Most Popular Beer Styles: 2012 NHC Entry Results

Two weeks ago saw thousands of homebrewers descend on Seattle, WA for the 2012 National Homebrewers Conference.  The conference, among many things, offers seminars, demonstrations, and camaraderie with amateur brewers from all over the country and beyond.  But one of the center points of the event is the culmination of the National Homebrew Competition.  The final round of the comp is held during the Conference with the venerated awards given at the banquet on the last night. 

We've explored the popularity of the different style entries in prior years (2011, 2010).  With the 2012 HNC awards in the books, it was worthwhile to revisit the results and see if the preferred beer style trends continue to be the same or if there is a shift in brewers' preferences. 

For this analysis, I’m only looking at the beer categories themselves (my apologies to the cider and mead makers out there). To normalize the data, all categories are given as the percentage of the total entry pool that they represent. From this year's NHC competition, the most popular and the least popular styles are as follows (with the full dataset given below).

2012 MOST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 1. Stouts (cat. 13) - 630 entries or 8.7% of total

 2. American Ales (cat. 10) - 603 entries or 8.3% of total

 3. India Pale Ales (cat. 14) - 553 entries or 7.6% of total

 4. Belgian and French Ales (cat. 16) - 491 entries or 6.8% of total

 5. Belgian Strong Ales (cat. 18) - 454 entries or 6.2% of total

2012 LEAST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 23. Euro Amber Lagers (cat. 3) - 158 entries or 2.2% of total

 22. Dark Lagers (cat. 4) - 162 entries or 2.2% of total

 21. Fruit Beers (cat. 20) - 169 entries or 2.3% of total

 20. Amber Hybrid Beers (cat. 7) - 174 entries or 2.4% of total

 19. Bock (cat. 5) - 195 entries or 2.7% of total

The top five beer categories have been the same five styles for the past 5 years with the only change being in the ordering.  Belgian & French Ales flip-flopped with Belgian Strong Ales, otherwise the top 5 style rankings remained the same.  As an overall percentage, the number of entries in the top 5 categories increased slightly from 2012 (37.5% vs. 35.7%) representing a slight strengthening in their overall popularity. 

On the other side of the spectrum, lagers still continue to take a beating.  Of the five lager beer style categories, three of them are in the bottom five.  Light Lagers and Pilsners experienced a surge this year, both jumping up two slots (to #15 and #17 respectively), while Bock beers tumbled hard by 5 slots down to #19.  As has been in the past, there are more than three times as many beers entered in the top five categories as compared to the bottom five categories.  

Looking at trends across the past five years (2008 – 2012), popularity has been surging or failing for some categories as the style gain favor or loses it.  Below are the top movers in the positive and negative direction across thefive year span. 

MOST POSITIVE MOVERS (Ranks: '12 / '11 / '10 / '09 / '08)

 1. Smoke / Wood-Aged Beer - cat. 22 (Ranks: 8, 8, 11, 13, 16)

 2. Sour Ales - cat. 17 (Ranks: 14, 18, 19, 18, 21)

 3. Herb / Spice / Vegetable Beers - cat. 21 (Ranks: 7, 9, 10, 9, 12)

 3. Specialty Beers - cat. 23 (Ranks: 6, 6, 7, 10, 11)

MOST NEGATIVE MOVERS (Ranks: '11 / '10 / '09 / '08)

 1. Bock - cat. 5 (Ranks: 19, 14, 15, 16, 14)

 2. Light Hybrid Beers - cat. 6 (Ranks: 11, 10, 9, 8, 7)

 2. Dark Lagers - cat. 4 (Ranks: 22, 20, 22, 20, 18)

 3. Strong Ales - cat. 19 (Ranks: 12, 13, 12, 12, 9)

 3. German Wheat Beers - cat. 15 (Ranks: 16, 16, 13, 15, 13)

The growing popularity of barrel-aged beers and sour beers have definitely played a factor in the rise in popularity of Categories 22 and 17 respectively. For our 2011 analysis, barrel-aged beers were the most positive mover as well.  However, this years tragic drop for Bock beer caused it to shoot up the leaderboard for most negative mover.  A good Maibock or Doppelbock are stable beers, but the style seems to be getting the cold shoulder from competition participants in the last half decade.  

