Appearance:Should be clear, although unfiltered dry-hopped versions may be a bit hazy.

A BIT HAZY?

That might be the traditional standard. But these days, some of America’s top-rated India pale ales are as overcast as the airspace above South Philly’s oil refinery on an August afternoon.

Murky, cloudy, and even milk-like are some of the descriptors for the likes of Treehouse Sip of Sunshine, Trillium Dialed-In, and the Alchemist Heady Topper, all popular IPAs made in New England, where the trend began. Swimming with floaties, the ales are uniquely fruity, even juicy; think Tropicana Pure Premium with none of the pulp removed.

With names like Turbid Nightmare, Milkshake IPA, and just plain Haze, American craft brewers are flying into the cumulus. Not surprisingly, the flight plan has produced a bit of turbulence.

Before I plunge in, here’s a quick disclaimer: Some beer, notably German hefeweizen and Belgian witbier, is supposed to be cloudy. All of that unfiltered muck (yeast and various proteins) enhances its unique flavor.

Otherwise, clarity has been one of the hallmarks of beer-making expertise since we stopped drinking out of metal tankards. Just google “hazy beer,” and mostly you’ll be directed to perfectly intelligent advice on how to cure it.

Usually, it’s blamed on poor brewing techniques: overaggressive boiling of wort, poorly performing yeast, and incomplete fining (adding clarifying agents to the beer). At best, it looks like the dregs from the bottom of a keg; at worst, it might be evidence of a biological infection.

Whatever, haze is often a sign that something is wrong – maybe spit-on-the-floor wrong – with your beer.

Or so you’d think.

“That’s not necessarily a fact,” said John Wible, head brewer at Old City’s 2nd Story Brewing. “It’s foolish to say that every hazy beer is a poorly brewed beer. “

The murkiness of his Adsultim Imperial IPA, he said, is the result of aggressive dry-hopping, the addition of hops after fermentation to enhance aroma without adding bitterness.

“We could certainly remove the hops [sediment] by filtering or fining,” said Wible, who defended hazy beer in a much-shared blog post. “But in doing so, it obviously changes the look and it changes the texture. I prefer it to be left in there because removing it changes the beer …

“I don’t need the clarity. I don’t want the clarity. “

This is heresy in some circles, especially those inhabited by home brewers. To many of them, hazy beer is sloppy, careless, even lazy.

“Appearance is the first sign of what your beer is all about,” said Jason Petros, a longtime California home brewer and cohost of “The Session” podcast on the Brewing Network who has engaged in a few Twitter battles over hazy beer.

“A hazy beer reminds me too much of bad home brew, of muddled flavors,” he said. “If I see haze, I’m a bit worried about what’s about to hit my palate. “

Indeed, hazy beer is often unstable and susceptible to off-flavors, with a shelf life measured in days, not weeks. Yet, I’ve heard some fans of hazy beer say it’s better because it’s “unprocessed. ” It’s honest and pure and unadulterated, like unpasteurized cheese or fixed-gear bikes.

That’s nonsense, of course – especially as some of those clouds may be artificial. Brewers have been known to add tasteless wheat flour or a yeast substance known as Biocloud just to perk up the murk.

And then there’s the matter of aesthetics. Compared to most well-made beer, it just looks dirty. Said Petros: “Go ask a chef how much appearance means to his food. “

It’s a fair observation, especially as hundreds of new, inexperienced beer makers have opened their own small, commercial breweries in the last couple of years. Maybe their beer is cloudy because they haven’t mastered the fundamentals.

But it’s also the same criticism classically trained musicians once laid on jazz improvisation. So maybe what we’re seeing is the birth of a new style.

After all, it wasn’t so long ago that overly bitter ales and sour beers were dismissed by traditionalists as “bad. ” Today, one-dimensional hop-focused “session” IPAs and mouth-puckering German-style goses are best-sellers.

So dive into the fog, fellow beer drinkers. Instagram your goblets of goo. Haze is the next phase.

-30-

TWO AUTHORS dominate the beer section of my bookshelf:the late-British newspaperman Michael Jackson, and Randy Mosher, the Chicago-based author whose Radical Brewing and Tasting Beer are bibles for any beer enthusiast.

When Mosher stopped in town last week with his latest, Beer for All Seasons (Storey), I couldn’t pass up a chance to sit down for a couple of beers.

Here’s an edited excerpt of our conversation.

Q: Your latest book looks at the tradition of seasonal beers. Where did they originate?

A: Ultimately, beer is an agricultural product, so you’re locked into seasonality in a number of different ways, including when you have grain and hops available for brewing. For example, you go back two or three hundred years and you find that the best-quality, highly hopped beers were the old October beers that eventually morphed into India pale ales. Those were brewed in October because you had fresh malt and fresh hops, and you could make the absolute best beer.

Q: That’s the long view of seasonals. Why do we have so many seasonals today?

A: One thing we’ve seen in craft beer is that people like a change. I think a lot of it is due to the great popularity of pumpkin beers, which you’d have to credit to Bill Owens [the former brewer responsible for Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale, the first commercial pumpkin success]. He was the guy who really created that style in a lot of ways, in terms of popular taste.

