Circles of Style

  I've been talking a lot about my palate these days. Looking back on a half decade of changing beer habits and how I consume has been my mission since I started writing again and it isn't often that I don't talk to someone about how we got started and where we think we are headed next when it comes to styles, trends and the like. Seeking new and different beers has become easier since I began and anyone new to craft beer is now blessed with a myriad of not only local breweries, but a completely different LCBO approach when it comes to this emerging market of beer drinkers. What was a search and hope for a lucky find has now become a weekly stroll through the beer fridge and maybe a couple of brewery stops to round out the collection for the weekend. While there is no doubt room for improvement in the distribution and access to even more breweries from here and abroad, it is night and day compared to what I saw when I started to explore my options just 5 years ago.

    The development of ones own distinct palate and the subsequent training needed to continue that development falls squarely on the drinker themselves. There are so many styles and subsets contained therein that we could travel the world in an evening for a long time without repeating ourselves and this is the Circle of Style I refer to when I talk about my own trip. Starting with the most basic representation of any style is necessary to appreciate the deviations and off shoots of anything. From lager to pilsner to ale and beyond, the starting point should always help establish a base knowledge that you can then build a palate worthy of anyone who loves a good and adventurous pint. The English IPA or Pale Ale led me to classic toasted malt, pithy and resinous pine West Coast IPAs which bled into hard core Double IPAs before veering left into the soft and hazy dank tropical juice New England or Vermont style IPAs. Lambic beer styles are augmented in my mind by the wide variety of sour ales available close to home and those who mimic the traditional Belgian brewing styles help expand my knowledge with different takes on the iconic Monk beers I love so much. A quad in Ontario is growing my ability to appreciate the originals while also introducing some new world tweaks to satisfy my curious palate.

  The Circle of my beer drinking life was for a long time a tiny one, confined by lack of options and an ignorant view of what beer was. Drinking only to get drunk, the social aspect of pounding a case of beer with the boys was not about taste at all, just inebriation. As the UnTappd generation began, we sought out new beers to increase our score and get rewarded with electronic badges for our success, flavour was still not the end game of any night spent drinking.

  But the Circle widened.
  Life became a little more when we started to find that we liked a new style of beer and despite still not letting go of our macro lagers, we started to see Circles within Circles inspiring even more Circles until the Venn diagram of our consumption choices was a Spiral graph of epic dimensions. The ability to transfer the knowledge of what went before to what your are experiencing now will help you discover new and exciting flavours and subtle nuances you didn't know existed. You can take each successive Circle of Style and tie it backwards and forwards along any number of lines from hop choice, malt, body, texture and so on. This can only grow your palate and by choosing to push forward, you keep your self from both palate fatigue and style lock, the most depressing things for a beer loving person to see. There is nothing wrong with having a favourite style of beer, but don't let that be your only style of beer...that's what we used to do and no one wants to return to the days when your Circle of Beer was tiny and hidden from the world. I've come back around in my own trip to really appreciating a solid Pilsner and that is a beautiful thing indeed. But without all those other Circles interlocking and helping me grow, I truly do not think I could appreciate the simple joy of drinking beer for the pleasure alone.

Cheers!

Polk