The complete data set for how each beer style category performed is presented below.  

2012 NHC Entry Rankings by Beer Style Categories

2012 Rank	Cat. #	Name	# of Entries (2010)	% of Entries (2010)	2011 Rank	2010 Rank
1	13	Stout	630	8.7%	1	2
2	10	American Ale	603	8.3%	2	1
3	14	IPA	553	7.6%	3	4
4	16	Belg & French	491	6.8%	5	3
5	18	Belgian Strong	454	6.2%	4	5
6	23	Specialty Beers	383	5.3%	6	7
7	21	Spiced / Herb	362	5.0%	9	10
8	22	Smoke / Wood	335	4.6%	8	11
9	12	Porter	326	4.5%	7	6
10	9	Scottish & Irish	308	4.2%	11	8
11	6	Light Hybrids	303	4.2%	10	9
12	19	Strong Ale	279	3.8%	13	12
13	8	English Pale Ale	265	3.6%	12	16
14	17	Sour Ale	255	3.5%	18	19
15	2	Pilsner	237	3.3%	17	17
15	15	German Wheat Beer	237	3.3%	16	13
17	1	Light Lager	200	2.7%	19	18
18	11	English Brown	198	2.7%	15	14
19	5	Bock	195	2.7%	14	15
20	7	Amber Hybrid Beer	174	2.4%	21	20
21	20	Fruit Beer	159	2.3%	22	21
22	4	Dark Lager	162	2.2%	20	22
23	3	Euro Amber Lager	158	2.2%	23	21

Everyone has a list of favorite beer styles – let us know which are your favorites and how they are represented in the competition scene.

Slainte!

-JW


"In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer"
-A. J. P. Taylor

Poll: How Many BJCP Styles Have You Brewed?

Like all our prior blog posts, this post takes a moment to memorialize the results we received on the most recent blog poll.  The readers' responses to the question "Of the 80 BJCP Beer Styles, How Many Have You Brewed?" are presented below.

Total Votes: 18

More than a majority of the voters have only tried homebrewing a handful of beer styles.  If we setup another poll that asked which styles people have brewed, the prototypically styles would be the most prevalent (i.e. APA, IPA, ESB, English Brown, etc).  The other question that is bouncing around my mind is whether the voters who voted are relatively new to homebrewing and hence the 1-15 styles brewed, or if they are old hands at homebrewing and prefer only brewing their favorite styles.

On the other side of the coin, I was surprised that the maximum number of styles anyone who voted was 31-45.  I was certain there would be folks in the 46+ range, but we never got a single vote.  It made for a very skewed result.

After rolling up my own "Styles Brewed" list, the idea of expanding my styles has weighed on my brewing plans.  Let us know what styles you may want to try in the near future.

Slainte!

-JW


"No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer."
-John Churchill

Beer Style To-Do List

In fitting with our most recent blog poll, I counted up the number of individual BCJP beer styles that I have personally brewed.  After 3+ years of brewing, I had cobbled together a list of only 28 different beer styles.  When considered against the 80 styles that are "official", the number of styles I've never attempted was almost twice that of what I have brewed.  This made me a little ... restless.

I have heard several other homebrewers who have set their eyes on the goal of brewing every style in the BJCP catalog.  I am not one of them.  However, when I listed out what I have brewed, it made me realize that it can sometimes be easy to fall into a rut and brew the same 'familiar' styles over and over again.  At my house, that typically comes back to American Wheats, American Pale Ales, Irish Reds, and Belgian Golden Strongs. 