Q: I think you’ve got to credit Sam Adams, too, because they came up with the idea of releasing seasonals as a means of doubling up their tap handles.

A: That’s been a great strategy for them.

Q: I mean, they created an entire summer-beer style that really doesn’t have any kind of traditional underpinnings, other than it’s lighter-bodied.

A: I like that people are making beers that are not well-defined as to what the style is supposed to be. I had a summer beer from Manayunk Brewing at lunch today. It was like half a Berliner Weisse mixed with a Helles. It was a nice blond beer with a little bit of lactic, a nice amount of sourness, and that was their summer beer. And it was perfect.

Q: Back to pumpkin beer: How do you account for its popularity?

A: I think part of it is due to the fact that Halloween is by far the most popular holiday – it’s surpassed even Christmas. People just love that time of the year, and pumpkins are just iconic for the season.

Those amber-colored beers with a hint of spice just taste great in the fall. You know, it goes well with the burning leaves and the cooler weather, and I think that, when they’re done right, they can be quite delicious. It’s a way of embracing the season.

Q: I’ve always wondered, if pumpkin beer is so popular, how come nobody’s come out with a year-round pumpkin beer?

A: I think it’s just one of those beer-of-the-moment type of things. I would suspect you get a very high rate of people who buy just one or two a year, and that’s it.

Q: Well that’s always my advice: Don’t buy a whole case of it unless you’ve got 23 close friends you want to share it with. It’s such a strongly flavored beer, and it’s not hard to get tired of it.

A: It’s really tough for brewers – they’re punished for being subtle in many respects. People would rather have boldness than have to fish around for subtlety. I’m not all that happy about that, as someone who likes subtle beers and who likes to use ingredients in ways where it’s not going to hit you over the head.

Q: But didn’t craft beer sort of set itself up for that? It was always marketed as a boldly flavored alternative to mainstream Budmillercoors, which are subtle beers.

A: Yeah, but I think it’s also our American character. I mean, look at our music, look at our cars, look at our hamburgers. Everything we do, we do to excess. We pick one attribute and run with it.

Q: Which would explain the appeal of super hoppy beers.

A: Totally. We picked that one attribute and just ran with it.

-30-

THE CRAFT-BEER world’s fixation with India Pale Ale shows no sign of fading. Just last month, for example, Philadelphia welcomed a new portfolio from California’s Knee Deep Brewing that includes no fewer than five different IPAs, including a double, a triple and a heretofore unknown “Quad IPA. ”

Which is all perfectly fine if you’re a hop addict, craving your next big fix of Simcoe, Citra or some other variety of the famously bitter, aromatic plant.

But what if you’re after something malty, or sweet or just plain different?

I went shopping the other day for new beers and, despite the abundance of IPAs that stared back at me from the shelves, I found that it wasn’t that hard to fill a sixpack with brews that aren’t all about the hops.

Deep Six (Heavy Seas, Baltimore). These days, many breweries avoid porters, believing that dark beer fans prefer a heavy-duty stout. So, when Cole Woodson, the beer guy at the Loft at Iron Abbey, in Horsham, handed me this one, which entered the Philly market at the start of the year, he said, “It’s nothing exotic. It’s what you’d call your ‘basic’ porter. “

To which I would add: Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

There are no smoke and mirrors with this superb dark ale, just well-balanced, deep-roasted malt flavor complemented by classic British hops.

Exit 3 (Flying Fish, Somerdale, N.J.). I was starting to wonder what had happened to the Jersey brewery’s famous series of one-offs named after exits along the New Jersey Turnpike. The series had featured the likes of a hoppy Belgian tripel (Exit 4) and the mangolike wild-rice double IPA (Exit 16) that became part of the brewery’s ongoing portfolio.

This one is a blueberry-flavored braggot, a type of ale blended with honey. It might be a bit of a challenge for some because of its strength (15 percent alcohol) and meadlike sweetness.

I’d pair it with strong cheese (Birchrun Blue, Keswick Creamery Tomme), or cellar it a few months to allow the punch of honey to fade a notch.

Victory Helles (Downingtown, Pa.). All you people tweeting that hop bombs and weird flavors have overwhelmed the beer scene, it’s time to put your money where your hashtag is.

This classic, German-style lager was formally known as Victory Lager, one of the Chester County brewery’s original recipes. By slapping on a new label and expanding distribution to 35 states, Victory is showing it has faith that beer lovers can embrace the simplicity of a clean, perfectly made golden lager.

Tanilla (Knee Deep, Auburn, Calif.). Yep, this is the West Coast brewery I mentioned above that entered the Philly market with a boatload of IPAs. I’ll get around to trying them eventually; first, I reached for this vanilla-flavored porter. Instead of the sweet, candylike dessert beer I was expecting, I enjoyed a satisfying, smooth-bodied dark beer whose vanilla never overwhelmed its firm, roasted malt flavor.

Renart’s Triple (The Other Farm, Boyertown). Founded a little over a year ago in rural Berks County, this small farmhouse brewery only recently has begun to send its bottles toward the city. One of its first is this unique blend of ale and cider – a daring hybrid that tells me it’s going to be fun watching this brewery grow.

