Not Again!!

I am a glutton, for punishment it seems, given the near apoplectic rage that comes over me when reading beer and homebrewing magazines that go on spouting bollocks when they really should know better.

Again, the target of my ire is the "Buyer's Guide for Beer Lovers" in the latest edition of All About Beer magazine. Before I rage though, let me say that the article about cask ale in the US was excellent and please, please, please people on this side of the Atlantic, badger your local pubs and various drinking holes to start offering cask.

Now then, to that which caused my irk. Who actually decides the category that a beer falls into? Whoever it is needs to re-read the style guidelines printed with the tasting notes, which claim that strong ales are "higher alcohol versions of pale ale" which are usually "deep amber". Then, when you go and look at the beers falling under that category, the top one listed is the Imperial Porter from Rogue Ales, which our apparent experts on beer describe thus: "brown black colour with a rocky reddish tan head".

Anyone else seeing the problem here? The label says it is an Imperial Porter, a name lumped together with the Baltic Porter category (perhaps the plebs don't know where the Baltic Sea is, and after all if you want to make a stronger version of something why not just label it "imperial"?), so why oh why, for crying out loud is this beer not in the Baltic/Imperial Porter category?

The label says it is a porter, the colour says it is a porter, so put it in one of the porter categories you mongs!