As a means to help spur myself to try other styles, I wanted to list out all the 'To-Do' styles that I have yet to attempt.  I've copied that list below for two reasons.  First, by putting it up on the blog, it will force me to be honest with myself on what I have and have not brewed.  Secondly, I'll plan on referencing back to this post from time to time as a muse to inspire me to brew something different.

BJCP Beer-Styles 'To-Do"

• 1A - Lite American Lager
• 1B - Standard American Lager
• 1C - Premium American Lager
• 1E - Dortmunder Export
• 2B - Bohemian Pilsener
• 2C - Classic American Pilsner
• 3A - Vienna Lager
• 4A - Dark American Lager
• 4B - Munich Dunkel
• 5A - Maibock / Helles Bock
• 5B - Traditional Bock
• 5C - Doppelbock
• 6C - Kolsch
• 7A - Northern German Altbier
• 7B - California Common Beer
• 7C - Dusseldorf Altbier
• 8C - Extra Special Bitter
• 9A - Scottish Light 60/-
• 9B - Scottish Heavy 70/-
• 9C - Scottish Export 80/-
• 9E - Strong Scotch Ale
• 10B - American Amber Ale
• 11B - Southern English Brown
• 12B - Robust Porter
• 12C - Baltic Porter
• 13A - Dry Stout
• 13B - Sweet Stout
• 13F - Russian Imperial Stout
• 14A - English IPA
• 14C - Imperial IPA
• 15C - Weizenbock
• 15D - Roggenbier
• 16A - Witbier
• 16D - Biere de Garde
• 16E - Belgian Specialty Ale
• 17A - Berliner Weisse
• 17B - Flanders Red Ale
• 17C - Flanders Brown Ale
• 17D - Straight Lambic
• 17E - Gueuze
• 17F - Fruit Lambic
• 18A - Belgian Blond Ale
• 18B - Belgian Dubbel
• 18C - Belgian Tripel
• 19A - Old Ale
• 19C - American Barleywine
• 21B - Christmas/Winter Spiced Beer
• 22A - Classic Rauchbier
• 22B - Other Smoked Beer
• 22C - Wood-Aged Beer

Typing out the above list was humbling in that there are multiple beers listed that are common place and ones I should have brewed already.  But my intent is to use this list as motivation and harness the humbling/restless feelings to help me brew in new territories.

If you have never done it yourself, list out what styles you have never brewed and you'll likely be surprised.  Additionally, if you see one of your personal favorite styles on my list, please let me know - the more motivation the better!

Slainte!

-JW


"That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink.  If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen."
-Charles Bukowskoi

Most Popular Beer Styles: 2011 NHC Entry Results

Its no surprise to anyone who has entered a beer competition that some categories are incredible competitive and others barely have a pulse.  Dozens of bottles are entered in the popular styles and other less popular styles get grouped together and relegated to the 'no-one-loves-me' table in the back.

We've explored this phenomenon last year when the 2010 National Homebrewing Comp was in progress.  With the 2011 NHC complete and awarded, it was worthwhile to revisit the results and see if the preferred beer style trends continue to be the same or if there is a shift brewers preferences. 

For this analysis, I’m only looking at the beer categories themselves (my apologies to the cider and mead makers out there). To normalized the data, all categories are given as the percentage of the total entry pool that they represent. From this year's NHC competition, the most popular and the least popular styles are as follows (with the full dataset given below).

2011 MOST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 1. Stouts (cat. 13) - 566 entries or 8.7% of total

 2. American Ales (cat. 10) - 493 entries or 7.6% of total

 3. India Pale Ales (cat. 14) - 462 entries or 7.1% of total

 4. Belgian Strong Ales (cat. 18) - 404 entries or 6.2% of total

 5. Belgian and French Ales (cat. 16) - 394 entries or 6.1% of total

2011 LEAST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 23. Euro Amber Lagers (cat. 3) - 140 entries or 2.2% of total

 22. Fruit Beers (cat. 20) - 143 entries or 2.2% of total

 21. Amber Hybrid Beers (cat. 7) - 157 entries or 2.4% of total

 20. Dark Lagers (cat. 4) - 171 entries or 2.6% of total

 19. Light Lagers (cat. 1) - 191 entries or 2.9% of total

The top five beer categories have been the same five styles for the past 4 years with the only change being in the ordering.  Stouts and American Ales have flip-flopped for the number one seat each year, while IPAs and the Belgians fight for seats 3 through 5. 