Beer and cider? Usually, you’d call that a Snakebite and pop two aspirin in the morning. But here the cider’s sugar kicks off a second round of fermentation that both strengthens this Belgian-style tripel (10 percent alcohol by volume) and produces a lightly sweet, yet dry finish.

Reviver IPA (Starr Hill, Crozet, Va.). I knew you couldn’t get through this list without bumping into an IPA. This one, though, is part of a growing breed of red IPAs that offer a more thoughtful flavor profile than the typical, bitterness-fixated hop zombie.

The ruby color isn’t just some marketing shtick, a la black IPAs, whose inky appearance has little to do with its actual flavor. Here, the red is the product of a fine balance of crystal and chocolate malts that produce a richer, fuller flavor and a beefier body than your typical IPA.

Which is not to say that hop heads won’t like this one. Its blend of Mosaic, Citra and Amarillo hops is at once fruity and floral, making it a fine complement to some of this sixpack’s sweeter flavors.

-30-

GOOD OL’ Charlie Brown. Always out there on the mound, even in the rain, ready to give his best for the rest of the “Peanuts” gang.

That’s what I think of brown ale, the Charlie Brown of beer. It’s a dependable, go-to glass; crack open a bottle of Newcastle Brown or Smuttynose Old Brown Dog, and you pretty much know you’re going to get a malty, mildly hopped easy-drinker. Nothing over the edge. A satisfying, honest, even-tempered pal.

Unfortunately, like the newspaper comic strip, brown ale is increasingly a thing of the past.

Sam Adams Brown? Haven’t seen it in years. Sierra Nevada? It hides its excellent Tumbler Autumn Brown in a mixed-variety case. Troegs Rugged Trail, one of the Pennsylvania brewery’s original bottled brands, these days makes only occasional appearances on draft. Flying Fish Chestnut Brown Ale, released in 2012 as part of its Exit series, was one and done. Left Hand Deep Cover Brown is gone, and so are the brown ales from Leinenkugel, Green Flash, Harpoon and North Coast.

And forget about Pete’s Wicked Ale, the granddaddy of American brown ales, which introduced millions to the style. It has been gone since its owners liquidated four years ago.

For many, brown ale was a gateway beer, the first time they ever dared to taste something dark. But, in an age when so many craft-beer enthusiasts are fixated on extreme flavor, brown ale is as bland as that zigzag T-shirt that Charlie Brown wore every day. If we want something dark, it’s gotta be an imperial stout.

Ray Daniels, who co-authored the definitive Brown Ale: History, Brewing, Techniques, Recipes (Brewers Publications), calls it “comfort beer” – a term that was once endearing but now sadly means “forgettable. “

But brown ale is no ordinary mediocrity to be rejected after one gulp and a dismissive drain pour.

Take a second sip, and you unfold subtle layers of flavor and aroma: the toffee of Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown, the hazelnut of Arcadia Nut Brown. Look for these nuances, and the reward is fuller, far more satisfying.

The chocolate undertones of Brooklyn Brown won’t dazzle you; they simply invite you to pull long, long sips till you’re asking for another pint. The malty wallop of Bell’s Best Brown hints at a bigger beer, a cream stout perhaps, but its light body encourages you to match it with a simple burger.

Where you once ignored it as just a sad, conflicted soul (why isn’t this dark beer more serious?), you soon find that brown ale is a complex individual who can hold an intelligent conversation. Pay attention to that wonderful toffee aside of Abita Turbodog, or the hoppy retort of Dogfish Head Indian Brown.

Look again, and you’ll find that the everyday characters in the comics section are so much more sincere than all those blowhards on the op-ed page.

Ah, you’re a good man, Charlie Brown.

Call it a case of wishful thinking, but lately I’ve spotted an upsurge in brown ale. Here’s a sixpack of newbies.

1. Upslope Barrel Aged Brown Ale (Colorado). Not yet available in Pennsylvania, this canned beer was named the No. 1 new release of 2014 by Paste Magazine.
2. Crooked Eye Top Hat (Hatboro). You’ll have to head to eastern Montgomery County to find this smooth, creamy brown ale, on draft only. Look also for a version that’s aged in Wild Turkey bourbon barrels.
3. Freckles Angry Brown Ale (Huntingdon Valley). I wouldn’t call Naked Brewing’s winter seasonal “angry. ” Instead, its caramel and coffee notes are just a little moody.
4. Ommegang Upside Brown (Cooperstown, N.Y.). It looks like a typical brown ale, but the addition of wild Brettanomyces yeast gives that familiar sweet malt flavor a funky twist.
5. Saranac Chai Brown Ale (Utica, N.Y.). Another atypical brown, this one – available only in Saranac’s 12 Beers of Winter variety case – is flavored with chai spices.
6. Magic Hat Snow Roller (Burlington, Vt.). While Magic Hat hasn’t rocked my world for quite a while, this pleasantly nutty brown has been a surprisingly satisfying breather between all those heavy-duty stouts and spiced ales this winter.

Drink with Joe

Join Joe Sixpack for a free sampling of brown ale, 4-6 p.m. tomorrow at Bell Beverage (2809 South Front St., South Philadelphia).

