What We Talk About When We Talk About Style

Americans have generally treated beer style as a branding opportunity more than a description. 
When craft brewers got going in the 80s, designating a style was an impressionistic enterprise.  The problem was that most American brewers didn’t know the history and tradition of the styles, and they knew their customers didn’t, either.  A “bitter” was meant to evoke some romantic notion of England as much as it was to refer to a style.  I recall encountering pilsners made with pale malt, ale yeast, and American hops.  It’s how we ended up with “amber,” “red,” and smoky “Scottish” ales. 

Over time, we became more educated.  Brewers went off to brewing schools, people traveled, we read Jackson.  Styles became more congruent.  Seeing “pilsner” on a label meant it was probably, at the very least, a lager.  In the 90s and early aughts, breweries generally did a good job of acknowledging national brewing traditions and started making pretty decent facsimiles.

Lately, though, we’ve gone through …