCP. So your Houblon Chouffe IPA Dubbelen Tripel clone will have to go in this category, along side Johnny Brewsalot’s Orval clone and Jeff Harbaugh’s Liquid Stupid. There’s Category 21 A and B, Spice, Herb, and Vegetable Beers and Christmas/Winter Specialty Spiced Beers, respectively, which dictate that Jim Yeager’s Pumpkin Ale and Anchor’s Our Special Ale do not, in fact, fit Category 23. Fruit beers of Category 20 is another very wide open category, encompassing all comers, from peach wheat beers to cherry stouts to apricot IPAs. However, your pomegranate Witbier or raisin Dubbel belong back in Category 16E, because the BJCP says so. The last in the family are Categories 22B and 22C Other Smoked Beers and Wood Aged Beers. 22B is wide open, accepting the rather popular Smoked Porters, like those from Alaskan Brewing Company, O’Fallon Brewery and others, additionally, the apple wood smoked Single Malt Smoked Scotch Ale from Square One would fit in just as well as an Extra Stout with bit of peated malt. 22C holds lots of wide ranging brews, reborn by time spent with wood, usually oak. From the now relatively common whiskey barrel stouts and barlewines coming out, some breweries are releasing wood aged versions of porters, bocks, Scottish ales, Abbey Trippels and many others. Yet still other brewers are investigating the use of wine barrels. Harpoon, J.W. Lee’s, Dogfish Head and most notably Russian River Brewing have released a wide range of wine barrel aged beers.
All of this leads us to Category 23. What is it? The short answer is that it is simply the widest catch-all category, which, while accurate is quite insufficient. Allow me to elaborate. Category 23 can serve as an incubator category for styles without a home as of yet, but may be gaining interest and may one day warrant their own category. I’ll introduce a few.
Munster Style Altbier: A smaller Altbier, lowers in hops, malt and color, another German session ale.
Sticke Altbier: Basically an extra or double or Imperial Altbier.
Imperial Porter: Typically a very highly hopped top fermented American take on Baltic Porter.
Carnegie Style Porter: A bottom fermented, smaller Baltic Porter, weighing in closer to 5% ABV.
Malt Liquor: You know, they sell it in 40s.
Non-alcoholic “Beer”: Yea, I’m confused, too.
Honey Beers: Aside from Braggots, these include honey wheat ales, honey browns and such.
Category 23 is also home to historical recreations such as ‘vatted’ or stale porter with Brettanomyces, Gose (sour German Wheat with oats) and colonial style ales brewed with corn and molasses. Finally, it is home to the truly experimental beers. Beers brewed with unusual ingredients: maple syrup amber ale, sorghum and other gluten free brews, molasses beers, rye IPAs, stouts and porters; wheat IPAs and other variations on classic styles fit in here. Beers made via odd techniques: Eis or Iced beers which have part of the water frozen out concentrating the flavors and alcohol, aside from Eisbocks, and steinbiers which are boiled using heated rocks submerged in the wort and sometimes left in during fermentation. Variations on existing styles are another hallmark of Category 23: Imperial Witbeers, Wheat Wines, Double CAPs, Dry Hopped Oktoberfests, low gravity American Pale Ales and many other variations exist on this theme.
Although there are plenty of wide open categories recognized by the BJCP, Category 23 is possibly the vastest and is really about pushing the limits of what beer can be.