-30-

IT’S NO longer good enough to make a beer that tastes, crazily enough, like pumpkin pie. Heck, even “imperial” pumpkin beer, whose higher alcohol content offers a decent buzz with dessert, is beginning to blend into the background.

No, if you really want to grab the attention of fickle beer drinkers, you’ve got to come up with something like the new one from Kutztown’s Saucony Creek Brewery. Its tongue-twisting Captain Pumpkin’s Maple Mistress Ale is an imperial pumpkin (9.5 percent alcohol) topped with “rum spices,” maple syrup and butternut squash.

Exotic flavors layered on top of traditional spices are all the rage this season. Just listen to the stack of cases vying for attention at your friendly distributor, and you’ll hear a chorus of newfangled pumpkins yammering away with apple, cranberry and even caraway.

I tell you, it’s an absolute squash racket!

Among the breweries kicking up a ruckus this autumn: Southern Tier, of New York, which already brews Pumking, a full-bodied imperial pumpkin that many regard as a pumpkin benchmark, added Warlock, an imperial pumpkin stout.

Urban Chestnut, from St. Louis, introduced Count Orlok, a black-wheat pumpkin ale. Traveler Beer Co., from the same company that makes Sam Adams, released what it’s calling the first pumpkin-flavored shandy. Jack-O-Traveler is a mix of wheat ale, lemon and pumpkin.

Avery Brewing, in Colorado, turned out Rumpkin, a rum-barrel-aged ale that, I believe, at 15 percent alcohol, is the strongest pumpkin ale in the universe. Too strong? Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing’s new rum-aged Good Gourd Almighty is “just” 8.5 percent alcohol.

That’s just the skin of the ol’ pumpkin rind. Dig down and you’ll find imperial pumpkin porter, chocolate-pumpkin porter, oatmeal-pumpkin porter, maple syrup-infused pumpkin porter, chipotle-pumpkin porter, pumpkin-and-strawberry saison, smoked pumpkin cider, sour pumpkin ale, pumpkin stout, spruce-flavored pumpkin stout, pumpkin barley wine and, inevitably, pumpkin IPA.

There are so many pumpkins out there that some breweries – notably Evil Genius, from West Grove, Chester County – are now making two, three or more different pumpkins each year. Evil Genius packs three varieties into its Pumpkin Patch variety case, including Trick or Treat pumpkin porter.

Meanwhile, the brewers of the Iron Hill Brewery chain have pumpkinized porter, stout, Belgian dubbel, Bavarian Marzen and even tart Berliner weissbier. I’m sure that the Germans who created the 500-year-old beer purity law are spinning in their graves.

A pair of humongous pumpkin fests, one in the Pacific Northwest and one in Philly, underscore the growth of craft brewers’ favorite gourd.

Just eight years ago, in Seattle, Elysian Brewing launched the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival with a grand selection of 10 pumpkin beers. This year, it’ll pour more than 60 varieties, including a pair of oddball collaborative brews it produced with San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewery – a Pumpkin Belgian Tripel and a Pumpkin Baltic Porter made with caraway and cinnamon.

Not to be outdone, the Institute Bar, in Spring Garden, says its fifth annual Charlie Brown Pumpkin Festival on Oct. 5 will showcase at least 83 pumpkin beers. The neighborhood pub is having Fegley’s Brew Works, in Allentown, craft as many as five exclusive pumpkins for the fest.

I asked Charlie Collazo, who owns the Institute with his wife, Heather, what explains the growth and diversity of pumpkins.

“There’s a couple things I noticed. First, a lot of breweries that produced harvest ales for the fall,” he said, referring to those difficult-to-brew ales made with freshly harvested hops, “some of those guys are leaning away from them and making pumpkin beer instead.

“The other thing is that it’s an opportunity for breweries to get into different styles and set themselves apart from a massive crowd of pumpkin beer.”

Indeed, while BeerAdvocate.com lists more than 400 pumpkin beers, many of them taste predictably similar – a creamy, malty body enhanced with a standard mix of cinnamon, ginger, clove, allspice and nutmeg.

So, brewmasters tweak their recipes and, as in the case of Susquehanna Brewing, in Pittston, Pa., come up with the likes of Peach Pumpkinberry, a pumpkin ale made with peaches and black raspberries.

That sure doesn’t sound like mom’s pumpkin pie.

-0-

Each autumn, I hear the same question: Whose pumpkin beer is the best?

This year, I’m helping the Institute Bar launch the city’s first pumpkin-beer contest, and you can help judge the winner.

If you think you know your pumpkins, just send me an email with “pumpkin judge” in the subject line. I’ll select a panel that will judge dozens of varieties at the Charlie Brown Pumpkin Festival and name the best of show.

You don’t have to be a professional judge to participate. This will be a fun, casual beer-tasting session. However, you must:

•Be at least 21 years of age.

•Plan to spend two hours sampling beer on the morning of Oct. 5, at the Institute, 12th and Green Streets, Spring Garden.

After judging, participants will receive free general admission and unlimited samples at the festival.

-30-

REMEMBER when “sour beer” was a bad thing?