One the other side of the spectrum, lagers in general are taking a beating.  Of the five lager beer styles, three of them are in the bottom five while Pilsners (#17) and Bocks (#14) aren't that much further up.  As has been in the past, there are nearly three times as many beers entered in the top five categories as compared to the bottom five categories.  

Over the past four years (2008 – 2011), there has been some have been changes in the popularity rankings as some style gain favor and others lose it.  As mentioned, the Top Five slots have really changed.  However, there have been other styles have been consistantly climbing or falling. 

MOST POSITIVE MOVERS (Ranks: '11 / '10 / '09 / '08)

 1. Smoke / Wood-Aged Beer - cat. 22 (Ranks: 8, 11, 13, 16)

 2. Specialty Beers - cat. 23 (Ranks: 6, 7, 10, 11)

 3. Herb / Spice / Vegtable Beers - cat. 21 (Ranks: 9, 10, 9, 12)

 3. Sour Ales - cat. 17 (Ranks: 18, 19, 18, 21)

MOST NEGATIVE MOVERS (Ranks: '11 / '10 / '09 / '08)

 1. Light Lagers - cat. 1 (Ranks: 19, 18, 17, 15)

 1. Strong Ales - cat. 19 (Ranks: 13, 12, 12, 9)

 3. German Wheat Beers - cat. 15 (Ranks: 16, 13, 15, 13)

 3. Scottish & Irish Ales - cat. 9 (Ranks: 11, 8, 7, 8)

 3. Light Hybrid Beers - cat. 6 (Ranks: 10, 9, 8, 7)

The growing popularity of barrel-ages beers and extreme beers has definitely played a factor in the rise in popularity of Categories 22 and 23. Those two categories were also the fastest rising categories last year.  However, I was shocked to see Hefeweizens and Scottish/Irish Ales amongst the sinkings beers.  Category 9 is one of my all time favorites styles, yet entry selection has been fickle to it in the past few years.  Sad.

The complete data set for how each beer style category performed is presented below.  

2011 NHC Entry Rankings by Beer Style Categories

2011 Rank	Cat. #	Name	# of Entries (2010)	% of Entries (2010)	2010 Rank	2009 Rank
1	13	Stout	566	8.7%	2	1
2	10	American Ale	493	7.6%	1	2
3	14	IPA	462	7.1%	4	4
4	18	Belgian Strong	404	6.2%	5	5
5	16	Belg & French	394	6.1%	3	3
6	23	Specialty Beers	346	5.3%	7	10
7	12	Porter	320	4.9%	6	6
8	22	Smoke / Wood	289	4.5%	11	13
9	21	Spiced/Herb	286	4.4%	10	9
10	6	Light Hybrids	272	4.2%	9	8
11	9	Scottish & Irish	257	4.0%	8	7
12	8	English Pale Ale	256	3.9%	16	11
13	19	Strong Ale	252	3.9%	12	12
14	5	Bock	230	3.5%	15	16
15	11	English Brown	227	3.5%	14	19
16	15	German Wheat Beer	216	3.3%	13	15
17	2	Pilsner	215	3.3%	17	14
18	17	Sour Ales	204	3.1%	19	18
19	1	Light Lager	191	2.9%	18	17
20	4	Dark Lager	171	2.6%	22	20
21	7	Amber Hybrid Beer	157	2.4%	20	22
22	20	Fruit Beer	143	2.2%	21	22
23	3	Euro Amber Lager	140	2.2%	21	23

Everyone has a list of favorite beer styles – let us know which are your favorites and how they are represented in the competition scene.

