‘Signature’ beers versus signature character

Signature beersOne more thought roused by Mark Dredge’s “New Wave” post. If you lined up a bunch of beers, some of which you might never have tasted, and drank them “blind” could you pick out the brewery they were from?

I ask this because Dredge wrote, “each with their own authoritative stamp which makes the drinker know that they’ve just enjoyed a beer by that particular brewery.”

I’m not simply talking about if you recognize a particular beer, so it’s a little tricky. You have to be pretty familiar with a brewery’s work to play this game so naturally you’ll know some beers. Let’s say Racer 5 and Hop Rod Rye from Bear Republic. But when you try two other beers from the brewery do you think you’d say, “Ah, Bear Republic?”

Another example would be Lagunitas Brewing, known for its “C” beers (crystal malts and hops that begin with the letter “c”). Or Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, America’s leading example of why somebody should invent a good name for what might otherwise be called beer terroir.

This is different than the notion of a signature beer. For instance, you can easily pick out New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red in a crowd. I’d call that a signature beer. It helped make New Glarus Brewing famous, but Spotted Cow accounts for half of sales and the new and wonderful Crack’d Wheat tastes totally different from those two.

So does New Glarus have an authoritative stamp? Bear Republic, Lost Abbey, Russian River, Rogue*, Goose Island, [fill in the name of the brewery of your choice]? Or what about the star of Dredge’s post, Dogfish Head?

* Added just for Jeff Alworth. Oh, and here’s one more, Pelican Pub & Brewery.

 

5 thoughts on “‘Signature’ beers versus signature character”

  1. Interesting thought experiment. With enough money, it could be an interesting real experiment!

    With my local brewpub, it would be easy to ID which beers are theirs and which are guest taps. I’d like to say I could do it with some of my favorite breweries — Stone and Bell’s, say — but not others. Dunno if I can discern a house style for Founders (maybe among their wood-aged beers) or Victory. I know I can’t for Goose Island or Great Lakes or Anderson Valley. Might be able to for Three Floyds. I wonder how much of it is recognizing house yeast strains? So that if Brewery A tried a different yeast, I wouldn’t recognize it as something from Brewery A?

    And frankly, I bet if someone can discern the commonality among the beers from a brewery, they could introduce ringers from other breweries — so someone could put in beers that I’d say were Stone or Bell’s even though they weren’t.

  2. House yeast strains and base malt play key factors I would guess. Overall process could indicate typical off flavors (or lack thereof).

    House pallet familiarity also would play a key role. I could name Firestone Walker right off.

  3. Tasting blind, without knowing that this brewery, this brewery, and that brewery are in the mix — I’d say no, it wouldn’t be easily possible to ID a brewery.

    OTOH, a few years ago I attended a blind tasting headed up by Michael Jackson, Charlie Papazian, & Fred Eckhardt and I picked out one Porter from another as Anchor’s, but I also knew that all the beers supplied were from the northern west coast and that the 2 beers were, indeed, Porters – and the Anchor was one of my favorites at that time. Lots of factors there, so maybe if someone has a favorite brewery, as Pivní points out, they could pick it from others.

  4. I would argue that breweries definitely have a signature to their beers. You can definitely tell a Lucky Lab beer by it’s mouthfeel. Descutes beers all seem to have the same little twinge from their yeast strain. You just have to drink often enough (and pay attention) to discover the commonality.

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