These days, it’s a bona fide, mouth-puckering trend, and nowhere in Philly is it celebrated more earnestly than at the annual Sourfest, at Devil’s Den (11th and Ellsworth, South Philly).

The event, now it its fourth year, launches Saturday, when 16 tap lines begin spewing the sour stuff. Over the next seven days, at least 50 sours will pour from taps and bottles.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Why would anyone want to drink flat, week-old Yuengling Lager?” think again. Sour beer is made that way on purpose, typically with so-called “wild” yeast strains or bacteria.

And, no, it doesn’t taste yucky. At its best, sour beer is both thirst-quenching and remarkably complex, with tart, often-fruity flavors. If you have a wine snob in the family, this is the style that will have them giving up their Chablis.

Once produced by just a handful of Belgian and German breweries, sour beer is now the darling of American craft brewing. Russian River and The Bruery, in California; Cascade, in Oregon; and Jolly Pumpkin, from Michigan, are turning out exotic sours.

Surprisingly, some of the new locals – including Pennsylvania’s Round Guys and Free Will, and New Jersey’s Carton – have begun producing them, too.

Here’s a few to look for at Sourfest:

• Carton Digger Gose, brewed with littleneck clams.
• Bullfrog Coq Fight, a sour beer for hop heads.
• Free Will Napoleon, a saison made from a sour mash.
• Round Guys Saison du Pomme, a saison aged in apple brandy barrels.
• Oxbow Sasuga Saison, made with rice and fermented with Brettanomyces yeast.
• Russian River Supplication, an exceptional ale fermented with Brett, lactobacillus and pediococcus, aged on sour cherries in pinot noir barrels.

Change for the better

Later this month, America will mark the 50th anniversary of the Great March on Washington, the seminal civil-rights rally highlighted by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Did you know that the D.C. city government fearfully banned the sale of alcohol and closed bars and package stores for two days during the rally?

A half-century later, the locals are celebrating D.C. Beer Week. And one of the town’s leading breweries is called Chocolate City (a nod to the city’s longtime nickname).

The brewery’s ownership, by the way, is multiracial.

Not sure if there’s any grand lesson here other than that it’s another sign of how much things have changed for the better in just a generation or so.

Beer and ‘Blood’

Flying Dog is yipping about getting a mention on HBO’s “True Blood” this week. Seems Raging Bitch was one of Terry Bellefleur’s favorites.

There must be some craft-beer lovers behind that show, judging from the array of brands that pour at both Merlotte’s (Abita Turbodog) and the now-shuttered Fangtasia (Stone, Fuller’s).

Sigh . . . You know you’re a real beer geek when it’s the tap handles that grab your attention and not those steamy Sookie Stackhouse sex scenes.

Beyond Coors at the Shore

The summer of 2013 might be remembered as the year that beer finally grew up down the Shore. It’s not just all Corona and Coors anymore.

Tuckahoe Brewing, in Cape May County, seems to be hitting a nice stride in local bars. Cape May Brewing’s taproom, in West Cape May, is my new favorite growler stop before hitting the beach. Meanwhile, North Jersey newcomers Kane and Carton are making inroads to the south.

As for bars, it’s still a slow slog, as most continue to cater to quantity over quality.

But there are exceptions, including Atlantic City’s Vagabond Kitchen & Tap House, and Firewaters, at the Tropicana. Further down Ocean Drive, there are very good spigots at the Whitebrier, in Avalon; Goodnight Irene’s, in Wildwood; and Fitzpatrick’s Crest Tavern, in Wildwood Crest. The Revel casino’s Mussel Bar & Grille is pricey, as you’d expect, but the selection of Belgians is superb.

Even unexpected locations are now doing beer dinners.

Atlantic City Country Club has a fun beer sampling on Aug. 22, in which it’ll pair brews from New Jersey Beer Co. with menu items inspired by ballpark fare. I’m not talking hot dogs and Bud – think Petco Park’s shrimp tacos with pale ale, or Minute Maid Park’s brisket and IPA.

Pumpkin already?

Yes, it’s only August, but the pumpkin harvest is already upon us. In addition to the usual favorites (Southern Tier Imperial Pumking, Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale), keep an eye for these newbies:

• New Belgium Pumpkick, made with pumpkin spices, plus cranberries and lemongrass. (Available in Maryland).
• Timmermans Pumpkin Lambicus, a spontaneously fermented pumpkin ale from Belgium made its limited debut last year.
• Chatoe Rogue Pumpkin Patch Ale, made with gourds from Rogue’s own Oregon farm. (Available in October.)
• Harpoon Imperial Pumpkin, a strong (10.5 percent alcohol) pumpkin stout. (Harpoon also makes Pumpkin Cider.)
• Anderson Valley Fall Hornin‘, coming in cans and bottles.
• Elysian Hansel & Gretel Ginger Pumpkin Pilsner, one of three Halloween beers from the Seattle brewery, with Dark o’ the Moon Pumpkin Stout and The Great Pumpkin.

-30-

USED TO BE, spring beer meant one thing, and one thing only: bock. Darkish, sweet, mildly strong, full-bodied lager meant to brace you against the last vestiges of winter and welcome the daffodils.