Slainte!

-JW


"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
-Homer Simpson

Poll: What's The Ultimate Summer-Time Beer?

Like all our prior blog polls, this post takes a moment to memorialize the results we received on the most recent blog poll.  The reader's responses to the question "What's the ultimate summer-time beer?" are presented below.

Total Votes: 26

When we did a similar poll last year, IPAs, Pale Ales, and Wheat Beers won first, second, and third respectively.  However, this year the results were much more bioptic.  Wheat Beers (American Wheat and Hefes) ran away with the vote followed by IPAs with no other style arising out of the noise.  Granted, in hindsight, Pale Ales were accidently omitted as a category, so either voters considered it as 'Other' or the simply did not consider it when voting.

What I always love about these seasonal polls is that there are always a few individuals that like to rub their nose at the accepted standard and do their own thing.  These are the people that think a lawnmower beer should be a Stout and a Hefeweizen would go great with Christmas Dinner.  God I love those individuals...

We'd love to know what you think of the results and how they can be interpreted.  And if you are reading this, we've put up our next poll, which awaits your response.

Slainte!

-JW

"Drink to the point of hilarity."

-St. Thomas Aquinas

Belgo-American Brew - Belgian Stout

Belgo-American style beers have gained recent popularity in the craft beer segment here in America.  This subset of beer styles combine ingredients or processes of Belgium, usually related to yeast, with ingredients or beer styles usually associated with America.  The results of this marriage can be fantastic if the relative ingredients mesh well together to produce a complex and interesting beer.  They can also become muddled and confused, where the components fight for dominance on the drinker's palate.

With these thoughts in mind, several members of my homebrewing club, the Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale (CAMRA), decided to play with Belgian stouts.  The idea was to gather for a group brew where a common volume of stout wort was divided amongst the participants.  They, in turn, would ferment the wort with a Belgian yeast strain of their choosing and finish it using techniques as they see fit.  These techniques could include dry hopping, aging with on oak chips or cubes, encouraging a secondary fermentation on fruit, souring using bacteria, etc.  The experiment would conclude with a presentation to CAMRA about the style and how each brewer interpreted it, along with a side-by-side tasting of the different beers.

Greg B. of CAMRA created the wort recipe that is found below.  Three of us gathered at my house on a cold (for Virginia) Saturday afternoon in January to brew the triple batch.  The brew session went well and we enjoyed each other's company, and beer, a great deal.  The resulting wort is now under the control of each brewer and a future post will highlight the results.

For further information, here are a few commercial examples of Belgo-American styles:

• Brouwerij Het Anker's Gouden Carolus Hopisinjoor - blend of Belgian Golden Strong and India Pale Ale (IPA).
• Brouwerij Van den Bossche's Buffalo Belgian Stout - blend of Belgian Dark Strong and stout.
• Flying Dog Brewery's Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA - imperial American IPA augmented with Belgian yeast strain.
• Allagash Brewing Company's Allagash Black - stout brewed with Belgian yeast strain and bottled with methode champenoise.

Cheers,

TW

-------

Stout de la Belgique
Style: 13-F Belgian Imperial Stout
Author: Greg B.


Recipe Specifics
-------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 6.0
Total Fermentables (Lbs): 19.5
OG: 1.078
FG: 1.018
SRM: 35
IBU: 50 (Rager)
ABV: 7.9%
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar
---------------------
10.0 lbs Pilsner Malt
 5.0 lbs German Dark Munich
 1.0 lbs Barley Flaked
 1.0 lbs German CaraMunich III
 0.5 lbs Special B - Caramel malt
 0.5 lbs 2-Row Chocolate Malt
 0.5 lbs Pale Chocolate Malt
 0.5 lbs Roast Barley
 0.5 lbs German Carafa III

