What the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale’s unusual World Beer Cup win means

When the World Beer Cup awards were released last month one winner stood out for an atypical reason Sierra Nevada Brewing Co won a gold medal for its flagship beer Sierra Nevada Pale Ale the beer that essentially created the American Pale Ale style That was not the remarkable part it has been a world-class beer since it was first introduced years ago What was peculiar is that the pale ale won gold in the Extra Special Bitter category Related Articles Brewery Day Trip Santa Cruz Soquel and Scotts Valley Bay Area breweries win big at state and international competitions What tariffs mean for your beer no matter where it s brewed Brewery Day Trip The Barlow in Sebastopol Hopping into spring beer styles for sunnier days That surprised a lot of people but it makes sense when you understand both the history of the style and the way styles change over time It also got me thinking about pale ales in general which in multiple approaches are the workhorse of the ale brewery and a near-perfectly balanced beer ideal for a large number of settings Pale Ale vs E S B First let s examine the difference between a pale ale and an E S B short for Extra Special Bitter The two are quite similar and once were even considered the same In England where they originated the same ale was called a pale ale if served in a bottle and a bitters if served on draft Before tap handles were clearly marked prior to the s people solicited for a bitters distinguished from the sweeter beer called a mild that was also popular at the time Bitters became a generic term but the present day we recognize three different types Ordinary Bitters often exclusively Bitters Best or Special Bitters and Extra Special Bitters E S B is a relatively new designation introduced by Fuller s in But the initials E S B caught on first in the U K and later in the U S Older readers may recall a popular early craft beer called Redhook E S B which is still being brewed in contemporary times However in the early craft beer days people who didn t understand the style tended to avoid any beer labeled bitter So in the U S pale ale became the preferred term instead Nowadays there are even more categories and sub-groups For instance in this year s World Beer Cup judging guidelines there were six pale ale categories not including all of the IPAs and two categories of bitters Overall the differences between those eight categories are fairly slight and overlap somewhat They only truly matter in a controlled judging situation when it s best to judge similar beers together and the nuances do matter As I see it style definitions are useful insofar as they set up your expectations for ordering I know what a pale ale should taste like and if I order one and it s black and tastes like a wheat beer I m going to be disappointed So what is a pale ale and why is it such a good all-purpose beer A pale ale is in a word balanced It sits in the sweet spot with both rich malt flavor and robust hop flavor When it first appeared the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was considered quite hop-forward But in the current era in the era of the IPA and Double IPA it seems positively restrained Over time what we expect of beer styles can drift Brewers are consistently trying to put their own stamp on a beer not just re-create somebody else s beer To reflect those changes the guidelines judges use to evaluate beers in competitions undergo minute changes each year For instance currently even though the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale helped to create the style it s now ironically a legacy beer that doesn t fit into those style guidelines It s the same beer that was first brewed in but now it perfectly fits the sub-category American-style Extra Special Bitter for which it won that gold medal this year Pale Ales to Try Despite being one of the oldest styles of the craft beer era pale ales can still be easily exposed especially in the Bay Area Here are a sparse of my favorites Naturally you can t go wrong with the original Sierra Nevada s Pale Ale is still great and tastes almost exactly the same albeit maybe even a little better than when it was introduced Even as our collective tastes have changed it remains one of the beers that made multiple of us fall in love with craft beer and if you haven t had one in a while now is a good time to remember Another of my favorites is The Penske File Pale Ale from Faction Brewing in Alameda Brewmaster Roger Davis has a deft hand with hops and his Faction Pale Ale is quite good too but the Penske File a West Coast pale ale is especially delicious Also Paso Robles brewery Firestone Walker s Double Barrel Ale DBA is a sublime take on the original English-style pale ales San Francisco s Cellarmaker Brewing also makes good pale ales and right now they re pouring Underneath the Pine and Super Mt Nelson their hazy pale ale Contact Jay R Brooks at BrooksOnBeer gmail com