It was liquid bread, the beer of Lent, of happy, dancing goats celebrating the verdant early days of the season. Paulaner Salvator . . . Ayinger Celebrator . . . Dock Street Illuminator . . . Anchor Bock . . . and so on.

Bock beer is still alive and kicking but, lately, American beer makers have been giving us a whole ‘nother take on the season – a lighter, spicier version of spring beer.

Where bock is sweet and smooth, this new spring breed is spicy and herbal. It seems aimed less at giving Ol’ Man Winter a kick in the butt and more as a concession to the inevitability of global warming.

Call it Spring Beer 2.0.

You see this new lighter in the likes of Magic Hat Pistil, an herbal ale made with oats and dandelion petals. Or Evolution Sprung, made with honey, hibiscus and chamomile. Locally, Philadelphia Brewing welcomes the Phillies’ Opening Day with the brilliantly named Fleur de Lehigh, made with rhubarb, ginger and cardamom.

Remember Sam Adams Double Bock? Don’t look for it in Boston Beer’s annual spring case; instead, this year’s box was loaded with the likes of Alpine Spring, a citrusy, unfiltered lager, and White Lantern, a peppery Belgian-style witbier.

And check out Victory Brewing.

Traditionally, it welcomed spring with a pair of classic bocks: St. Boisterous, a bright, clean yet robust heller bock “designed to combat the chill of early-season beer garden” temps; and St. Victorious, a doppelbock that reflected the founders’ German-influenced brewing chops. Both were perfect warmers during those late-March showers that make you wonder if winter will ever end.

They’re still alive, but you’ve got to hunt a little harder for them. Victory reduced production of Victorious and eliminated bottles of Boisterous altogether. (The latter is still available on draft.)

More notably, it came out with a new brand: Swing Session Saison. It’s light and spicy with lots of hops and a lemon zing. It rings in at just 4.5 percent alcohol.

When I asked Victory president Bill Covaleski about the new springtime tactic, he said it was driven mainly by the company’s aim to brew “something refreshing and springlike, and very low in alcohol. . . . It fascinates us to try to deliver big flavor at low alcohol volumes.”

Does that mean that high-octane bock is dead?

“No, we’ll never give up on bock beer,” Covaleski replied. “But bock is kind of a no-growth style these days. That in itself drives us to start looking in the opposite direction to excite the audience.”

Covaleski knows I’m such a huge fan of Victory’s lagers, I’d walk out to Downingtown and wring his neck if he ever stopped brewing bock. But I can read between the lines, and I suspected that “opposite direction” was a gentle way of telling me that I need to change with the times.

Bill, are you trying to tell me bock is an old man’s beer?

“I’m not sure it was ever anything but that,” he replied.

Sigh . . . Chalk up another victim of global warming.

Not all bock is dead, of course. In fact, one variety is thriving more than ever: maibock.

It’s a light-colored bock with about two-thirds the body of a conventional doppelbock. Narragansett Bock and Rumspringa Golden Bock are both maibocks, and they are quite nice in aluminum cans.

For a fuller taste, though, I recommend stepping up to a double bock. Troegs Troegenator, from Hershey, available all year round, is now regarded as a benchmark. This year, I rediscovered the joy of the original doppelbock, Paulaner Salvator, from Munich.

My favorite this season, though, was Consecrator, from Michigan’s Bell’s Beer, a brewery that’s not particularly known for lagers. I served it at a few private samplings where guests were blown away by its smooth, yet utterly complex malt profile – the product of an extra-long conditioning (or lagering) period.

But who am I kidding? It’s 80 degrees as I write this, and I’m sweating because the grass already needs mowing.

Sigh . . . I don’t think spring is coming bock.

-30-

News item: The Brewers Association has updated its Beer Style Guidelines, with definitions of 142 separate styles. The newest additions are Adambier and Grätzer.

-0-

SO, THE authoritative organization of small American brewers has reached back a few centuries and turned up a pair of thoroughly obscure smoked European wheat beers for its comprehensive directory. They join a list of everything from Leipzig-style Gose to good ol’ American malt liquor.

I’m a big fan of style guidelines (heck, I wrote an entire book about ’em) because they’re handy tools for brewers and drinkers seeking to understand the background of the seemingly endless variety of ales and lagers. Guidelines defining ingredients, aroma, flavor, alcohol and more are the basis for judging at the annual Great American Beer Festival.

Sure, the styles seem endless and even picayune. Nonetheless, I’m afraid this comprehensive list is missing some of the world’s grandest styles, namely:

Fraternity Beer. Indiscriminate lager with generous foam character and hazy memories. Served from an artisan half-barrel with ample hand-pumped oxygen for nuanced red-plastic-cup-like aroma. Light, fruity esters are evident, but you will be reluctant to comment on them in mixed company. Note: Varieties exhibiting actual flavor should be entered in the “Session” category. Subcategories include Beer Pong Beer and Chug-Chug-Chug!

Lawnmower Beer. An American-style lager with indeterminate color and aroma because it is always consumed directly from an aluminum can. Flavor ranges from cold to ice cold. American hops are present on the label. Subcategories include Tailgate Beer and My Old Man’s Beer.