Hops
-----
1.0 oz Magnum Pellet Hops (14.5% AA) at 60 minutes

Extras
-------
1.0 Tab Whirlfloc at 15 minutes
1.0 tsp Chalk in mash
1.0 tsp Calcium Chloride in boil
32 drops of Foam Control in the boil

Yeast
-----
TBD by each brewer (I used a 2 L starter of WLP 530 - Abbey Ale

Mash Schedule
-------------
60 min at 150°F
Batch sparged to get 8 gallons in brew kettle

“Apparent” Bitterness (IBU/OG) Ranges By Beer Style

After the completion of the initial four BJCP style charts that we published, a reader (thanks Andrew D.) suggested publishing a fifth chart looking at the IBU to OG ratios or “Apparent” bitterness of each style. Given that bitterness is typically set to offset the residual sweetness in a beer, looking at the relative OG and IBU values allows a brewer to gauge whether the style will typically be sweet, balanced, or bitter in the final product.

As was described in the first Style Chart posting, this project started out as a simple impulse, but turned into a series of graphical charts demonstrating how each BJCP style compare to one another.

Click on the thumbnail below to get a higher resolution image of the chart.

In addition to the above, check out the other four Beer Style Charts:

• SRM Color Ranges By Style
• IBU Bitterness Range By Style
• Original & Final Gravity Ranges By Style
• Alcohol By Volume Ranges By Style

Please click here for a higher resolution PDF of this chart or any of the other charts – I’m more than happy to share them.

Slainte!

-JW


"No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer."
-John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough

Poll: What Is Your Favorite "Summer" Beer Style?

Like all our prior blog polls, this post takes a moment to memorialize the results we recieved on our May/June poll.  The responses to the question "What is your favorite "Summer" beer style?" are presented below.

Total Votes: 33

The popularity of IPAs, even as a summer thirst quencher, continues to be seen in the beer communities.  I can't say I'd reach for an IPA while sitting out in the sun at a barbeque, but that's the beauty of the freedom of choice.  If I had my druthers, I'd be reaching for a wheat beer or a lager on the long days of summer.

I'm particularly interested in the 15% of voters who chose "Other" as their style of preference.  Given that that category is such a catch-all, its hard to tell if the voting was just a scatter-shot across various styles, or if there were one or two favorite styles that were missed in the available responses.  If you happen to be one of those voters who chose 'Other' as your favorite, please leave a comment and let us know what style you would have picked.

Thanks to all those that participated.  Please take a moment and participate in our next poll, which should already be up.

Slainte!

-JW

"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."

-Frank Zappa

Most Popular Beer Style Categories: 2010 NHC First Round

Anyone who has entered a beer into competition knows that for some reason, some beer styles always outweigh others in terms of popularity. Year after year, competition after competition, the “darling” styles always receive a good deal of attention, while some of the more interesting categories are left out in the cold.

Given this notion in mind, I figured it might be interesting, and a bit entertaining, to identify the most popular style categories (as defined by the BJCP) and see if there have been any trends in that popularity over the past few years. With the 2010 National Homebrewing Competition Finals is just around the corner, the 5,759 beer entries that made up the first round are the ideal pool of data to examine. 

For this analysis, I’m only looking at the beer categories themselves (my apologies to the cider and mead makers out there). To normalized the data, all categories are given as the percentage of the total entry pool that they represent. From this year's NHC first round, the most popular and the least popular styles are as follows (with the full dataset given below).

