Something particularly caught my attention at the last Home brew competition. It was a conversation between two judges while they were evaluating a 7B California Common or Steam Beer.

While both judges agreed it was a good beer, they decidedly agreed to lower the scores solely because they felt that the brewer did not use, or did not use enough Northern Brewer hops   That just seemed strange to me that a style would be so very narrow as to require one specific hop.

I decided to do a little research.

According to the BJCP themselves, these guidelines are based on world class examples, historical references and writings of noted beer researchers. They even mention that they have spent considerable time searching reference materials of the styles. One of their notes to the judges is “do not let your understanding of a single beer limit your appreciation of the full range of each beer style.

Sounds good, but all I can say is, Hogwash

I don’t know what considerable research they speak of, but after 15 minutes of looking around you will quickly find this style is not based on any historical facts, papers, stories or even folk songs. In the official BJCP guide, the description of this style states flat out that its based on a single beer. Anchor steam.

If one were to take another few minutes to actually look at what the actual style should be based on you would have a far far different beer.

According to the newest guidelines one would typically use Northern Brewer hops. Typically? When these steam beers were in full swing and were actually defining their style, Northern Brewer hops were not even in existence!
By almost all historical evidence and general deduction, the isolation of California at the time almost forced brewers to use Cluster hops.  But really any hops that we’re readily available were used. Not just one specific variety as the BJCP tries to suggest as law.

The modern standard, and modern guideline leans these beers towards a medium bodied medium carbonated beer. But what made the Steamers stand out from other beers, (other than warm temp lager yeasts) was the extremely carbonated thick body. All of these things put together is what made up this new style.
When you need to come up with new ways to not only brew, and ferment, but also to serve a beer, it most certainly is its own style.

So after digging around I came to two conclusions.
First, the way the actual style guideline is written, it would seem that the judges were in the right to compare that beer against Anchor Steam as there isn’t much leeway for any brewer to make any interpretations or adjustments.

And second. It seems as though there are two far different Steam/California Common beers from two different periods in history and should probably be separated.

The original Steam beer from the mid 1800s to early 1900s would be one sub-category. A thicker, darker, extremely carbonated beer. Because of its geographical isolation issues, it’s grist was virtually all malt with very little adjuncts. Using locally grown Cluster and/or any other available hops.

And then this prohibition/modern version would be a second sub-category. The lighter, Northern Brewer hop favored example of Anchor Steam.

While I do absolutely love Anchor Steam, I am disappointed (but not surprised) that the BJCP would choose to ignore this styles entire history and use only a single version as its gospel.
With other styles, they do the exact opposite and use only historic versions for the guides and ignore what is actually being brewed today.

While I do see the purpose of the guidelines and why they are used to  judge beers, they seem (at least in this case) to not be uniform in their criteria of construction.
Its almost as if there were outside interests writing this style. Maybe that’s why its the pure American style.