Cult Beer. An imperial stout, triple IPA or sour ale brewed in extremely small quantities for maximum attenuation of the consumer’s wallet. Typically made with supplementary ingredients (don’t call them “adjuncts”). Barrel-aging is permissible if it tasted like crap after primary fermentation. Must be named after a czar or saint.

Green Beer. A hybrid style with post-fermentation chromatic enhancement, traditionally consumed and spewed in mid-March. Aroma is reminiscent of shamrocks and Axe body spray. A negligible degree of Irish extract may be perceived, to the consternation of many. Color ranges from Leprechaun to Blurry. Subcategories include Beer Bong and Spring Break.

Boilermaker. A light-bodied lager enriched with a concentrated, malt-based additive.

Chick Beer. Any beer with “winelike” flavor that totally doesn’t taste like that disgusting stuff they used to serve at college keggers. (See “Fraternity Beer.”) Complex and generally sweet, but it may exhibit a pronounced, bitter edge. Color is honey-blond with a totally hot body.

Imported Beer. Old-World style handcrafted by European master brewers and bottled in St. Louis. German varieties adhere to the fabled Reinheitsgebot, whatever that is. Perception of superiority is quickly tempered by residual regret at overpaying for an ordinary lager with a fancy label.

Session Beer. “Any style of beer . . . [whose] drinkability is a character in the overall balance.” Wait a minute . . . I’m not making that up. That’s an actual Brewers Association head-scratching definition of an invented style that can smell, taste or feel like anything, as long as it’s weak enough to drink all night. Aroma, flavor and body are reminiscent of a far stronger and superior beer.

Extreme Beer. The exact opposite of Session Beer.

Party Beer. Not to be confused with Fraternity Beer, this is any type of bottled ale or lager suitable for sharing at a friend’s party. The distinctive character of specialty ingredients should be pretentious enough to impress the host but pedestrian enough that, in the spirit of good manners, it can be left behind, unopened.

Dark Beer. Though technically a bock, porter, stout, brown ale or nearly anything other than pale American lager, all dark beer tastes the same. It’s strong and heavy and you won’t like it. Robust, roasty flavor is complemented by complaints that you “never drink dark beer.” Finish is yucky.

Free Beer. Unanimously regarded as the world’s finest style, especially when generously shared with friends. Unless it’s Michelob Ultra.

-30-

THE INVENTION of pilsner 170 years ago this month might not have been the most important event in modern beer, but it was certainly the most imitated.

And defiled.

On Oct. 5, 1842, in Plzen, Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), brewer Josef Groll unveiled his creation. He’d been recruited to run Plzen’s new brewery after city officials – disgusted with the quality of locally made beer – famously dumped 36 casks into the streets.

A Bavarian, Groll brought with him the relatively new technique of bottom fermentation, in which yeast falls to the bottom of its vessel. Bottom-fermented lager takes longer to condition and produces a cleaner, drier and more refreshing flavor than top-fermented ale.

Until 1842, bottom-fermented lagers were mainly dark and murky. Think of the roasty, full-bodied dunkels from Germany’s Ayinger or Pottstown’s Sly Fox.

Groll’s landmark innovation was to use pale malt for a light color. The region’s soft water and Bohemia’s distinctively herbal Saaz hops created a remarkably smooth, light-bodied beer with a gentle, sweet flavor balanced by tongue-snapping bitterness.

And it was gorgeous. Held up to the light, a clear glassful looked like a golden beacon of sunlight.

It was a sensation, quickly spreading through Europe and – with the wave of German immigration – to America. By the last half of the 19th century, Bohemian pilsner and its German copycat sister, helles lager, nearly wiped out dark beer to become the most popular style in the world. Today, it would be hard to dispute estimates that nine out of 10 beers consumed worldwide are at least inspired by the pilsner style.

You might say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Or you might say that the sequel is never as good as the original.

Some of the blandest, cheapest, lowest-common-denominator beer in the world is ostensible pilsner. PBR and Natty Light and Old Mil and Lionshead – all pilsners. Tsingtao, Heineken, Becks, Sapporo, Fosters, Molson Canadian – yup, they’re pilsners, too.

Americans, in particular, have abused the style. We’ve added rice, corn, extracts and chemicals. We’ve watered it down and sacrificed most of the hops. We’ve packaged it in a “vortex” bottle, a “punch top” can and a 30-pack, labeled it with cold-activated blue mountains and still had the audacity to call it “a true pilsner.”

It was American pilsner that, years ago, newspaper columnist Mike Royko famously said tasted like it had been run “through a horse.”

Mercifully, small brewers have since created authentic Bohemian-style pilsners. Try Victory Braumeister Pils, Samuel Adams Noble Pils or Oskar Blues Mama’s Little Yella Pils.

Or try the first pilsner. You know it as Pilsner Urquell, the name meaning “pilsner from the original source.”

As the brewery celebrates its anniversary this month, its current master brewer flatly says the current version tastes “practically the same” as the original. I had Vaclav Berka on the phone earlier this week as he was wrapping up anniversary festivities in the Plzen town square.

How does he know that today’s Pilsner Urquell tastes the same as it did 170 years ago?