2010 MOST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 1. American Ales (cat. 10) - 509 entries or 8.8% of total

 2. Stouts (cat. 13) - 476 entries or 8.3% of total

 3. Belgian and French Ales (cat. 16) - 410 entries or 7.1% of total

 4. India Pale Ales (cat. 14) - 386 entries or 6.7% of total

 5. Belgian Strong Ales (cat. 18) - 362 entries or 6.3% of total

2010 LEAST POPULAR BEER STYLE CATEGORIES

 23. Fruit Beers (cat. 20) - 130 entries or 2.3% of total

 22. Dark Lagers (cat. 4) - 144 entries or 2.5% of total

 21. Euro Amber Lagers (cat. 3) - 145 entries or 2.5% of total

 20. Amber Hybrid Beers (cat. 7) - 152 entries or 2.6% of total

 19. Sour Ales (cat. 17) - 163 entries or 2.8% of total

It’s not hard to imaging why Sour Ales trend toward the bottom of the list.  While they have a popularity amongst craft beer fanatics, sour beers take a good deal of effort to perfect and they can take years to finish properly.  But, what about the other four least popular beer styles – they are fantastic beer styles, but seem to get the cold shoulder from the homebrewing community.  There are nearly three times as many beers in the Top Five group as there are in the Bottom Five.

Over the past three years (2008 – 2010), there has been some have been changes in the popularity rankings as some style gain favor and others lose it.  The Top Five slots have been consistent all three years, with the same five beer styles always being represented (although with some jockeying back and forth in position). Listed below are the beer styles that have seen the most amount of movement, either positively or negatively, in the rankings.

MOST POSITIVE MOVERS ('10 Rank / '09 Rank / '08 Rank)

 1. Smoke / Wood-Aged Beer - cat. 22 (Ranks: 11, 13, 16)

 2. Specialty Beers - cat. 23 (Ranks: 7, 10, 11)

 3. English Brown Ales - cat. 11 (Ranks: 14, 19, 17)

MOST NEGATIVE MOVERS ('10 Rank / '09 Rank / '08 Rank)

 1. English Pale Ale - cat. 8 (Ranks: 16, 11, 10)

 2. Dark Lagers - cat. 4 (Ranks: 22, 20, 18)

 3. Light Lagers - cat. 1 (Ranks: 18, 17, 15)

 4. Strong Ales - cat. 19 (Ranks: 12, 12, 9)

The growing popularity of barrel-ages beers and extreme beers has definitely played a factor in the rise in popularity of Categories 22 and 23. However, I was very shocked to see how English Pale Ales have been falling like a rock in popularity.  I personally find this trend very disappointing, as EPA’s (and other session beers) would certainly be on my list of favorite beer styles.  Someday, hopefully soon, this style will see a resurgence back to the limelight.

Without any further lamenting or analyzing, here is the complete data how each beer style category was presented this year…

NHC First Round Entry Rankings by Beer Style Categories

2010 Rank	Cat. #	Name	# of Entries (2010)	% of Entries (2010)	2009 Rank	2008 Rank
1	10	American Ale	509	8.8%	2	1
2	13	Stout	476	8.3%	1	2
3	16	Belg & French	410	7.1%	3	5
4	14	IPA	386	6.7%	4	4
5	18	Belgian Strong	362	6.3%	5	3
6	12	Porter	292	5.1%	6	6
7	23	Specialty Beers	275	4.8%	10	11
8	9	Scottish & Irish	247	4.3%	7	8
9	6	Light Hybrids	245	4.3%	8	7
10	21	Spiced/Herb	244	4.2%	9	12
11	22	Smoke/Wood-Aged	226	3.9%	13	16
12	19	Strong Ales	215	3.7%	12	9
13	15	German Wheat Beers	206	3.6%	15	13
14	11	English Brown	199	3.5%	19	17
15	5	Bock	190	3.3%	16	14
16	8	English Pale Ale	186	3.2%	11	10
17	2	Pilsner	183	3.2%	14	19
19	17	Sour Ales	163	2.8%	18	21
20	7	Amber Hybrids	152	2.6%	22	20
21	3	European Amber Lager	145	2.5%	23	23
22	4	Dark Lager	144	2.5%	20	18
23	20	Fruit Beer	130	2.3%	21	22

Everyone has a list of favorite beer styles – let us know which are your favorites and how they are represented in the competition scene.

