How a new beer style gets added to the style guidelines
Beer styles are not handed down from on high. They are written by people who judge beer, revised every few years and argued over at length. Understanding how a new style gets in tells you a lot about what a style actually is.
What a style guideline is for
A beer style guideline is a description of a type of beer: its colour, strength, bitterness, aroma, flavour and mouthfeel, often with ranges for each number. Its main job is practical. When a hundred beers are entered into a competition, judges need to know what each one is supposed to taste like, so they can score it fairly against its own style rather than against the beer next to it.
The guidelines also help drinkers and brewers talk about beer. When a menu says Helles or saison, the words carry meaning because a shared description sits behind them. Our beer styles guide covers the main families.
Who writes them
Two sets of guidelines are used most widely. The BJCP, a volunteer judging organisation founded in the United States in 1985, publishes guidelines used in homebrew competitions around the world. Its full revisions came out in 2008, 2015 and 2021, with smaller updates in between. The Brewers Association, the American trade body for small brewers, publishes its own guidelines for commercial competitions and revises them every year.
The two do not always agree. The Brewers Association, with yearly updates and many commercial categories, tends to add new styles faster and splits beers more finely. The BJCP moves more slowly and prefers fewer, broader categories.
The path from trend to category
A new style usually follows a recognisable path. First a few breweries make something different and drinkers notice. Then other breweries copy it. A common set of features emerges. Brewers start entering these beers into competitions, often in a catch-all specialty category where they are hard to judge fairly. Judges and organisers notice the pile of similar entries and begin discussing whether the beer deserves its own description.
Hazy IPA is the clearest recent example. The soft, cloudy, juicy IPAs from New England spread fast through the 2010s. For a while judges scored them against classic IPA guidelines that asked for clarity and firm bitterness, which made no sense. The Brewers Association added hazy categories. The BJCP listed the style provisionally before giving it a full entry in its 2021 guidelines.
What a style needs to qualify
The tests are mostly common sense. Is the beer brewed by many breweries, not just one? Is it brewed in a consistent way, so a judge can say what a good example looks like? Is it distinct from existing styles, or just a variation that fits an existing category? Has it lasted, or is it a fashion that may be gone in two years?
That last test is why some trends never become styles. A single brewery's signature beer, however famous, is a brand, not a style. A handful of breweries brewing something for one summer is a fad. A style needs a crowd and some staying power.
Local and historical styles
Guidelines also make room for beers that are strongly rooted in one place. The BJCP has added local styles from outside the traditional European and American heartlands, recognising that beer culture is growing in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere. Historical styles brewed by only a few revivalists, such as gose or certain old English beers, also appear so judges have a reference when they turn up.
It is fair to ask whether India might one day contribute a style of its own. Brewers here already experiment with jaggery, local spices and rice. If enough breweries settled on a recognisable approach and kept making it, a description could follow. That is how every style on the list began. Nobody sat down and invented Helles or stout; brewers made them, drinkers kept ordering them and the description came afterwards.
Reading guidelines like a judge
Guidelines are a description, not a recipe and not a law. A brewer can make a great beer that fits no category. When you read a style entry, look at the overall impression first, then the aroma and flavour notes, then the numbers. The numbers give ranges, but the words describe the balance that makes the beer what it is. Judges learn to score against both, a skill our guide to how beer judges score walks through.
Common questions
Who decides what counts as a beer style?
Mainly the organisations that run competitions. The BJCP and the Brewers Association publish the two most widely used guidelines, written and revised by experienced judges and brewers.
How often are beer style guidelines updated?
The Brewers Association updates its guidelines every year. The BJCP issues full revisions less often; its recent ones were in 2008, 2015 and 2021, with smaller updates between.
Can one brewery create a new style?
One brewery can start a trend, but a style needs many breweries brewing the beer in a consistent, recognisable way over several years before guidelines describe it.
