In the most recent Beer Advocate issue (#32) Andy Crouch, the Beer Scribe, writes about the necessity to redefine what we consider extreme when it comes to beer. The article can be found here, on his website so that you can follow along. I’m pretty sure that we agree with his sentiment, but I’m not sure where we are left after we finish the article. I encourage you to read the whole thing before you continue, but here are some excerpts:
The time has come for brewers and consumer beer advocates alike to redefine extreme. After spending years pushing the envelope of what constitutes beer, the movements of brewers have largely been directed down paths towards higher alcohol levels, increased hop ratios, and bourbon barrel aging, sometimes all at once. … Take for the extreme beer movement’s ringleader, the Double IPA. The alcohol levels on most DIPA’s have run so high as to render them nearly indistinguishable from American barleywines and it is the rare that one actually tastes expressively of hops instead of booze.
…Now this is not the biweekly call to abandon extreme beer for a return to traditional beer styles, although brewing a clean helles or crisp German pilsener is about the most radical act an American craft brewer could undertake these days.
…There remains so much unexplored ground in the classic four ingredients of beer that expanding into new areas, for its own sake and to the detriment of drinkability, is growing tired and extreme it can no longer be considered.
The average observer would not be hard pressed to list Three Floyds Brewing Co. LLC in their list of extreme breweries, or rather breweries that make extreme beers. In a year’s time we make a lot of different beers. A lot of them are extreme by most standards. Some of them are high in alcohol, some of them are barrel aged, some of them are barrel aged with special extras added to them. But in that same span of time, we also make traditional styles that are in some cases more authentic to style than you might find if you went to the source.
Between the Double IPAs (Dreadnaught), Barleywines, Wheatwines, and Oatwines, (Behemoth, Hvedegoop, Oatgoop), the IPAs with Lactose and Oats added, (Apocalypse Cow), the Milk stouts aged in bourbon barrels with Mexican Chillies, (Conquistador de Meurte), the over the top Imperial Stouts, (Dark Lord, Barrel Aged Dark Lord, and diabetes inducing BA Dark Lord with Vanilla Beans), etc. etc. etc. we also make a number of ultra traditional beers. Jinxproof is a continental style pils we made earlier this year that we find to be the picture of drinkability. This summer also saw Gorch Fock, our Munster style Helles that can stand side by side to any helles you will find in a Munich bier hall. Right on its heels and seemingly gone in the blink of an eye was Munsterfest, our German Style Märzen that is more of an Oktoberfest beer than is drank in most of Theresienwiese at the end of September. Right on its heals and in the tanks right now is Großer Kurfürst, a Munster style dunkel, brewed for the pub, that we in the brewhouse are anxiously awaiting to be ready. Rather than list out and explain all of the dozens of beers that we make in a year, take our word that we run the full gamut when it comes to beers.
And where does that leave us exactly? If we make beers that are over the top, beers that are the epitome of their stlye, and beers that are somewhere in between does that mean we are extreme? Extreme to me is a poor adjective to describe what we do and I think that maybe Andy should look to what we have been saying since 1996: “It’s Not Normal.”