Slainte!

-JW


"Mmmmm.....Beer."
-Homer Simpson

Alcohol By Volume Ranges By Beer Style

Below is the last Style Chart in the series demonstrates the comparitive Alcohol By Volume (ABV) ranges for each of the BJCP Beer Styles. As was described in the first Stlye Chart posting, this project started out as a simple impulse, but turned into a series of graphical charts demonstrating how each BJCP style compare to one another.

Click on the thumbnail below to get a higher resolution image of the chart.

In addition to the above, check out the other Beer Style Charts:

• SRM Color Ranges By Style
• IBU Bitterness Ranges By Style
• Original & Final Gravity Ranges By Style
• 'Apparent' Bitterness (IBU/OG) Ranges By Style

Please click here for a higher resolution PDF of this or any of the charts.  I'm more than happy to share them.
 
Slainte!
 
-JW
 
 
"I am a firm believer in the people.  If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.  The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer."
-Abraham Lincoln

Original and Final Gravity Ranges By Beer Style Chart

The third Style Chart in the series demonstrates the comparitive Original and Final Gravity ranges for each of the BJCP Beer Styles.  As was described in the first Stlye Chart posting, this project started out as a simple impulse, but turned into a series of graphical charts demonstrating how each BJCP style compare to one another.

Click on the thumbnail below to get a higher resolution image of the chart.

In addition to the above, check out the other Beer Style Charts in the series (all links will be updated when the respective charts are posted)"

• SRM Color Ranges By Style
• IBU Bitterness Ranges By Style
• Alcohol By Volume Ranges By Style
• 'Apparent' Bitterness (IBU/OG) Ranges By Style

Please click here for a higher resolution PDF's of this chart or any other chart in the series - I'm more than happy to share them.

Slainte!

-JW


"We drink all we can.  The rest we sell."
-Utica Club Brewery

IBU Bitterness Ranges By Beer Style Chart

Below is the second Style Chart in the series, which visually compares IBU bitterness for each of the BJCP Beer Styles. As mentioned in the first Style Chart posting, this project started out as a simple impulse while reading the BJCP guidelines, but took on a life of its own, resulting in the charts of this series.

Click on the thumbnail below to get a higher resolution image of the chart.

In addition to the above, check out the other Beer Style Charts (all links will be updated when the charts are posted):

• SRM Color Range By Style
• Original & Final Gravity Ranges By Style
• Alcohol By Volume Ranges By Style
• 'Apparent' Bitterness (IBU/OG) Ranges By Style

Please click here for a higher resolution PDFs of this chart or any of the other charts – I’m more than happy to share them.

Sláinte!

-JW


“Beer soothes the upset soul.”
-Thomas Mann

SRM Color Ranges By Beer Style Chart

One of the handicaps of being a visual learner is that there’s always an inkling to lay concepts out graphically to appreciate them. About a week ago, I started going through the BJCP style guidelines to see how the styles compare with each other in terms of their vital stats. Which style has the highest allowable Original Gravity? Which styles allow for the most IBU’s? It started out as a doodling impulse, but ended up being a small project I got carried away with.  As such, I figured I would share the resulting Style Charts with anyone else that happens to pass by this blog.

The first of these charts – SRM Color Ranges By Style – is displayed below. Simply click on the thumbnail to get a higher resolution image. The other three charts in the series will be added in subsequent posts.

In addition to the above, check out the other Beer Style Charts (all links will be updated when the charts are posted):

• IBU Bitterness Range By Style
• Original & Final Gravity Ranges By Style
• Alcohol By Volume Ranges By Style
• 'Apparent' Bitterness (IBU/OG) Ranges By Style

Please click here for a higher resolution PDFs of this chart or any of the other charts – I’m more than happy to share them.

Sláinte!

-JW

“…Actually, I’m a drinker with writing problems.”

-Brendan Behan