“We have brewing records, and we’re using the same ingredients at the same parameters,” Berka said. He acknowledged brewing technology has improved and so has the quality and stability of ingredients. “But the methods are the same.”

That includes traditional triple decoction, a painstaking method in which the mash temperature is raised in stages to extract the proper amount of fermentable sugar. Few breweries bother with decoction today because of improved malting techniques. But that’s science; what about flavor?

Pilsner Urquell runs batches past in-house panels of more than 70 judges, including one group of old-timers in their 80s who presumably have clear memories of how the beer tasted long ago.

Berka is obviously proud to brew such a seminal beer. But I wondered: Is he proud of his beer’s many imitators?

“There’s a lot of splitting of the pilsner style,” he said. “You have Bohemian pilsner, German pils, and more. The ground is basically the same, and I’m happy our Pilsner Urquell is the founder of the category.”

Sure, but what about light beer? Josef Groll also begot Miller Lite, a lifeless bottom-feeder (coincidentally owned by Pilsner Urquell’s parent, SABMiller) whose label until recently declared it was a “true pilsner.”

“I’ve tried it. It’s . . . different,” he said.

Berka isn’t just a master brewer, he’s a master diplomat.

-30-

IT’S HARVEST SEASON, and that brings thoughts of those amber waves of grain, of lively maidens dancing upon freshly sheaved bales, of strong-shouldered lads hoisting them onto horse-drawn carts while singing “Oklahoma!”

In your dreams.

The barley in your beer was likely sown by a robot and harvested by a computer-operated combine the size of a locomotive. It was air-dried and stored in a temperature-controlled silo for up to two years, swapped at the Chicago Board of Trade, analyzed in a laboratory, converted into malt, sold to a wholesaler and shipped to a brewery where another computer decided how much to add to the kettle.

Of course, no one would drink a beer with illustrations of commodities futures traders on the label, so dancing maidens it is. Don’t get me wrong – I love the mythology of malt. After all, it’s the fall harvest that was the very foundation of the world’s greatest beer celebration, Oktoberfest.

Indeed, I get protective of malt, as beer drinkers are increasingly enamored by hops-oriented ales. They sometimes forget it’s malt that provides the bulk of a beer’s color, flavor and body. Other than water, malt is the No. 1 ingredient in your favorite beer.

So this harvest season, with help from folks at Briess Malt & Ingredients and Valley Malt, I’m sharing this malt primer for hopheads.

¶MALT is made from grain: wheat, rye, oats, rice or even amaranth, quinoa and spelt. The preferred variety, though, is barley, for two big reasons: its superb starch content, which is easily converted to fermentable sugar; and its hard husk, which is retained throughout the malting process and serves as a filter bed when the sweet liquid known as wort is drained from the lauter tun.

¶MALT liquor does not contain more malt than other varieties. The additional alcohol and sweetness is from corn sugar.

¶MALT-making is a marvel of biology that man has practiced for 5,000 years. Grain is steeped in water to initiate germination, a process in which the seed’s enzymes break down its proteins and carbohydrates and open its starch reserves. When the seed begins to sprout a tiny green tail or “chit,” germination is halted by drying the grain.

¶MALT originally was dried either in the sun or over fire. The latter method infuses the malt with a smoky aroma and flavor – a style known as rauchbier that is still made today, most notably in Bamberg, Germany.

¶MALT gets its color from the kiln-drying process. The longer and hotter it’s heated, the darker its color, ranging from pale yellow to black. Malt’s darkest variety is called black patent, named for the British patent that was issued in 1817 to the inventor of a new drum roaster that created darker malts.

¶MALT types are combined by brewers, allowing them to design a beer’s complexity, that combination of sweetness and roastiness that interacts with hop bitterness.

¶MALT amounts vary depending on the type of beer. An average brew requires about 25 pounds per barrel (or about 1 ounce per bottle). Rock Art says its Vermonster barley wine is made with 110 pounds of malt per barrel.

¶MALT is ground up and steeped in hot water (about 150 degrees) for an hour or more, a process known as mashing. During this period, the grain’s starches are converted into sugar, which is ultimately fermented into alcohol.

¶MALT is often recycled after brewing and fed to cattle.

¶MALT is classified into two broad types – base malt and speciality malt – with several popular varieties each.

Base malt is lightly kilned and produces the bulk of fermentable sugars in beer. Varieties include:

* Pale: most widely used malt, light color. Taste it: Samuel Adams Boston Lager.

* Pilsner: sweet, delicate, lightest color available. Taste it: Flying Fish Exit 4.

* Vienna: pronounced malty flavor, amber color. Taste it: Avery The Kaiser.

* Munich: smooth, sweet and intensely malty, reddish amber. Taste it: Great Lakes Eliot Ness.

Specialty malt is used in small amounts primarily for distinct flavor and color. Varieties include:

* Crystal or Caramel: contains unfermentable dextrin that adds body and sweet, toffeelike flavor. Taste it: Sierra Nevada Torpedo.

* Chocolate: rich, roasted coffee-like, brown. Taste it: Yards Love Stout.

* Black patent: sharp and acrid, black as ink. Taste it: Left Hand Fade to Black.

-30-